Don’t think of it as holding him back. What are you really holding him back from? The ridiculous academics that are thrown at children as if they’re buckets to be filled with information instead of minds and hearts to be ignited into a burning flame of warmth and desire for joy and learning?
You’d really be giving him a gift to keep him home. And what a gift you would give yourself. You could do so many things of simple joy together. Baking, story telling, singing, dancing, playing, and just the things that make up every day life. These are so much more important than you know and show a child how to live. Children Are whoever is raising them. Enjoy your boy while he’s a little boy, it’ll be gone before you know it.
Keep him home and you’ll never regret it. And he’ll be better suited for school then more than now and therefore be happier. (I speak from experience)
As a teacher and a parent of two late summer birthdays (end of July and end of August) it all depends on your child. With both of my kids I had/have no doubts about keeping either back. My daughter is a 1st grade student this year and doing wonderful! Kindergarten went great for her. My son will be starting kindergarten in the fall. He is more than ready. He knows all his letters and sounds, he is starting to blend sounds together to read and spell, he has a huge vocab, he can count beyond 25. Yes, he is fairly short. Yes, he is a little shy. But academically and socially he is ready. Keeping him in pre-school another year would be boring for him. And being in the same pre-school again with the same kids again would not do anything to help him become less shy. Even with another year of growth he will probably still be on the smaller side compared to other boys. For him, starting kindergarten will be the right thing for him.
That said, I am working with a kindergarten boy this year who has a late July birthday. He does not know all of his letters and sounds (now in April). He does not recognize numbers. He can’t write his own name. He cannot trace a circle. He doesn’t have the attention span to listen to a short book. (But, he doesn’t qualify for special ed.) He has a lot of immature behaviors. But, he is not a behavior problem. He fits in socially very well with his peers. He is physically the same size as his peers. More than likely, he will be repeating kindergarten.
As far as being shy, I’m a February birthday and started school when I was 5 1/2. I was excruciatingly shy even beyond college. (In first grade I was even too shy to let my teacher know that I had thrown up all over my desk. Or that I had run into a tether ball pole and broken off my front tooth. In fourth grade I was too shy to tell my teacher that my shirt had ripped in the back and I spent the whole day trying to hold it together with one hand so no one would see my Wonder Woman underoos bra.) Waiting another year to start school would have done nothing to help me overcome that. Being on the speech team in high school started helping me to get over my shyness.
It is up to you to decide what is best for your child. But, I usually tell parents that if their child is academically ready for kindergarten and can sit long enough to listen to a book and can follow directions, the child is probably going to do fine in kindergarten and waiting a year is not necessarily going to be good. We have friends whose son has a late September birthday. He turned six in the first month of kindergarten. He was ready to start school the year before, but couldn’t. They really felt that the behavior issues that they dealt with his last year in pre-school were because he was doing everything again and was bored.
Check with your school district about what skills a child should have before starting kindergarten. That will help you to decide what is best for your son.
Your son should go to kindergarten. The reasons you have for holding him back are NOT solid reasons for staying an extra year in preschool.
I don’t consider July to be a late birthday. He will be 5 several weeks before the start of the school year. He meets the age requirements. Kindergarten is academically and socially designed for five year olds, not six year olds. Your son is academically ready and will be very bored as he goes through school since the work will be too easy. It will be a battle getting him to do his homework because he will see it as a waste of time. Trust me - I fight with my son over homework daily because it is too easy for him.
It’s OK and, in fact necessary, for some kids to be shy and introverted. A classroom full of extroverts will never be successful. There need to be leaders and followers, those who are outspoken and those who quietly observe. If your son is shy, he will still be shy next year. That is NOT a sign of immaturity - it is a personality type and one that is common throughout the entire world.
He will still be small even if he waits a year. It’s not going to make that much difference. At some point, he’ll have a growth spurt and others won’t. If my parents waited until I was the size of a kindergartener to send me to school, I would have been 8 years old. We can’t all be tall, nor do we need to be. Or, consider my close friend growing up who was 5’ tall by the time we were 10 years old - she towered over everyone…and never grew another inch. We all grow when we grow and a year one way or the other won’t make any difference.
