Seewalds 45: Ben’s a REAL Pastor at a PRECIOUS Church!

[baldricks_turnip]

21 hours ago, Knight of Ni said:

My son was born 8 days before the cutoff date for schools. I am wondering if he will be ready for school maturity wise. I knew a few parents whose children were very close to the date that chose to wait a year. It worked for them. I also knew kids who were close and started the first year they were eligible and they were fine. Most likely it will be a decision based on the individual child.

Where I live (Victoria, Australia) the cut off is April 30th. I teach prep (the first year of schooling) and I am a huge advocate for those later babies starting the next year. I myself had a baby last year on April 15 and I'm 95% sure she will start school the following year to the one she is eligible. If she had been a boy, I would be 99.99% certain. I've taught over 200 preps so far and probably 40 of them have been those born from January - April (starting school at 4 years old). It's a hard slog for these kids. Their ability to self regulate their emotions, employ different strategies in minor peer conflicts, follow multi-stage instructions, and many many more areas are so noticeable lower than their older peers. I do everything I can to give them extra support, but you can see so many of them just get crushed by the expectations of school when they should just be digging in a sandpit.

My 3 year old is a November baby so I don't have any choice which year she begins attending. She is super smart. She reads at the level of 7-8 year olds, does addition and subtraction, counts by 2s, 3s, 5s, 10s, etc. If my April baby is smart like her, I probably still wouldn't send her early because my 3yo isn't any more mature than her peers.

[bal maiden]

My concern about people holding back kids who are near the cutoff date (31st August in UK) is that it then compounds the problem for young kids in the following year. If you son is born in August 2014, and you hold him back a year, then he will be over a year older than kids born in August 2015, who are in the class he subsequently joins. It might advantage that boy, but it doesn't seem fair on the August 2015s who are now expected to be peers to a much bigger kid. I wish schools would just find ways to accommodate the much younger kids in each year group, in a way that works for them (fwiw, in the UK you start school at age 4, but can go part time until you turn 5, so May/June/July/August-borns can attend the first 2 terms part time. When I'm talking about accommodations for the little kids, I mean more stuff within the classroom - nap corners, more time and space around emotional regulation etc.). 

[Mama Mia]

4 hours ago, baldricks_turnip said:

Where I live (Victoria, Australia) the cut off is April 30th. I teach prep (the first year of schooling) and I am a huge advocate for those later babies starting the next year. I myself had a baby last year on April 15 and I'm 95% sure she will start school the following year to the one she is eligible. If she had been a boy, I would be 99.99% certain. I've taught over 200 preps so far and probably 40 of them have been those born from January - April (starting school at 4 years old). It's a hard slog for these kids. Their ability to self regulate their emotions, employ different strategies in minor peer conflicts, follow multi-stage instructions, and many many more areas are so noticeable lower than their older peers. I do everything I can to give them extra support, but you can see so many of them just get crushed by the expectations of school when they should just be digging in a sandpit.

My 3 year old is a November baby so I don't have any choice which year she begins attending. She is super smart. She reads at the level of 7-8 year olds, does addition and subtraction, counts by 2s, 3s, 5s, 10s, etc. If my April baby is smart like her, I probably still wouldn't send her early because my 3yo isn't any more mature than her peers.

Whole heartedly agree. My state moved to a Sept 1st 5th birthday cut-off around 10? Years ago, with Transitional Kindergarten offered as an option for kids with Fall birthdays. I know lots of kids who benefitted from the extra time. And families who have decided to wait an extra year if they are a summer birthday. I wish that had been an option when my kids were younger as several with later birthdays struggled more than they would if they started a year later. Especially as school has become more and more burdensome for the littles, it seems better to start them older. 

[viii]

The cutoff where I live is December 31. I highly recommend December babies, especially boys, wait until the following year. They struggle so much otherwise. 

[Bastet]

This is all relevant to athletic performance as well. I’ve read that professional athletes are much more likely to have been among the older members of their cohort although older children obviously are no more likely to be more athletically gifted. Rather they were more developed than the younger kids and hence got more coaching attention, were more likely to make all stars and so got twice as much coached playing time, etc.  This advantage followed them through high school. (I understand that in some parts of the US parents start their sons a year later in school so they would be big enough to be competitive in football in high school and more likely to get a chance to play in college. )
  Obviously there are exceptions, but while an extra year between kindergarten and first grade goes a long way to resolve the problem academically, it seems to me to be harder to fix in sports. 
  We held out our December sons for developmental reasons,but neither was interested in school sponsored sports, even the athletic kid. As he explained to me, “Its too much like school, and if you are really good they make you go to school on Saturday.” His dad says it would have interfered with his all-important time lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling. 
  (Another wrinkle in the holding back kids in school is the cost. Since day care can be very expensive in the US, it tends to be middle class parents who do this, providing one more disadvantage for poor kids in this country. )
  

