The puberty issue is in reality a significant deal, especially for girls. Being THE developed girl of your grade, significantly ahead of your peers, is socially very difficult, and sometimes gets girls into situations that they don’t yet have the emotional maturity to handle. If early puberty runs in the family I’d have some extra concern.
Which raises the different ways parents make this decision for their sons and daughters. For boys they’ll care a lot more about size and athleticism and boys are redshirted more commonly.
I was the youngest kid in my class in school (November birthday), and I was consistently the top one or two academically, and I had a good social experience with many friends. Interestingly, I was the most academically advanced and had the most successful career among the four kids in my family (they were 4 to 7 months older than me when they started school).
I think it’s really individual. I never felt any negative effects from being the youngest kid in class.
Since the cutoff was Jan. 31 and my birthday is the 22nd, I was almost surely the youngest. Did it hurt me? Probably not. I was large for my age which probably helped. But–and this is the point I wanted to make–we had two classes per year. So even the oldest in the class could not have been more than 6 months older. I think this is a good argument for the two classes a year system. It was eventually abandoned (11 years after I finished HS). I don’t know the reasons, but I do know that there was always a problem with kids coming from outside the system or kids in the half year section moving away. And then how did you articulate with colleges? Still, from a purely educational point of view, it was a success.
I have no advice for the OP. It just has to depend on the kid.
Another one whose birthday meant that I could have started school at 5 but been just about the youngest in the class. My parents decided it would be better for a boy to be one of the oldest (there might have been other readiness considerations as well) so I didn’t start kindergarten until I was six.
I think I agree with others that say make the decision on how your child is now. Not what you hope she might be like ten or fifteen years from now. If you think she’s having any issues that would make school difficult but it’ll probably be better a year from now, wait.
The issue comes when you are an adolescent like me or my daughter. I was the youngest in my class - but if I had been the oldest in the class below me, I still would have hit puberty late. And middle school is rough for a kid who isn’t hitting puberty in the “normal” timeframe.
My daughter was among the oldest in her class, and like me, hit puberty late. But for her, she was still within the “norm” - behind the curve of development - but not out on some long tail like I was.
It also hits with driving. I couldn’t drive for a year or more after some of my friends.
There was another sort of strange thing that happened to me - I hung with a bunch of people through middle and high school who were several years older than I was. To my own peers - a year made a huge difference - all of it negative. To the older kids, I could be some sort of mascot.
I think I can summarize the posts by saying that almost everyone agrees that it depends on the child. However, I believe that the consensus is waiting a year is almost certainly helpful and being young in your class either has no effect or is harmful.
FWIW, we kept our oldest child in Kindergarten for 2 years at the recommendation of the teacher (actually something called transitional first grade) and he excelled for the rest of his academic career. Back then, two of his friends went ahead to 1st grade. They all graduated together because the two friends were both retained in second grade.
Schools is not a race. Or rather, it is a marathon. Racing out of the starting line is rarely a good strategy.
I wouldn’t decide anything based on sports teams because you have no idea what will happen. delaying your kid a year for sports reasons (we call it “red-shirting” here) can backfire. my co-worker’s stepson’s mother red-shirted him for football reasons, and that very nearly backfired when he got too big to play in 8th grade. and the things I heard they had him do to make weight make my skin crawl.
all for a kid who has probably 0.00000000001% chance of making the NFL.
same for academics. I’ve a very very early September birthday, and I wasn’t delayed. I kept up fine for most of grade school. my problem was that up to about grade 6 was easy, so I never developed serious study habits. midway through 8th grade I hit a brick wall. a year delay wouldn’t have solved that.
In addition to basing it on your kid, this is the most important point I think. It is my understanding that some schools will not accept applications for Reception for kids who are already five. If this is the case where you are, you can hold back a year but your kid would then be starting in Year One, which is a major disadvantage in my view.
Our oldest was born in April so it wasn’t really an issue for us, but friends were faced with the same decision with their August baby. She was clearly much less physically and emotionally ready than our son even though the age difference is less than four months, but they (rightly in my view) went ahead with her starting school at four and the difference in her now, a year on, is marked - school has massively helped her catch up. So I think it’s the best environment to do so, unless you really focus on planning a sort of home school environment for that year.
There is also, if you work, the not inconsiderable cost of an extra year of childcare to consider.
“I’ve been thinking about how younger kids can struggle to keep up when cognitive abilities vary so wildly at young ages. She risks being way behind the older kids (born in Spring). I’ll have to dig it up by Malcolm Gladwell quoted a study about this regarding a Canadian school hockey team where the 13-year-olds did well and got encouragement while the 12-year-olds struggled and many gave up.”
