Dillards 91: Increments of Change or Not?

[nvmbr02]

32 minutes ago, WannabeHistorian said:

I've never heard of people holding their kids back a year because of a later birthday. Must be a regional thing. Here in NY the official cutoff is Dec 1st. I personally think the cutoff should be the 1st day of school. 

Holding summer birthdays back a year is pretty common in my experience, but less likely for a summer birthday when it is a December cutoff. Then you might hold back a late October or November birthday. Most places we have lived recently have a September cutoff, usually close to when school starts. I work at an elementary school and almost all of the parents that registered a kindergartener with a summer birthday held them back a year. 

[Mama Mia]

In my area they have transitional kindergarten. Kind of like pre-k, but giving an extra year to get ready.  Cut offs vary, but kids with late summer through winter birthdays are usually eligible. Some districts seem to be trying to make it an option for all kinder age kids who want more time.  I wish they’d had it when some of my kids were that age, they could of benefitted socially and academically. One child in my family with a late summer birthday started k and it was too much, so they put her into transitional-k , the extra year made a world of difference. 

[Travelfan]

8 hours ago, WannabeHistorian said:

I've never heard of people holding their kids back a year because of a later birthday. Must be a regional thing. Here in NY the official cutoff is Dec 1st. I personally think the cutoff should be the 1st day of school. 

Wow so a kid could be 4 for the first 3 months of kindergarten?  Here in the Midwest our state cutoff is Aug 1. So we end up with a lot of kids who don’t start until they are 6!  My son had an early sept birthday so he couldn’t start until the following year meaning he turned 6 within the first few weeks of kindergarten. He was also 18 for almost his entire senior year.  A lot of parents don’t send their kids (especially boys) with June/July birthdays until the next year because they don’t want them to be the youngest/smallest in class.   

[mango_fandango]

The date here is 1st September. So everyone in my year group at school was born between 1st September 1994 and 31st August 1995. I was born July 1995 so one of the youngest. I would’ve started Reception in September 1999 normally, but instead I started after the Easter holidays in 2000. I then moved on to year one in September 2000 like everyone else, so I only spent a term in Reception. I could already read when I started Reception, apparently, so there weren’t any problems academically. 
I think it really depends on the child. Some summer babies will be ready for school at the “normal” time, some would benefit from extra time in nursery. 

[Baxter]

Our cut off for kindergarten is December 31 so yes you can have kids who are still 4 when they start. Many people do hold their kids back if they have a November or December birthday although their are actually a few kids in my son's class who were not held back.  Luckily my son was born in January so he was 5 and a half when he started kindergarten. That was very beneficial for him. I don't think he would have been ready when he was still 4 or frankly right after he turned 5. He's in grade 1 this year and is thriving. 

[Sullie06]

Our cut off is also December 1st here so we do see a lot of people holding back children with October and November birthdays. My sister's b-day is 11/1 so she was 4 the first two months of school but overall for her, it didn't really impact her after Kindergarten being so young. She did Graduate HS at 17 so she was excited about that. 

In our district we have 7 elementary schools that are TK-5, 2 middle schools that are 6-8 and 1 HS that is 9-12. 

[HeartsAFundie]

18 minutes ago, Baxter said:

Our cut off for kindergarten is December 31 so yes you can have kids who are still 4 when they start. Many people do hold their kids back if they have a November or December birthday although their are actually a few kids in my son's class who were not held back.  Luckily my son was born in January so he was 5 and a half when he started kindergarten. That was very beneficial for him. I don't think he would have been ready when he was still 4 or frankly right after he turned 5. He's in grade 1 this year and is thriving. 

When I was a kid the cutoff in my city was December 31.  As a very late December baby, I was in kindergarten at 4 years and a tad over 8 months.   My parents were rule followers and were simply doing what the city said to do.  Academically I was more than ready to go...socially, not so much.  I know I definitely would have benefitted socially with a later start.  

When my son was born in February I was happy he would be one of the older kids in class.  But the city changed the cutoff date to September 1 prior to my son's birth so he ended up being one of the kids in the middle agewise, which to me is a fine place to be. 

An ironic note is that my city was one of the last December 31st cutoff holdouts which meant that people living in surrounding towns with a September 1st cutoff were enrolling their September-December born kids into private and Catholic school kindergartens in my city in an effort to circumvent their town's cutoff and send their kids to school a year early; then pulling them out of private school the following year and sending them to first grade at age 5 in their resident town.  Needless to say, the towns were not happy with a mass influx of 5 year olds in first grade-the very thing they wanted to avoid.   So my city actually had to conform with the neighboring towns to pretty much keep the peace and area uniformity.  

[JermajestyDuggar]

I admit, I have some rather strong opinions on this topic. Probably because my school tried very hard to red shirt me because my incoming class was very large. Not because they didn’t think I was ready. Just to make the class smaller. I absolutely hate when people say you must red shirt boys as a whole. I think it should always be based on a case by case basis. Sure some boys need to be red shirted. But not all. And unfortunately it is also a class divide. People in higher classes can afford 1 more year of day care. While poorer families cannot. So I’ve seen more boys from middle and upper classes red shirted while children from poorer families are not able to red shirt. And then those children my end up held back in kindergarten or first grade. Which can sometimes really bother the child due to the stigma. 

