Question on age/birthday and starting school

[etwinchester]

Our pre-school (nursery school) starts at age 2 here. It's only one day a week for 2 hours, which is good for starting out. Just like kindergarden, they had to be a certain age by the middle of September.

I enrolled my daughter and she has done very well. She loves the crafts they make, the songs they sing, her classmates as well as the teacher. I thought it would be good for her to learn to listen to other people (besides me) and the socializing would be a big +++.

I have noticed a big difference around the house. She is learning things a lot quicker. She's counting higher, talking more, etc... Cleanup use to be somewhat a hassle. I've have to ask her numerous times to pick up toys before she went to bed. Well around Christmas, I asked her to cleanup and within seconds she was picking up toys (very quickly I might add) and singing a song:

Cleanup, Cleanup, everybody everywhere
Cleanup, Cleanup, everybody do their share

It was so cute. I have already inrolled her in the 3-year-old class for September which is 2 days a week. She turned 3 in January.

She's so excited and loves school. She loves to come home and tell daddy what she learned that day. Everything is "I have to tell/show daddy". It's great to see their little eyes light up...

Now she keeps wanting to ride the school bus but knows that she is not old enough so she says "I'm to little".

 

[Jordan's MOM]

I have already responded with my personal experence of keeping my son back but as I am working with several parents in my preschool right now as they make this decission, I thought I would share a couple more points that have come to my attention over the years. First is to remember that on the adverage, girls mature 6 months faster than boys. This puts boys at least that far behind some of their classmate before the birthdates comes into play.Less mature girls however need to be held back just as much as boys. Another point is that premature babies on the adverage are often later in mastering some of the preschool skills. Even a baby a month early can be up to 6 months behind in his development. Most of these kids catch up quickly but some need that extra preschool year to be where they need to be to start kindergarten. A last point I have learned is that children who were adopted at a older age often need that extra year to catch up. This is so ture if the first year or so of their life did not have all the stimulation that most infants get. I have learned that this is very true of children who were adopted from outside of the US.
This is so much to think about but hope someone can use something from it.


Jordan's mom

 

[BibbidyBobbidyBoo]

Most of the children in my higher reading groups are older--either October, November, December birthdates or have been held back a year before starting school. Occasionally you will have a young first grader who does very well, but they seem to have to work much harder at it than the slightly older ones.

That really is true (add January though please. LOL)
My daughter (Jan birthday ofcourse LOL) has always been one of the top readers in her class and in 1st/2nd grade she was THRILLED to always get to read to the younger grade class because she read so well.
Might not have been the case if somehow I had been able to get her tested and get her in the year before. She would have either been behind everyone or just barely keeping up maybe.


I'm in awe of the 2yr 9mo old child reading already! That really is exceptionally bright I think? Here I thought almost 3.5yrs was early reading..... LOL

 

[Jordan's MOM]

Just don't forget that being exceptionally bright in one area does not mean the child is ready for school. My DS was reading well before he started kindergarten, though not near as early as some of the other posters, he however could not write his name or cut well with scissors. He could carry on a conversation as well as any 8 or 10 year old but could not tie his shoes or button his pants.He could add and subtract but would have been unable to keep up with the other kids on the playground . It takes a lot of different skills being met to be ready to deal with the demands of kindergarten.


Jordan's mom

 

[JetMom]

Just a dissenting opinion, My oldest DS was born on Oct. 4 and we chose to start him in Kindergarten when he was 4 / almost 5. At that point, he was already reading easily at a first grade level and had mastered basic addition and subtraction. He was also learning quite a bit on his own about space and dinosaurs through library books, computer games and supervised internet exploration.

We never pushed him and in fact, he shocked the pants off us by picking up a book in the library when he was 3 and reading it to his 1 year old brother.

He had a few issues early on with social skills, because he is a child who does not make friends easily.

He is shy, and cautious about approaching people, but that is his personality style and not a maturity issue.

He is now 10 years old and the second youngest in his 5th grade class. He has 2 close friends in his class and 1 close friend in his Boy Scout Troop (where he is the youngest in a mixed group that includes boys up to 16 years old).

He also has the highest average of any student in his class and belongs to the school band and Drama club.

We feel that starting him at 4 yaers old was the right decision.

 

[cboudre1]

I work in a Public school in NY. Our cut off date is Dec 1 and I so envy the schools that have a Sept 1 cut off date. I watch young 4 year old boys struggle in the early grades every year. Young girls don't seem to struggle as much as boys although some do. There are always going to be some 4 year olds that are ready.

I have a son who is was born Dec 5 and benefited so much from the extra year. He was a reader already when he went to K, but even with the extra year he struggled with writing and coloring. I never found that extra year a problem. There is also a benefit in the older grades. He is in high school now and he grew before the other kids in his grade. He has had an advantage in sports. He is an entire year older than some of the other kids. I think being older has always helped him.

 

[Disney Princess 6]

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[Ti2gerrr]

I would like to start off by saying that I'm not a parent.
I am however someone that should have started school latter. My birthday is in late August, and I was the second youngest in my class all thru grade school. I can honestly say that I struggled all thru school.
I'm sure that there are plenty of kids that are ready when they are younger. My sister is one of them(her birthday is 12/15 so she was 3 months short of 5) but I think she is the exception, not the rule.
I often wonder how things would have turned out if I was six when I started kindergarden. My mom said that if she had to do it again(30 years of hindsight) she would have kept me home until I was 6 (keep in mind that this was befoe Pre-school was invented!!)
If I were trying to decide on this, I would look at the individual kid. Nobody knows your child better than you.
Good luck in your decision.