Although I know there is an overall trend to hold children back, there is absolutely no research that proves it benefits the kids. In fact, most research shows that it all evens out by about third grade anyway, so it really doesn’t matter. Though I do know of many people who do it, the majority of students in my son’s first grade class are actually age-appropriate. Only a couple of people held their kids a year before starting kinder and many more sent their kids as very young five year olds or kids who turned five in September and October. Those who were held certainly aren’t doing any better than anyone else and those who are young don’t seem it - we only know they are young becasue we know when their birthdays are.
Kindergarten is for five year olds. Your son will be five. Send him to school.
I struggled with this same issue with two younger of my three boys. I spoke with my oldest’s first grade teacher, who was an award winning teacher in an award winning school district as well as “the teacher to get for first grade.” She advised that no one ever regrets holding a child back but you can regret sending them. In her 20 years of experience she had not encountered a child that was truly bored and enrichment opportunities were available. My third son’s birthday is August 28. When my middle boy was in kindergarten the subject came up with the teacher at a class party. This teacher was a straight-shooter and was in her last year of teaching so she came right out and said girls are fine but a boy with a birthday of June or later should wait. She cited watching them using scissors and the younger ones don’t have the same fine motor development and she wants to tell them when they are frustrated that when they are a year older they will do as well. Also, my fourth grader with the August 28th birthday, most of his friends in his grade are May-August birthdays. Also of the five boys in his preschool that were going to our district four went on to kindergarten (mine was the one in a T class), two repeated kindergarten and one repeated first grade. Now that my kids are in 10th, 8th and 4th, I find that the question is not how they will handle kindergarten, it is how they will handle middle school when everyone is older and the real social pressures begin. Best wishes!
My daughter is May, so obviously she went to K when she was 5. The only thing I’ll add (not as a pro or a con, but just something to keep in mind) is that the kids in her class who are older are more advanced and more able to handle the work. (She is in 1st grade now). I wouldn’t say she is behind… but kids who are olded have a full year of everything else under their belt. I know kids in her class who did three years of Montessorri (the third year is usually kindergarten) and a full year of full day kindergarten. So if you do put him in when he’s 5, just keep that in mind and don’t compare him too much to other kids who might be 10 months older.
Our son was born in September, and we waited for him to go to school. He’s incredibly bright, but like yours was on the small side. My husband has a June birthday and said he was always the smallest in his class and hated it. He was a HUGE proponent of waiting to send him to school. Our son also seemed to be emotionally immature. In our district, many of the parents wait.
Fast forward…he’s now in 11th grade. He was diagnosed with ADHD in elementary school and that explains the immaturity part (those kids typically mature later than their peers.)
Are there regrets? Maybe a few, but they’re minimal and outweigh the thought that we did the right thing for him by waiting. Being among the older kids gave him the chance to be a leader. He was in our school’s gifted program in elementary school and middle school and so wasn’t hindered academically. He has the opportunity to take AP and Honors classes in high school. Knowing that he is older, we gave him the opportunity to double up on some classes and graduate a year early, and he chose not to go that route.
THEN…there’s our 2nd child. She has a July birthday and we did not wait with her…and that was absolutely the right decision for her. She was so ready. The school district wanted her to skip 6th grade, but we chose against it…knowing that she was already among the youngest kids in her class. She is a freshman now and is planning to double up on courses the next 2 years and graduate early. Her choice.
SO…each kid is different. You’ve go to make what feels to be the best decision for your son and your family. I don’t think there are huge implications either way…you won’t scar them for life on this decision - no matter which way you go.