[SassyPants]

I Red-shirted my son with an 8/28 birthday for a 9/1 cut off. He went to TK. Looking back academically, he was overly ready but he had impulse issues. This kid could have taught kindergarten, but he would have distracted the other kids. Unfortunately the extra year did not cure the class clown tendencies. He never got into big trouble,  but he was never challenged either. 

[Baxter]

28 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I admit, I have some rather strong opinions on this topic. Probably because my school tried very hard to red shirt me because my incoming class was very large. Not because they didn’t think I was ready. Just to make the class smaller. I absolutely hate when people say you must red shirt boys as a whole. I think it should always be based on a case by case basis. Sure some boys need to be red shirted. But not all. And unfortunately it is also a class divide. People in higher classes can afford 1 more year of day care. While poorer families cannot. So I’ve seen more boys from middle and upper classes red shirted while children from poorer families are not able to red shirt. And then those children my end up held back in kindergarten or first grade. Which can sometimes really bother the child due to the stigma. 

I agree red shirting really should be on a case by case basis. I had never actually heard of it until I was an adult. In our school district, when I was a kid, you could actually send your kid early as long as they were 5 by March of their kindergarten year. There were several kids in my class who were very young when they started school.

My husband was born at the end of November and his parents kept him back an extra year. I don't think he cared that much about the school aspect of that but he didn't like being one of the younger kids for sports because that goes strictly by the calendar. He was quite adamant we should have our kids at the beginning of the year. 

Honestly, it's good my son was a January baby because he needed that extra time at home. We did most of last year as online school which unlike for most people worked wonderfully for him. I realize so many people hated it. But for a number of reasons it was a great experience for us. My son is both left handed and dyslexic. My mother who is a lefty tells me it makes learning to write much harder because you want to do everything backwards. So I was able to work very intensively with him last year and over the summer on reading and writing. Now he's having a very good transition to grade one in person. I realize how lucky I am to have been able to do this with him. 

[SassyPants]

1 hour ago, SassyPants said:

I Red-shirted my son with an 8/28 birthday for a 9/1 cut off. He went to TK. Looking back academically, he was overly ready but he had impulse issues. This kid could have taught kindergarten, but he would have distracted the other kids. Unfortunately the extra year did not cure the class clown tendencies. He never got into big trouble,  but he was never challenged either. 

I am quoting myself here because there’s something else I want to bring up. I mention my son here who academically was (is) wicked smart and a quick learn. He is also friendly and outgoing, a total Extrovert, and ALSO the biggest clown and totally lazy…in all his years of schooling he only had 1 teacher (former nun) who factored his behavior into his grades. I think kids who don’t need much teaching are generally given freer behavior latitude than kids who are similarly predisposed who need more instruction. I guess that’s how the world works, but kids DO notice this disparity in treatment. 

[Meggo]

We have two years of kindergarten - Junior & Senior. And the kid starts the year they turn four. So if you turn four in December - you're in junior kindergarten from Sept-December. And it was crazy because my kiddo is a Feb birthday and the kid across the street was a November birthday - less than three months between them and that kid got on the school bus and headed off to junior kindergarten. at THREE. 

Now kindy here is very play based - and my kiddo struggled hard with it because he needs WAY more structure in his life. So he went from a very good good preschool teacher who managed her classroom REALLY well - to a kindergarten where the teacher had really wanted to teach grade 4. It was a sh1t show from the word go - and he struggled HARD those two years. Then he got a great first grade teacher and in the middle - covid happened. Grade 2 - great teacher - still disrupted by covid. 
His grade3 teacher is a dream (and he has her for grade 4 too - so - hoping for good things). 

All this to say - I can't imagine packing my three year old off to school!!

 

[JermajestyDuggar]

We did play based preschool and my boys did very well with it. I think it helped prepare them both for kindergarten since neither went to day care. They both started preschool at 3.5 and it wasn’t everyday. Just part time. 

[viii]

Cut off here is December 31. My nephew is December 28 and he was held back for the following year, which was good for him. 

[CanadianMamam]

Holding your kid back isn't a thing here (the school board generally doesn't allow it) but I know several boys with December birthdays who ended up doing an extra year of kindergarten. 

[SassyPants]

Today on IG Jill posted a picture of the older boys at a mock trial…in the comments many folks asked if Jill was homeschooling again, but Jill did not answer. I hope the boys are in a brick and mortar school. I will be very discouraged to hear Jill, with a NB and a recent illness, is homeschooling her kids.

[fundiewatch]

Boo, I wonder if she’s joined up with Classical Conversations type of people. She is definitely not responding to many questions about public/homeschool. 

[louisa05]

17 hours ago, WannabeHistorian said:

I've never heard of people holding their kids back a year because of a later birthday. Must be a regional thing. Here in NY the official cutoff is Dec 1st. I personally think the cutoff should be the 1st day of school. 

