Do you find that school related anything is blowing up your news feed these days?

Whether it’s the end of preschool, the start of summer camps, or graduation, it seems like school is hot topic right now! Recently I wrote a post about picking the right preschool, and here I am back with another school-related topic. You can probably tell what is on my mind these days as well. {grin}

Our son, Trent, has a late summer birthday. He will be 5 this summer. My nephew {Miles – the blonde cutie above} just turned 5 in March. The boys were born less than 4 months apart. What does this mean? My husband and I have spent a lot of time arguing over discussing whether Trent should start kindergarten in the fall or not while Miles will definitely start Kinder next year.

My husband and I have both sent each other countless articles arguing our points of view {I am for waiting or ‘red-shirting’ Trent while my husband wants to start him}. We have had rational…err…not so rational discussions about this. I have yelled. My parents combined have over 60 years of teaching experience and they disagreed about what to do with Trent next year, so to say it’s NOT an easy decision…is a bit of an understatement.

Red-shirting Pros

• Emotional maturity – This is probably my number 1 reason for wanting to wait. I want to make sure Trent has the emotional abilities required to handle a full day of school. Kindergarten nowadays isn’t like it was when we were kids. They have homework, less playtime, no naps!
• Physical maturity – I wouldn’t make a decision based on sports, but there are a lot of arguments out there for physical maturity of an older child meaning better results in athletics.
• Better grades – There are mixed answers on this, but one theory is an older child will do better because they will have a better ability to grasp the information
• Leader – An older child will be a leader instead of a follower in the class.

Red-shirting Cons

• Harder on the teacher – she might have kids as young as 4.5 and as old as 6.5 – that is tough!
• Motivation – Might push younger child {the non-redshirts} to strive to achieve what the older kids are doing
• Labels child a ‘failure’ – the child might think there is something wrong with them that made them be ‘held back’
• Lazy – Some studies show that an older kid actually DOESN’T make better grades/become a leader because the work is ‘easy’ for them.

So you can see there are lots of mixed answers out there about whether a child should start Kindergarten late. I think there is no black-and-white clear answer. It really depends on each child and their own circumstances. My husband and I ultimately came to a completely different answer – Trent is now in a Montessori school where they don’t even have grades! How’s that for decision-making?

Have you had to make the decision for when your child should start school? What did you decide and why?