[CanadianMamam]

16 minutes ago, Bastet said:

This is all relevant to athletic performance as well. I’ve read that professional athletes are much more likely to have been among the older members of their cohort although older children obviously are no more likely to be more athletically gifted. Rather they were more developed than the younger kids and hence got more coaching attention, were more likely to make all stars and so got twice as much coached playing time, etc.  This advantage followed them through high school. (I understand that in some parts of the US parents start their sons a year later in school so they would be big enough to be competitive in football in high school and more likely to get a chance to play in college. )
  Obviously there are exceptions, but while an extra year between kindergarten and first grade goes a long way to resolve the problem academically, it seems to me to be harder to fix in sports. 
  We held out our December sons for developmental reasons,but neither was interested in school sponsored sports, even the athletic kid. As he explained to me, “Its too much like school, and if you are really good they make you go to school on Saturday.” His dad says it would have interfered with his all-important time lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling. 
  (Another wrinkle in the holding back kids in school is the cost. Since day care can be very expensive in the US, it tends to be middle class parents who do this, providing one more disadvantage for poor kids in this country. )
  

Yes, there was a study on how professional hockey players are more likely to be born in the first half of the year because in Canada we group by age and we start the tier system so early that the kids born earlier in the year have huge size and development advantages.

My sons are on the same baseball team. My younger son just made the cut off by a few weeks and he is so much smaller than everyone else on the team and he is big for his age. But he is playing against kids two full years older him at an age where growth happens rapidly. 

 

[justmy2cents]

45 minutes ago, Bastet said:

Yes. My sister let my nephew, who’s a late November baby start earlier and I think that was part of the reason. He kept up academically but he was less mature and smaller in size. After he graduated he said he wished he had been kept back when he was little, probably because of sports, but teachers and school administrators said he was ready at the time.

ETA: not sure what happened to the quote but I meant to reference @Bastet’s final paragraph.

Edited July 24, 2021 by justmy2cents

[Sheltie]

They didn’t have a cutoff date when I started school back in 1969.  Yeah, I’m that old.  All babies born in 1963 started first grade in 1969 whether they were born on Jan 1st 1963 or Dec 31st 1963.  

 

 

[freethemall]

On 7/22/2021 at 9:25 PM, Scrappinmac said:

My husband's grandmother was named Fern. It reminds me of the main human character in "Charlotte's Web"

You all have a more innocent Fern reference than me - mine is Fern Mayo from Jawbreaker, a great movie. Similarly for Ivy I thought Poison Ivy so maybe Jessa is watching a lot of 90s movies?

[AnywhereButHere]

On 7/23/2021 at 9:03 AM, HereticHick said:

Hemlock.

[for years there was a "Hemlock Nursing Home" in my home town, which my family thought was hilariously inappropriate.

If I ever get to the point of needing a nursing home, this is the one I’d want. No one in my family would be surprised at my choice of new address. ?

4 hours ago, viii said:

The cutoff where I live is December 31. I highly recommend December babies, especially boys, wait until the following year. They struggle so much otherwise. 

Our cutoff is December 1. My son was born December 4. We could have pushed it with the school district, but I’m so glad we didn’t. That extra year really helped. A friend’s daughter was born at the end of December. They pushed her in early. It worked out for her academically, but socially/maturity wise it became an issue.  

[dawbs]

Paid childcare would solve a lot of this. 

I started my "1 day past official cutoff birthday" baby in kindy at 4yrs, 364days because she was academically ready. 

But also because I couldn't afford another year of the preschool we were using. 

[CanadianMamam]

2 hours ago, Sheltie said:

They didn’t have a cutoff date when I started school back in 1969.  Yeah, I’m that old.  All babies born in 1963 started first grade in 1969 whether they were born on Jan 1st 1963 or Dec 31st 1963.  

 

 

That is still how it works here..Jan 1 to Dec 31. And you can't opt to hold your kid back without very, very good reason since kindergarten is considered optional and you don't have to send your kid to grade one. However I do know a few November/December babies who did an extra year of kindergarten because they weren't emotionally ready for grade one. 

[Mama Mia]

3 hours ago, Sheltie said:

They didn’t have a cutoff date when I started school back in 1969.  Yeah, I’m that old.  All babies born in 1963 started first grade in 1969 whether they were born on Jan 1st 1963 or Dec 31st 1963.  

 

 

That just means the cut off date was December 31st ?

[IsmeWeatherwax]

@bal maiden if you hold you child back at the age of 4, they can still stay in nursery until 5th birthday, they dont go into reception as a 5 year old. They miss reception completely and go straight into Year 1 with all the other 5 year olds.

