Holding Child Back

What are the pros. cons. of holding DC back? I do not know what to do.


DC is in preschool now. BD is Nov. 20th.

No delayed issues. Socially is fine, academically is my concern.

Message edited 12/21/2012 5:02:00 PM.

Re: Holding Child Back

Just starting kindergarten? Or are they already in school?

Re: Holding Child Back

Re: Holding Child Back

How close are they to the cut off? Why do think your child would benefit from being held back? Does the child have any developmental delays? If yes, some districts have used the fact that parents decided to hold a child back to deny benefits later on. Is the child smaller? when entering kindergarten DS was expected to:

Is the child able to recognize their letters, numbers 1-10, simple shapes, colors, body parts? Their name. If they are male or female.

Can the child sit still for long periods of time? How does the child interact with other children?

From September - December the focus of my son's kindergarten class has been the following:
Letters - upper and lower case recognition, writing them all, knowing their sounds, sound combinations, attempting to "spell" words by sounding them out (this last one just started last week).
Numbers - writing their numerals 1-20, writing them as words, writing the date, knowing greater than and less than, size order and size similarity/differences, counting by 2s, 4s, 5s, 10s, 20s; knowing know to count 1-100.
Knowing the seasons/holidays/colors/shapes/days of the week/date.
Words - they received 26 popcorn words to memorize at home. Now the class has moved on to learn additional words to add to the initial list. I expect them to start to learn to read after the new year.
Emotions - being a friend, how to treat others, lying, behavior, following directions.
Art - coloring in the lines, cutting, matching, sequencing.
Music - memorize songs
Gym - participation, enthusiasm, teamwork
Foreign language - They learned Spanish from September - December and will learn French from January - June.
Computers - internet usage, basic typing, letter recognition.

ETA:
If academics are your concern, then I would work on the above list now and see where your child is by the end of February. I would not make a decision now.

Message edited 12/21/2012 8:20:34 PM.

Re: Holding Child Back

As a teacher, I think that holding a child out of kindergarten that extra year is a very smart idea. I know that there are kids who have late birthdays and go to kindergarten and are fine. I also have seen many young kids go to K and emotionally/socially you can see the difference. My thinking is , if there are no cons, then why not wait that extra year? There is no harm in doing it, and then you can never say "I should have..." (and I've seen way too many parents say that in my years teaching). DS is Nov 18th and we held him out.

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I wanted to hold my DS back a year and I ended up not doing it. If you're worried about academics I would start him ASAP. There is a lot more help and learning in grade school than in preschool.

Holding Child Back

My thinking with DS even though he's February is, he might be okay now but what about in 4th grade, 8th grade or 11th grade. We had an option of putting him in a private k class then next year he could have gone to 1st grade. Turns out, we switched daycares/schools so it wasn't really an issue.

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Re: Holding Child Back

DS's birthday is November 27 and the cutoff in my district is December 1. We opted to send him to Kindergarten and not hold him back in preschool. He is now in the first grade. Last year and this year he has been receiving extra services for math and reading solely based on the fact that he is the youngest in his class. We had the same concern about academics but socially he was ready. I am not going to lie: you can see the difference academically between him and the other kids who are about 4 to 6 months older than him. We still think that we made the right decision though...although he needs a little extra help he is not struggling. Any questions, let me know

Re: Holding Child Back

I would talk to your child's teacher. They would know best. Personally, I don't think academics is a reason to hold back. My DS's K class has basically been a repeat of what he learned in Pre-K. He is one of maybe 2 or 3 kids in the class that is even reading. The kids are at all different levels - there are readers like I said but, there are also kids that were just learning their letter sounds and couldn't really write at all. They have only been working on numbers 1-10. There is a huge range and A BIG opportunity to catch up. And, by the end of the year, most will be on par. I wouldn't hold back just to teach them letters and numbers KWIM? Also, you have many many months in which your child will change dramatically between now and Sept 2013.

That said, in my area at least holding back is rampant. My DS turned 5 right before school started and is almost the youngest in the class with kids a FULL YEAR older than him in hiis K class. Academically he is ahead but, I can personally see the difference when it comes to attention span and maturity and motor skills. THAT SAID, his teacher has nothing but wonderful things to say so - I think again this is a broad range of skills in a class where someone younger wouldn't necessarily stand out.

The thing is this - your child will probably be the youngest by far with many over a year older. If you feel he is on the lower end with things like attention span or motor skills (especially for a boy this becomes an issue with sports etc.) he may stand out initially as having an issue when really there is none - KWIM. But, if you feel this my affect him more than repeating pre-k then maybe I would consider it.

Bottom line - I would talk to his teachers. I know my DS has friends that repeat but, they repeat K - they do K first in private and then in public. The teachers identified these kids and told the parents. AND, if you do it this way, you have the benefit of a whole entire year of maturing and learning to make the decision. HTH!

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Message edited 12/22/2012 9:11:57 AM.

Re: Holding Child Back

Re: Holding Child Back

Holding Child Back

I think it really depends on the maturity of your child. Academics at this age is all over the place. Some can read, some can't, some know their numbers, some don't. Kindgergarten and 1st grade (to me) is just about getting everyone on the same baseline.

We held DD back. Her birthday is October and turned 6 this year. She is repeating K this year. Socially she was not up to par with the 1st grade peers and is doing much better now. Academically she is far more advanced than alot of her K peers but our school district is good with working with the childs abilities and she is still moving ahead. She can already ready at an I level, is doing double digit math, already mastered the 3rd grade site words, etc. They are working alot with her on journal writing, puncutation and appropriate classroom behaviors (like raising hands to speak, sitting quietly or getting a book if you finish before rest of class, etc.)

Re: Holding Child Back

I would never hold my child back. It would have never occurred to me to hold a child back based on the birthday until I started reading this on here.

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Re: Holding Child Back

I struggled with this for months and wound up having dd repeat kindergarten. Her teacher last year told me she was on grade level for academics but socially, emotionally and academically it would be good for her. After a tin of back and forth we held her and I am happy with our decision. Sheis doing really well this year and I see such a huge difference in how she learns. She actually understand what she's learning, doesn't struggle with homework, gets along with the other kids. Last year she was called baby and kids treated her like a baby. It was hard for her. Feel free to fm me if you want to talk more. A lot of people dont hold but for us it was the right thing to do. I see it a lot more in nj where I live than ny though. Dd's bday is oct 22. My towns cut off is dec 1 but all other towns around us are oct 1. Very wierd!

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Just to throw another idea in this. My sister held back my niece (before she started K) b/c she was nervous about her going to college at 17 - of course among other reasons.

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Message edited 4/22/2013 7:04:23 PM.

Re: Holding Child Back

We will most likely be holding DS back next year (he turns 5 Sept 25 so we will have him repeat pre-k). Our decision has nothing to do with academics, he is doing just fine on that level. But socially he has a lot of growing to do and it's something his current pre-k teacher suggested. It's a HARD decision, it can really make a big difference in the years ahead so it's not something I'm taking lightly. The one thing I do keep hearing is that the parents I talked to who held their kids back never regretted it, but people who did not ended up regretting it later on.

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As a teacher and someone who was the youngest person in her grade, I would not hold ds back. As a hs teacher, I have never noticed the month a child was born in. It all evens out eventually. The real problem is the expectations being set on kindergarten students and not allowing them to play and explore. And my theory is someone is always going to be the youngest. If, like a pp mentioned before, everyone holds their kids back a year, then there is still going to be someone that is young. As a child the only time it bothered me to be the youngest was when everyone was driving and I was not.

Re: Holding Child Back