Future Spawning: Upcoming Babies 8

[darkplumaged]

I went to school in the same district I live in now. The cutoff was, at that time, December 31. My birthday is in September, so I was always one of the younger kids in my grade. The kids who'd been "held back"--that is, born in the previous calendar year--were mostly boys. Overall, I might have done better starting school later. I was academically precocious but very small, very shy, and emotionally immature. My husband had a similar experience (born in September, started school at almost 5, smart but shy).

The cutoff is now September 30. My daughter also has a September birthday, meaning she'd be one of the absolute youngest kids in her grade if she were to start school the year she turns 5. I'm leaning toward having her start the following year because I think that's what might be best for her socially, but we'll have to see how preschool goes next year. I'm glad my son was born in October--there's no question of when he'll start, and he'll be one of the older kids in the grade.

[Jana814]

I was one of the youngest kids in my class I was born in August. I hated it. However, I didn't care for kids a year under me so I guess it was good I was not held back. 

[singsingsing]

Is junior kindergarten not a thing in most places? 

[JermajestyDuggar]

I was the youngest in my class but I was glad. I was enormous for my age. I can't imagine being left back a year. I would have looked absolutely ridiculous amongst my classmates. 

[justmy2cents]

34 minutes ago, singsingsing said:

Is junior kindergarten not a thing in most places? 

In the US we have PreK3, PreK4 and then Kindergarten. I know in other countries they have Kindergarten before Preschool which probably sounds logical.

The cutoff in our district is January 1st and my daughter's birthday is just 2 days later so she's one of the oldest. There's been talk of changing it to October but it's just talk for now. I'm glad she had an extra year to not have to sit still because she's not good at sitting still, lol. She's thriving now so being older has worked in her favor. One or two parents of the youngest kids in her class told me in a condescending tone that 'everybody goes at their own pace' implying that she was held back. Um yeah. My kid gets homework for advanced kids along with the regular school packet so no need to 'comfort ' me.

[singsingsing]

22 minutes ago, justmy2cents said:

In the US we have PreK3, PreK4 and then Kindergarten. I know in other countries they have Kindergarten before Preschool which probably sounds logical.

The cutoff in our district is January 1st and my daughter's birthday is just 2 days later so she's one of the oldest. There's been talk of changing it to October but it's just talk for now. I'm glad she had an extra year to not have to sit still because she's not good at sitting still, lol. She's thriving now so being older has worked in her favor. One or two parents of the youngest kids in her class told me in a condescending tone that 'everybody goes at their own pace' implying that she was held back. Um yeah. My kid gets homework for advanced kids along with the regular school packet so no need to 'comfort ' me.

We have JK (age 4-5) and SK (age 5-6) here, and of course various different kinds of preschools, but JK and SK are part of the public school system and take place in the same schools as the later grades. Kindergarten used to be half days here, but a few years back they changed it to full days. I'm not sure how true all of this is for a whole of Canada, or just for Ontario, or even just my city... We don't have junior high/middle school in my city, which I believe is unusual for the whole of Canada. I went to the same school from the age of 4 through 14. It had its good aspects, but the transition from my little school of ~350 kids I'd grown up at to the gigantic, confusing school of ~1800 teenagers where I started grade 9 was challenging, to say the least!

[JermajestyDuggar]

The biggest problem in my observation is that "red shirting" has become the norm. Red shirting means holding a child back for an extra year of preschool when their birthday is close to the cutoff. The problem is that I've seen people holding children back who have May birthdays! But you have to jump through hoops to get your child to start kindergarten "early" even if their birthday is only 3 days past the cutoff! So the problem is that there are children over a year older than others in their class. The younger children become more disadvantaged because they are more than a year younger than a lot of their peers. So of course they are a little less mature and smaller. But they are in each correct grade! Don't get me started on holding boys back for sports. I get really pissed and I will rant for days

[anjulibai]

14 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

The biggest problem in my observation is that "red shirting" has become the norm. Red shirting means holding a child back for an extra year of preschool when their birthday is close to the cutoff. The problem is that I've seen people holding children back who have May birthdays! But you have to jump through hoops to get your child to start kindergarten "early" even if their birthday is only 3 days past the cutoff! So the problem is that there are children over a year older than others in their class. The younger children become more disadvantaged because they are more than a year younger than a lot of their peers. So of course they are a little less mature and smaller. But they are in each correct grade! Don't get me started on holding boys back for sports. I get really pissed and I will rant for days

Yes, I've seen this and it makes me worried for my kids. I don't want them dealing with that. My elder son's birthday is in March, which puts him at a decent age for kindergarten, but there are kids that are already 6 in there. It's weird. 

My younger son's birthday is in August, so he'll turn 5 just before starting kindergarten. I don't want to hold him back, but I also don't want having to be compared to kids that are already well past 6. I'm not sure what we'll do, but he's only 15 months, so we have time to see how he develops and decide when the time comes. 