 

[sha_lyn]

I'm one of those odd kids that would have done better if Icould have tested to start early. Of course if I was in the local PS today the cut off would have been much different so I would not have been the oldest kid in class. My B day in 1/9. Back then the cut off was Dec 31. I was os bored with K that my mother took me out after 1/2 a yr. I found 1-8 grade so unchallenging that I never learned good study/work habit. I really suffered in high school because I had never been challenged in a class before. I didn't know how to study, do research etc. so while I live the oppisite situation now with my DD, I see both sides of this.

 

[cinder1]

I have 3 kids. DDalmost 8 and in 2nd grade, DD6 in K and DSjust turned 3. He is in a mother's day out program and will be in 3 yro ps in the fall. My DD6 is a Jan birthday and if she could have tested into K early (last year) she is bright enough to have done so. And K this year is like a playdate every day to her. HOWEVER, because we have an older child too, we know that starting early is not a good idea. School gets progressively harder. K being easy does not mean school will stay easy. My 2nd grader is doing things now that we didn't do until years later. The younger kids have a much harder time paying attention for the longer time periods and focusing as intently as needed to do the hard work. Reading early will be helpful to your child but it is not all there is. Being able to focus for 7 hours as the work gets harder and harder is difficult. Being socially as mature as the other kids is also a huge deal. So what if you are smart but the kids think you're too immature to play with?

Our 6 is breezing thru K, but we know that by 2nd grade it is much harder. Our 6 yro is a Jan birthday and there is a girl in her class who barely made the Sept 1 cut off. The difference in maturity is huge. Also like others have pointed out, many people hold their kids back now. My oldest had a boy in her class in 1st grade who tested out of K. He turned 6 in Dec, but there were kids in the class who had been held back so they turned 7 before school started. It may not sound like a big difference but maturity and size wise, it was a big, big difference.

My 2nd grader also has a friend who is genius level smart. (as in making a perfect score on the gifted and talented testing, reading high enough that they bring in special books for him, etc.) But he is the most socially immature of his classmates.

Please keep in mind that I have an Oct birthday and I was able (back then) to start K early. I always was at the top of my class. However, again I must say that we didn't have the same kind of work back then that they do now. And think about this, I was only 17 when I went away to college! I got a hardship license when I was 15 because all my other friends were driving. 15!! Now I think that although I did well in school, with all the other considerations, I would not send my kids early.

 

[Tetonman]

Very interesting discussion here...

My perspective as a father and someone with a late December birthday that was rushed into Kindergarten:

I was always the youngest in my classes. I was reading at age 3 1/2 according to my mom and had good social skills from attending church schools. As the second child of three, my mom and dad thought I would be bored at home. So off I went to school early (started in MD where cutoff was 12/31). Then we moved to NJ where cutoff was 9/1. No major problems until about 6th grade, when some of the boys started to mature physically.

In 7th and 8th grade it got worse. I was bullied a lot because I was smaller than everyone else but didn't like to take garbage from everyone. The bullying helped me to quit football, baseball, and other team sports because I lost the love of the game due to the garbage I was getting.

HS was the worst. I hated going and my grades slipped from mostly Bs with an A or two to Cs and Ds. I was coasting and hated going. The physical difference between me and the boys in my grade was growing larger. They were shaving, I didn't. They were getting taller, I was still under 5 ft. Even worse, while I was attracted to girls, getting a date was next to impossible. So I was labelled something that I won't repeat here. I was attending one of the top public HS in NJ and despite my going to teachers and principals, the bullying continued unabated. I look back on that HS with total hatred of almost everyone there.

There was a happy ending though... I switched to a private school and repeated my JR year. I got a do over (Thank you mom and dad for stepping in finally!). I was new, but not bullied anymore. My grades improved and I started playing sports again. I wasn't the best on the team, but I did have fun again. Then I went to college where none of what happened in HS mattered. That was fine by me.

As for my boys, one has a 9/13 birthday and the principal at our elementary school has already told my wife that there are no exceptions to the 9/1 cutoff. My second has a 7/11 birthday and I want to hold him back as well. To me, it's not the academic requirements that would dictate when to start school, its what happens in those crucial middle school and high school years later that have an effect on the kid's self esteem and desire to excel academically.

I am working with my boys to be the 'gentle' giants and help those that need it. Yes, my experience influences me, but I want my boys to stand up to bullying and help those that are bullied. I've got time so we'll see how it goes. Put me in the "hold em back" camp.

Just so you know, I think that the same applies for girls. Especially if the family history demonstrates late physical maturing.

 

[kalamazoo]

Looks like you've got a pretty decisive majority here. ITA with those who say to wait the extra year. Having good self-esteem is a huge, huge benefit in life and chances are that your child will develop or maintain high self-esteem if they are older or the same rather than younger than others in the class. That is not to say that all younger kids will not develop well, just that the odds are better for the older ones.

I wanted to add that you have to look at the grand scheme of things. When your child gets into high school or goes out into the work force nobody is going to care about that tiny age difference, they will only care about performance and presentation. If your child has trouble adjusting in school in later years the teachers are not going to take into consideration that they were a little younger than some when they started school. With future employers age will be a total non-issue.

If you do wait and then find that things are just too easy for them and totally not challenging then you can look into an accelerated program.