[bal maiden]

9 hours ago, IsmeWeatherwax said:

@bal maiden if you hold you child back at the age of 4, they can still stay in nursery until 5th birthday, they dont go into reception as a 5 year old. They miss reception completely and go straight into Year 1 with all the other 5 year olds.

Not in my daughter's school! I think it may be at the discretion of the head whether they go into reception or yr1. One of my children has the exact situation I described above in her class, and it sucks big time for the summer borns in that class. 

[JustEnough]

We’ve got two years of kindergarten here and almost every kid starts Junior Kindergarten and then goes to Senior Kindergarten before Grade 1, although as a couple other Canadians noted upthread, education isn’t mandatory until the September the child is 6 (when they’d go straight to Grade 1). The cut of is December 31st here so the kids starting JK are 3 or 4 years old depending on if they’ve had their birthday already before the first day of school.

Other provinces only have one year of Kindergarten so kids start at 5, or 4 for those with birthdays after the first day of school up to Dec 31st.

We’ve had two years of government funded kindergarten in public schools in my province for at least 30 years and it was the system I grew up in. I have a July birthday, but I have a sibling and a cousin who both have late December/after Christmas birthdays and both started JK at 3 years old. I have heard lots of horror stories about boys who are born right before a school cut off and then struggle, but my brother must have been lucky as he had no issues academically or socially. He’s glad to have not been held back. I think that there was no talk about even trying to hold him back though because not paying for full time daycare for him was a huge relief for our single Mom at the time.

[Melissa1977]

13 minutes ago, JustEnough said:

I have heard lots of horror stories about boys who are born right before a school cut off and then struggle

Horror stories? Maybe your schools are too strict? My cut off is December 31 and teachers assume some children are very little (not still 3 years old). What they do at school is not that different from daycare. Children are supposed to be potty trained before school, but if they aren't, they are not banned (potty training expectations have relaxed lot, years ago 2 was the age, now it seems to be near 3).

No matter where the cut off is put, some children will be almost 1 year older than others. I think some parents are horrified of their children not being the smartest, and comparing their child with older ones makes them suffer. But as time goes by, there is no difference if someone was born in January or in November. 

I highly doubt boys are different than girls at that age. Girls have more pressure to mature and to be quieter and cleaner. That's why they seem to be different than boys. But human beings are very similar before puberty. 

[raayx01]

50 minutes ago, Melissa1977 said:

Horror stories? Maybe your schools are too strict? My cut off is December 31 and teachers assume some children are very little (not still 3 years old). What they do at school is not that different from daycare. Children are supposed to be potty trained before school, but if they aren't, they are not banned (potty training expectations have relaxed lot, years ago 2 was the age, now it seems to be near 3).

No matter where the cut off is put, some children will be almost 1 year older than others. I think some parents are horrified of their children not being the smartest, and comparing their child with older ones makes them suffer. But as time goes by, there is no difference if someone was born in January or in November. 

I highly doubt boys are different than girls at that age. Girls have more pressure to mature and to be quieter and cleaner. That's why they seem to be different than boys. But human beings are very similar before puberty. 

The cut off in Texas is September 1. I was born late September so I was pushed back till the next year, which wasn't a really big deal academically or socially, but I was a lot more mature than some of my peers.

[HeartsAFundie]

On 7/24/2021 at 11:06 AM, viii said:

The cutoff where I live is December 31. I highly recommend December babies, especially boys, wait until the following year. They struggle so much otherwise. 

As a December 31 baby I wholeheartedly agree.  Academically I was more than ready to start kindergarten at 4 so my mom sent me so I wouldn't be bored at home.   Socially, it was a whole other story.  I struggled constantly in the social arena from kindergarten through high school and I still have issues to this day. I am probably one of the only people that will miss the pandemic at some level. (Knowing what we know now, we suspect I may actually have Asperger's/high functioning autism but I have never been officially diagnosed).   

Ironically, I met someone who was also born on December 31 in the same year as me and was a grade behind me in school.  I often wonder if my life would have been different if my parents chose to keep me out one extra year.  If it were now there would have been no choice-the cutoff in my city has now changed to September 1.  So my February born son, who would have been one of the oldest under the old cutoff, fell in the middle of the pack-which to me is a good place to be.    

[CanadianMamam]

8 hours ago, Melissa1977 said:

Horror stories? Maybe your schools are too strict? My cut off is December 31 and teachers assume some children are very little (not still 3 years old). What they do at school is not that different from daycare. Children are supposed to be potty trained before school, but if they aren't, they are not banned (potty training expectations have relaxed lot, years ago 2 was the age, now it seems to be near 3).

No matter where the cut off is put, some children will be almost 1 year older than others. I think some parents are horrified of their children not being the smartest, and comparing their child with older ones makes them suffer. But as time goes by, there is no difference if someone was born in January or in November. 

I highly doubt boys are different than girls at that age. Girls have more pressure to mature and to be quieter and cleaner. That's why they seem to be different than boys. But human beings are very similar before puberty. 