[JillyO]

When I started school, the cutoff date was June 30th, then there was a three-month period where the child could start school if they were deemed ready by the headmaster and a pediatrician, which I was (born in late August). So I was the youngest at just barely six when I started first grade. (Kindergarten is not formalized in Germany.) I was still so advanced that I ended up skipping third grade, which put me at more than a year younger than the next-youngest child in fourth grade. I still did really well since I was not only advanced academically, but also socially and physically. No one ever noticed that I was younger than my peers unless I told them. In middle and high school, there were a couple of other kids in my class who had also skipped grades. No one was quit as young as I was, but they were only a couple of months older than me. Worked out well for all of us. So for all parents who are wondering what to do, I can only recommend trusting your instincts as to what your child needs, regardless of what other parents do.

[JMO]

Red shirting drives me batty as well.  Esp since studies haven't shown it to have any real positive benefits for the kids that are held back.  A friend of a friend wants to redshirt her son who already finished kindergarten.  He's the smallest in the class.  He also has a January birthday and his district has a December cut off so he's already one of the oldest in the class.  They want to do it because of his size.  Meanwhile his parents are both very petite, how big did they expect him to grow???  I'd be pissed if my kid turned 5 after starting kindergarten and a few weeks later one of his classmates turned 7.  

[Jana814]

35 minutes ago, JMO said:

Red shirting drives me batty as well.  Esp since studies haven't shown it to have any real positive benefits for the kids that are held back.  A friend of a friend wants to redshirt her son who already finished kindergarten.  He's the smallest in the class.  He also has a January birthday and his district has a December cut off so he's already one of the oldest in the class.  They want to do it because of his size.  Meanwhile his parents are both very petite, how big did they expect him to grow???  

That's nuts!! To redshirt for size. My ex-friend was one of the youngest kids in our class. I'm not sure why she was in our year because she was born in January of 81 and everyone else in our year was born in late 79 or 80. 

[VelociRapture]

Our district has a date of January 1 for kindergarten - so any kid turning 5 on or before December 31st can register for kindergarten. Husband doesn’t think we’ll have to worry about starting Velocibaby a year later. Husband is an October baby, was one of the youngest in his class, and did fine so he thinks she’ll be fine starting the year she turns five too (2021.)

He wasn’t a preemie though and Velocibaby is. She was due mid-January and arrived in early December instead. So if we start her the year she turns five, she’ll be one of the youngest in her grade. That wouldn’t concern me much if she were a full term baby, but it does make me a bit concerned since she was born early.

I figure we’ll just talk to her pediatrician when she’s a toddler to see if she can help us determine which year would be best for her to start school. 

[justmy2cents]

I agree about the redshirting but at the same time in districts like ours with a very late cutoff it may be necessary to hold kids back for simply not being ready for school. I know two boys, June and July birthdays who were held back a year because they were struggling in Kindergarten and it wouldn't have benefited them to be pushed beyond their abilities at that time. My nephew went early with his Thanksgiving birthday and my sister always regretted letting him start school that early. He's smart but not very mature. That still holds true, lol. He's in college and turning 18 soon. It would be better if all US school districts had the same cutoff but some districts have a cutoff of June and others like ours at the end of the year. 

[CTRLZero]

13 minutes ago, VelociRapture said:

So if we start her the year she turns five, she’ll be one of the youngest in her grade.

Our daughter was also a preemie born right before the cutoff.  When time came to enroll for school, we decided to go with her original due date (not birth date), so she ended up as one of the oldest in her class.  My husband, whose birthday occurs in the same week (but of course, a million years earlier), was the youngest in his class.  I am happy to report that both being the oldest and youngest have turned out fine (many decades later, lol). 

[SoSoNosy]

My brother (five years younger) and I both have November birthdays.  Cutoff for first grade was December 1, so I started at five and did just fine; the school wanted me to skip third grade, but my mother pointed out that I was already younger than most of the kids in my class and refused to let me skip (which I am thankful for).  Because of this, she let my brother start at five, and it was a biiiig mistake.  He never really caught up with his class, dropped out of college to join the Navy (during Vietnam) and never continued with his education.  He had jobs with no future, no ambition to further himself, and now he has Alzheimer's; not that the Alzheimer's has anything to do with school, of course.  But he never had a really productive life.

[JermajestyDuggar]

2 hours ago, JillyO said:

I can only recommend trusting your instincts as to what your child needs, regardless of what other parents do.

Unfortunately this is not what people are doing. There's this common held belief that if a boy has a birthday near the cut off, you automatically red shirt him. And then it's much more likely that boys are red shirted for sports. So it's actually more of a problem with boys. 