I didn’t quite hold mine back, as much as I didn’t fight the Oct. 1 deadline with an Oct. 8 birthday. Anyone who fights the deadline wins, but I let it be. Being one of the older kids is great for a boy. It helps them in sports, academics, attention span, and social skills. Oddly, four kids in this year’s class had birthdays before October 8; so it seems that none of us fought the 5 by 10/1 rule.
i wish we wouldn’t phrase these decisions in such a pejorative fashion.
you’re not ‘holding him back.’ you’re sending him on when it’s best for HIM. i wish more parents would consider their kids’ entire development instead of basing important decisions solely on calendar age, or academic accomplishment.
khairete
suz
My daughter has a summer birthday. She is currently six and in first grade. She attended preschool for about one and a half years prior to starting kindergarten at age five. She was born prematurely and is small for her age but she is not the smallest in her class and she has never been concerned about it. I didn’t take size into consideration. She will likely be on the small side until puberty if not the rest of her life so that really can’t be helped. I based the decision on how she was doing academically and socially in preschool. Was she able to sit still, follow instructions, etc. I asked her preschool teacher what she thought and she recommended kindergarten wholeheartedly.
My daughter is on par socially and above average academically so I can say sending her at age five was the correct decision for her.
One last thing, around here the kids don’t pick teams for gym class until middle school and even then it is just an ocassional thing so no worries about that for us (and my child isn’t physically gifted… sports aren’t her thing and that is OK so if she gets picked last that is just something she is unfortunately going to have to handle).
My son’s birthday is July 16, and he was in preschool starting at age 4, but had been in daycare since 7 weeks old. He is old for his age for the most part. He just acts older than other kids his age. We sent him to KG when he was 5 and he has been great. It was the right decision for our family. I have been told he is a great peer in the classroom. You need to make the decision on your own and based on your feelings. There are people everywhere that will tell you that boys should wait to go to KG until they are almost 6 or 6. Every kid is different. One of my friend’s moms ripped me a new one for sending him to school when he was 5 and I kindly put down my wine glass and walked out of my friend’s house and I have not talked to her mom since. Some people have STRONG feelings about this subject. But make the decision based on what you think not what anyone else thinks. Best of luck!
We waited, not because of kindergarten - he was totally ready - but because of what he will face socially when he hits middle school and high school. What I remember dealing with in senior high kids are facing 6th and 7th grade. We went with giving him an extra year of maturity. Down side, yes he was bored in K-1. In 2nd grade the pace picked up and he was able to be placed in the advanced math, reading and gifted programs, which made a big difference as he was challenged. Also, we live in a very competitive school district and there is a lot of pressure on the kids starting at a young age. I’m glad he had the extra year, as he gets quite a bit of homework now and would have had a hard time, not because he finds the work academically hard, but because he doesn’t want to have to sit still for an hour or more after a full day of school. Good luck - there is no perfect answer, and there are pros and cons whichever way you go. Once you decide, just go with it, and don’t listen to anyone who lectures you on your decision.
I think you should talk to those who really know your son, his preschool teachers especially.
To improve his perseverance read:
How Not to Talk to Your Kids - The Inverse Power of Praise
by Po Bronson, NY Magazine
We’re going through the same thing! My middle son has an August birthday. One option we are looking at is sending him to a private Kindergarten next year. If, at the end of the year, we feel he is on par with the other boys emotionally/physically then we can send him to 1st grade in public school. The credit will transfer. Otherwise, we will send him to K in public. He’ll get two years, but he will be all that more prepared for it!
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It depends on what you feel, and how he’s doing in preschool. I know this isnt exactly what you asked for, but here’s my perspective; I held my Feb kiddo back in first grade after two years of struggling. Looking back, I should of waited for him to even start Kinder. He just wasnt ready even though he was older 5.5 when started and had two years of preschool. The preschool teacher recommened holding back but he was already a big boy. He’s always been in the 90th percentile. After two years of summer school and lots of private tutoring later he did first again(the school said he didnt qualify for tutoring with them..go figure). The repeating year was terrible academically…no gain. Socially it was awesome. He went from crying for hours after school to being a happy kid again. I do worry about his size, but he doesnt worry about it and the kids don’t either. I would suggest for you to write down all the positives and negatives down on a piece of paper and go from there. Shy kids are always going to be shy, starting later isnt going to change that. I’m at the school alot, and some of the best kids are summer birthdays, or spring birthdays, or fall birthdays : ). Really it just depends on YOUR child and when HE’S ready. My sons best friend last year was a June birthday and he was one of the best in the class.
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