This is actually why I wish I hadn’t been redshirted. It’s put pressure on me to be successful in life, and if I’m not successful, it’ll seem like I messed up. I would’ve been happy with a modest career and modest lifestyle, but since I was redshirted, people expect great things from me, and it doesn’t feel good to have that kind of pressure on you.
My son was born in Sept. and a teacher told us that he might have issues in Jr. High so he started a year later than others. He went to extra year of kindergarten. He had no issues at all in school.
Having been precocious academically and socially immature, and as a teacher, I believe the most important factor must be maturity. There are many, many ways for an academically mature student to gain enrichment and remain above grade-level in school. But it is miserable for the child, the family, and the teachers when a child is not ready for school.
I was reading 2nd grade books when I started Kindergarten at age 4. I could have been a 4.0 student from then on, but I had no motivation and no one could give me a reason to work. As a teacher, dealing with a child who does not want to behave at the level expected of them for their grade level takes far too much time and effort away from the rest of the class and doesn’t seem to help the child.
You know your child, but please don’t push her beyond what she can do. Let her go at her own pace. It’s better for everyone.
My daughter was born 5 days past Florida’s cutoff date, and they wouldn’t allow any exceptions. Meanwhile, she was bored to death in daycare and started getting into trouble. So we put her into a private kindergarten and she did great. Then she started kindergarten in the public school when she met the age requirement, already academically ahead of her peers and always one of the oldest in her class.
I wasn’t happy with the no-exceptions rule - it would have been different if they did some sort of testing and told us she really wasn’t ready. But she did fine, eventually got a full ride scholarship to college, and is a more-or-less responsible adult now (which I can say because she doesn’t read these boards! )
The lil’wrekker’s birthday is Sept. 11.(according to her it’s all my fault that’s her birthday)
The cut-off to start kindergarten, was 5yo before Sept. 30.
As an aside: she didn’t go to daycare or Pre-K, I kept her home with me.
She was academically clever. Read really early, (late 3yo). So I knew she was ready to go at that age.
What actually happened was she started in a very small elementary school. The K and 1st we’re in the same large room with one teacher and 2 aides.
The lil’wrekker was pushed over into the first grade group of readers and was not only keeping up but passing her older classmates.
The next year they called us in and together we put her on into 2nd grade.
I didn’t really want to.
I knew she would always be the youngest in her class and maybe socially awkward.
As it happened, it turned out okay. She never had trouble with the school work. Socially she was/is the epitome of a social butterfly.
She does throw it in my face when she gets pouty. It seems that skipping a grade was all my fault, as well.
On the opposite side - holding a kid back can be socially difficult also - some of them whine about it 50+ years later. My MIL had her middle son repeat the second grade on the advice of the teachers. He’s 62 and still bitter about it. In his case, it would have been better to start him later… maybe. Then again, maybe everything is everyone else’s fault.
My birthday is New Year’s Eve, and back then, locally, a kid could start kindergarten at four, IF, they would be five by Januarty 1. I would always have been the youngest. My parents waited until next year and I think, for me, it made all the difference in how well I did in school.
As others say, it depends on the student, but if it was me I’d wait.
And to counter that I’ll mention a cousin of mine who started school here. His birthday was September 5. He went to kindergarten and started first grade, and was doing well, then the family moved to Texas where the cutoff was September 1. Texas, in it’s infinite wisdom, moved him back to kindergarten, because by their regs that is where he would have been, if he’d started school there. I think they coould have made an exception, although my cousin would have been just a little too young by the rules there.
I wish the OP would return and tell us what happened.
My son was born in July. Emotionally, he might have been better off if I’d red-shirted him for a year, but intellectually, he was past ready for kindergarten, his preschool said. I decided to send him and have always doubted that decision. I think another year of maturation would have been so much better for his socialization. OTOH, his kindergarten teacher told me in February he’d blown through the kindergarten curriculum and was intellectually ready for first grade. This was in the 80s in a small town with no real options.
If I had it to do over again (and same time, same place), I don’t know what I’d do.
It always depends on the kid and how well they learn.
Our daughter had a very specific learning style: she would take a little longer then usual to learn something, but then learn it perfectly. For instance, most kids learn to climb up stairs, but can’t get down. She waited a bit before climbing up, but climbed down immediately.
Her birthday was in November, with put her almost a year behind other kids. We had alway planned on waiting a year, but it turned out she needed speech therapy, and had to go to school to get it.
Luckly, our school had a pre-first program after kindergarten (for some reason, these aren’t offered any more). We lobbied hard to get her into it, and she was accepted. (They had an orientation for parents set up to explain to them that this didn’t mean their kids had any learning problems and we were raving about how glad we were that she got int).
The extra year made the difference between a student who would have struggled throughout school and one in the honors program.