[Lurky]

4 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Don't get me started on holding boys back for sports. I get really pissed and I will rant for days

This was the excuse the Royals gave for Prince Harry repeating his final year of junior school (you usually start secondary school at 11) - he was terribly good at sports, was the reasoning (in reality it is more likely that he wouldn't have been able to keep up with the kids at Eton academically, and for some reason they wouldn't send him to a school with lower academic levels...)

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

12 hours ago, justmy2cents said:

In the US we have PreK3, PreK4 and then Kindergarten. I know in other countries they have Kindergarten before Preschool which probably sounds logical.

I'm pretty sure what is available in the US varies a lot from state to state and from one school district to the next. My state doesn't legally require kindergarten. School districts here are not required to provide kindergarten (although I think they all do) and parents are not required to send their children to kindergarten. (I have no idea how many kids skip kindergarten and start public school in 1st grade.) 

The only free preschool available here is Head Start, which is federally funded and only accepts kids from lower income homes, and two preschools that are a pilot program in one school district, and may also have a goal of reaching lower income families. Any other pre-K has to be paid for by parents, although there are some preschools with sliding scale fees.

When I went started school, the cut off date was October 15th, which made me one of the youngest in my class. The current cut off date is September 1, so a kid with my birthdate would be one of the oldest kids. My kids were 5 years, 9 months and 5 years, 5 months when they started kindergarten. I was glad I to not have any decision to make about when to send them. To top it off, my mom taught kindergarten for over 20 years, so I get an informed (though slightly dated) opinion when I ask her for advice! 

[NakedKnees]

15 hours ago, singsingsing said:

Is junior kindergarten not a thing in most places? 

When I was growing up in Southern California, "Pre-K" typically referred to a type of preschool, in that it wasn't a part of the school district and was not free. Nonetheless, it was still geared at kids who could go to Kindergarten but didn't start it for whatever reason.I don't remember it existing as part of the school system in neighboring districts either.  I am glad to see that that seems to be changing.

[maple802]

On 11/11/2017 at 10:47 AM, JillyO said:

So for all parents who are wondering what to do, I can only recommend trusting your instincts as to what your child needs, regardless of what other parents do.

This is what my parents did. I was the youngest in my class, whereas my brother was one of the oldest in his. Our district's cutoff date was Sept. 1. My birthday is in December. When I started first grade, I was 5 for nearly the entire first term. I could read at a 5th grade level, however, so the school district waived the policy pretty quickly. (My aunt, who was a kindergarten teacher in the same school, also put in a good word.) My brother's birthday is in September (past the cutoff). My parents could have made a case for a waiver for him, but chose not to. He got an extra year of preschool and was all the better for it.

[JermajestyDuggar]

I know someone who put her daughter in Montessori school for kindergarten because their cut off date is not as early. This child was ready for kindergarten but she didn't make the cutoff for our local public school district and I think it's ridiculous that they are such sticklers for those who are only a few days too young but happily allow a child to be redshirted whose birthday is three month before the cutoff. 

[mango_fandango]

You don’t start Eton till year 9, so when you’re 13. Prince Harry finished in June 2003 when he was 18 (and would turn 19 that September) so that doesn’t indicate he was held back in any way. 

For the kids who started school in Sep 2017 they would have had to have been born between 1st September 2012 and 31st August 2013. Makes me feel old cos that was my final year of secondary. 

[singsingsing]

49 minutes ago, mango_fandango said:

You don’t start Eton till year 9, so when you’re 13. Prince Harry finished in June 2003 when he was 18 (and would turn 19 that September) so that doesn’t indicate he was held back in any way. 

For the kids who started school in Sep 2017 they would have had to have been born between 1st September 2012 and 31st August 2013. Makes me feel old cos that was my final year of secondary. 

Even if he was held back, wouldn't that have been right around the time his mother died? If he was really struggling in school, maybe that was part of the reason. When I was about 13 a friend of mine's father passed away, and she missed a lot of school because of it. That's a really heavy thing to cope with at any age, let alone when you're that young.

[Jana814]

13 minutes ago, singsingsing said:

Even if he was held back, wouldn't that have been right around the time his mother died? If he was really struggling in school, maybe that was part of the reason. That's a really heavy thing to cope with at any age, let alone when you're that young.

Also his grieve was plastered all over the news. He had cameras following him also. 

[Lurky]

@mango_fandango Harry attended  Jane Mynors' nursery school and Wetherby School for his Pre-Prep, and then then Ludgrove School (he boarded from 8) where he had to repeat a year before being accepted at Eton.

sources: 

wikipedia gives all his schooling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Harry

Repeating a year (and being generally bad at academics):  http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/01/21/prince-harry-admits-school-exams-nightmare_n_2521866.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/162662.stm (This last one suggests Diana was thinking of less academic schools for him)

Boarding from aged 8: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/22/constantly-trouble-prince-harry-already-rebel-aged-8-princess/

ETA This sounds more terse than I meant - sorry!  Doing 3 things at once!