It's July 1 here. I think it's not the first day of school anywhere because that varies by the year. So a kid born on August 17 could start one year, but the next year the date could be August 19. 

Holding back kids born near the deadline is pretty common here. Sadly, a lot of parents do it with future ability in sports in mind. If Jill and Derick did it, they may have been considering that there were big changes for Sam already with a new sibling and a move. Adding in kindergarten would have been a lot. They may have wanted him to adjust to the other changes first. 

[SorenaJ]

In Scotland the cut-off is March 1st I think. Kids will be 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 when they start. So people hold back January and February kids. Somewhat common I think. 

[SassyPants]

39 minutes ago, fundiewatch said:

Boo, I wonder if she’s joined up with Classical Conversations type of people. She is definitely not responding to many questions about public/homeschool. 

I have a strong feeling the boys are not attending school any more.

[patsymae]

9 hours ago, Travelfan said:

Wow so a kid could be 4 for the first 3 months of kindergarten?  Here in the Midwest our state cutoff is Aug 1. So we end up with a lot of kids who don’t start until they are 6!  My son had an early sept birthday so he couldn’t start until the following year meaning he turned 6 within the first few weeks of kindergarten. He was also 18 for almost his entire senior year.  A lot of parents don’t send their kids (especially boys) with June/July birthdays until the next year because they don’t want them to be the youngest/smallest in class.   

I think that's a good idea. I had a December birthday and I was sent to Catholic school because their cutoff was Dec 31 and the public school was September. So I was 5 for the first three months of first grade.
My son was also December and I swore I wouldn't send him early but the nursery teachers convinced me if I kept him another year he would be bored and become a behavior problem. Worst mistake I ever made. You are the age you are no matter how bright or whatever you are, and it definitely shows up starting around middle school. When, BTW, we began to have major behavior problems. One teacher meeting, I think it was 4th or 5th grade, the teacher complained he was very immature for an 11-year-old. I was like, while maybe that's because he's 9! Big, big mistake and I should have followed my gut.

 

[ven]

Uh oh, school starts here at 2.5 year old, with 4 days of 8.30hr to 15.45hr and wednesday afternoon off. They need to be out of diapers mandatory also btw. And they can't  really sleep neither in school. Most couples work fulltime so its considered a relief.School is free btw , and there is no holding back anything option. I don't want to prove anything just typing it down makes the huge differences obvious wow. Schools herr  are considered top notch worldwide but it is hard on kids .And they try to shame mothers if you don't work fulltime ( because who wants to go back to the 50 ties ? And deny every freedom your mothers have fought for)

Edited September 19, 2022 by ven

[Maggie Mae]

My mom says that I went to Nursery school 3 mornings a week, then 3 year old preschool (she can't remember if it was still just three days a week or all five, but it was likely not a full day), then four year old preschool before I started Kindergarten. I guess I really liked it and it was much harder on her than me. We moved to a different school district halfway through kindergarten and I had to go from half-day to full day, and apparently I refused to nap. I vaguely remember not napping and getting in trouble for it, and being jealous about kids who got to sit up because of their nosebleeds. 

[Bastet]

1 hour ago, patsymae said:

I think that's a good idea. I had a December birthday and I was sent to Catholic school because their cutoff was Dec 31 and the public school was September. So I was 5 for the first three months of first grade.
My son was also December and I swore I wouldn't send him early but the nursery teachers convinced me if I kept him another year he would be bored and become a behavior problem. Worst mistake I ever made. You are the age you are no matter how bright or whatever you are, and it definitely shows up starting around middle school. When, BTW, we began to have major behavior problems. One teacher meeting, I think it was 4th or 5th grade, the teacher complained he was very immature for an 11-year-old. I was like, while maybe that's because he's 9! Big, big mistake and I should have followed my gut.

 

  A fellow teacher told me the gap between boys and girls actually widens to 18 months by age 18. (Her daughter’s teacher wanted to hold her back for a year, but my friend was concerned about later social ramifications. “Senior year she’ll be a woman; she’s not going to want to date boys.”)

  So yeah, I can see middle school being a real struggle for a younger boy. 

Edited September 19, 2022 by Bastet

[HeartsAFundie]

4 hours ago, SassyPants said:

Today on IG Jill posted a picture of the older boys at a mock trial…in the comments many folks asked if Jill was homeschooling again, but Jill did not answer. I hope the boys are in a brick and mortar school. I will be very discouraged to hear Jill, with a NB and a recent illness, is homeschooling her kids.

I hope Michelle didn't get to Jill while she was recuperating from surgery and convince her to change her mind about public school.  Mother or not, I wouldn't put it past her, especially since Jill is in such a vulnerable position.    

Someone needs to ask Cousin Amy the real story.  We know Amy will eventually spill.  

And FWIW, I also noted on the FB page that Jill has remained friendly/or is once again friendly with Sierra.  She thanked Sierra for sending her dinner and some chocolate as a get-well present.    I really hope Jill isn't backsliding.  It would be a shame for all of them.  

Edited September 19, 2022 by HeartsAFundie