I will say everyone I know who has been held back to do an extra year of kindergarten because of not being emotionally ready due to a late birthday has been a boy. And growing up, the two kids in my class who struggled the most were boys with November and December birthdays. 

My sons walked earlier than my daughter, they had better gross motor skills but she talked much quicker and she picked up social skills much earlier. She picked up joint play (as opposed to parallel play) earlier than they did.  

[Mama Mia]

10 hours ago, Melissa1977 said:

Horror stories? Maybe your schools are too strict? My cut off is December 31 and teachers assume some children are very little (not still 3 years old). What they do at school is not that different from daycare. Children are supposed to be potty trained before school, but if they aren't, they are not banned (potty training expectations have relaxed lot, years ago 2 was the age, now it seems to be near 3).

No matter where the cut off is put, some children will be almost 1 year older than others. I think some parents are horrified of their children not being the smartest, and comparing their child with older ones makes them suffer. But as time goes by, there is no difference if someone was born in January or in November. 

I highly doubt boys are different than girls at that age. Girls have more pressure to mature and to be quieter and cleaner. That's why they seem to be different than boys. But human beings are very similar before puberty. 

You seem to have a very strong reaction to this. Your school system seems vastly different than the systems most posters are discussing, as most people are discussing starting school at around 5, while you are talking 2 or 3 year olds. Hopefully a school system that includes 2 or 3 year olds is a play based, developmentally appropriate program that most people wouldn’t think of officially as “school” but would label as pre-school or it’s equivalent. It has nothing to do with being horrified your child isn’t the smartest, it’s horror stories about young children who are absolutely miserable and lost and struggle through out life because they were simply not developmentally ready for the situation they were in.

Circle time, naps, snacks, songs, learning to play together, maybe extremely basic introduction to academic concepts - colors, counting, letter introduction. Curriculum themes regarding dinosaurs or spring time. Not sitting at desks learning to read or do math. At least in the US even kindergarten ( the mostly 5 year olds being discussed) has become more and more academic focused, while still allowing for lots of play, there are also expectations for being able to sit quietly and focus for blocks of time while being instructed. 
 

There are definite differences in average boy and girl ability to perform well at an early age. This has a lot to do with language development. There have been countless studies. That doesn’t mean ALL boys will struggle or ALL girls willl do well. It means if there is a borderline maturity question, a 4 year, 11 month old boy is more likely to struggle than a 4 year 11 month old girl.  
Here’s an overview on language.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6509633/

“Moody” or impulsive or anxious kids - both boys and girls- often will adapt better to school if they are at the older end as well. Not because they aren’t ready academically, but because if the academics and behavior expectations are easier for them, they can concentrate on the social and emotional components more easily. One girl in my family started kindergarten as a just before cut-off August baby. She’s always been a very, very emotional kid. It was too much for her. After a couple months they pulled her out and did the year of T-K. Made a WORLD of difference. She is so much calmer and does great in school.

Edited July 26, 2021 by Mama Mia

[Sullie06]

I think really at the end of the day this is so child specific. My niece missed the cut off by 8 days so she was almost 6 when she started Kindergarten. She starts middle school this year and she HATES being older. At this awkward stage she is so much bigger than most of her peers (she's almost 5'4") and she's also beginning puberty (which started when she was in elementary) so she's embarrassed by that. In her case, my sister wishes she could have started her at 4 turning 5 because academically she has always been ready but socially her starting later is impacting her now. 

[SassyPants]

42 minutes ago, Sullie06 said:

I think really at the end of the day this is so child specific. My niece missed the cut off by 8 days so she was almost 6 when she started Kindergarten. She starts middle school this year and she HATES being older. At this awkward stage she is so much bigger than most of her peers (she's almost 5'4") and she's also beginning puberty (which started when she was in elementary) so she's embarrassed by that. In her case, my sister wishes she could have started her at 4 turning 5 because academically she has always been ready but socially her starting later is impacting her now. 

My son’s BD is 3 days before the cut off and since he was smaller and less inclined to sit still, we held back. Everything came easy to him both academics and the social aspect, but now, as a 30 YO, he thinks life SHOULD ALWAYS be easy. I often wonder if he had to struggle a bit early on, if his attitude would be a bit different. 

[justmy2cents]

My daughter’s birthday was a few days after the cutoff so I considered asking to send her early, but our state has a late cutoff. Additionally my daughter was not eager to be in a more structured environment. She’s very bright but was not interested in learning to read. She learned very quickly when she went to kindergarten and was (and remains) at the top of her class. It’s possible she would have been ready earlier if forced, but she’s happy where she is so I probably made the right decision to leave well enough alone.

[JDuggs]

Looks like Jessica Seewald has a new long distance boyfriend.

Spoiler