Looking Ahead

Daniel starts school next week and he’ll be repeating Pre-Kindergarten.  It’s something I’ve wanted to write about here because it was an important decision we made and it involved a bunch of research, conversations with teachers and friends, and good faith.  It was actually a pretty EASY decision after everything was laid out in front of us.  The pros far outweighed the cons and, in the end, I really never saw any cons at all.

Daniel’s birthday is August 30th and the school cut off day for Kindergarten (in Florida) is September 1st.  He basically makes the cut by two days.  If he were born September 2nd, he would have to wait until the next year to start. He will turn five on August 30th and he will be allowed to enter Kindergarten, but he would most likely be the very youngest child in the class.  He was the youngest one in his Pre-K class this past year too.  He did great academically and he’s a really smart kid, but Daniel is a little shy and more reserved than the others. There were little skills that required extra help (like holding a pencil), but mostly he just lacked some confidence and maturity.  He was well liked and had a lot of friends, but he would never initiate the group play or be super social. The teachers said he had the intelligence to move on, but the emotional maturity he would gain from an extra year of Pre-K would be priceless.  We agreed.

Right around the time we were making our final decision, my husband was reading Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell.  I highly recommend this book.  It talks a lot about this very subject.  He talked about falling behind in grade school and how it can lead to problems later in life.  And giving your child an extra year will ultimately pay off for them socially, emotionally, and financially. If you hold your child back he will be older, stronger, faster, and more mature than the rest of his or her class. Therefore, they will be better positioned to outperform their peers in academic testing and even athletics. By “holding them back” you are basically stacking the deck in FAVOR of your child’s success.

I’ve also never had one single parent tell me they’ve regretted the decision to have their child repeat a grade.  But I have heard the stories of regret if they decided not to do it.  That helped us too.  I don’t want to decide later to have Daniel repeat an older grade when it’s, for lack of a better word, more noticeable.

Daniel also goes to a brand new school this year.  It’s the ideal situation for him to repeat Pre-K.  I know some parents have wrestled with this decision if it involved repeating the grade at the same school in the same classroom with the same teacher.  I definitely had all the signs pointing positively in the direction of our final decision.  Also, it’s just a lot more common these days.  Back when I was in school, you were only “held back” for negative reasons: poor grades, bad behavior, personal issues, etc.  Now it’s an opportunity to have my kid turn 18 at home, instead of during his first week at college.  He can be one of the first ones to get his driver’s license, instead of the last one.  He’ll have this extra year in Pre-K to grow more confident and create a foundation for his future.  And I’m excited because I know we are giving him the very best gift: The gift of time.