Taking Kinder Twice? - Mount Laurel,NJ

If a teacher advised me to have my son repeat Kindergarten for the reasons the teacher gave you, then I would in a heart beat.

Do not focus on his age. In first grade it is much more expected that you focus and sit still. If he enters First grade and is constantly being reprimanded by his teacher for not focusing, etc. he might start disliking school.

Really I cannot imagine not repeating kindergarten based on his age as someone suggested below. Being emotionally, intellectually and mentally ready for first grade is more important than the issue about him being a year older.

I would rather my intelligent child be mad at me for being the oldest, than him possibly getting poor grades and always in trouble with the teacher because I didn’t hold him back.

As an adult he will thank you.

Trust me! My adult friends and I never talk about how old we were in Kindergarten!

I think it is best to have your son repeat kinder now and give him all the advantages of it now rather than try to have him play catch up later.

My son's birthday is on the actual cut off day here in Texas, and when he was younger, I had him in some classes and such with the older kids (the kids that he would have been with in school later). I saw that he was not ready and decided to make him wait for one year before "officially" starting kindergarten. I think it was the best thing ever. He didn't ask anything or wonder what was going on. He now enjoys being one of the oldest and is doing so well.

Just my two cents,
R.

I would keep him back. Its much easier to have him do kindergarten twice then be behind in the subsequent grades and need be held back later. Kindergarten is a place to get ready for school. If he's not ready, don't push him forward, let him go at his pace and do kindergarten again.
He won't be out of place, he'll just be one of the older kids in the class.

If it has already been mentioned to you once before (preschool into Kindergarten) then I would really think about it. Primary school (K-2) is as much about learning "student behaviors" as it is learning "academics". If your son isn't demonstrating the behaviors necessary to go to first grade, then give him the chance to develop those skills in Kindergarten again.

At this age, the other children are not likely to recall who is promoted and who is retained b/c they don't quite get the concept. As he gets older, they will remember and ask. If you are going to do it, do it now. You don't need to decide until June, but it sounds like he would be a good candidate for retention and would benefit from another year to "learn how to learn" before getting hit with significant academic demands and a much faster and structured pace in first grade.

My younger son did kindergarten twice. His birthday is September third, and although he was academically bright (and still is), we thought it would be good for him to take an extra year and end up being the oldest kid in the class instead of the youngest. It was a good choice.

He had been attending a preschool that went through kindergarten, so I just transferred him for the next year to the kindergarten at the school he would have attended anyhow. He didn't seem to mind (I do remember I tried to make it sound as if getting an extra year was pretty special) because there was plenty to do and learn and he had plenty of kids to be friends with. If he had needed to stay at the original school, he probably would have done just as well. It would have been a little harder for Mama!

If there's ever an easy time to give a child an extra year to grow up, this is it! Second grade or fifth grade or eleventh grade can't be repeated without lots of trauma.

My daughter has a 9/16/04 birthday, making the cut off by two weeks. I was advised by her pre-k teacher that she was not ready for kindergarten, and in our district kindergarten was a full day program. It was not so much her academics, but more of a maturity issue. This was a decision I had been dreading since she was born knowing she was born so close to the cut off. I ultimately decided to send her to kindergarten against the advisement of her pre-k teacher, with the realization that she would most likely need to repeat Kindergarten. My perspective was that staying back in pre-k would not gain her much of anything. I was very lucky and she adjusted and matured and did fine in kindergarten, and is now in first grade. Being the youngest in her class is difficult, and at this age having some kids in her class almost a whole year older is a big difference. I understand how you feel being faced with this decision, but if you look at the big picture it would be much better for your child to repeat kindergarten then it would be having to repeat a higher grade. I was a teacher before I had my kids, and the children that struggled were always the ones with the late birthdays. I am constantly worried that my daughter will fall behind. Last year I don't think she would have minded repeating kindergarten, but this year she would be very aware if she did not move on to 2nd grade. Are there other options you district offers? Do they have a transitional first grade program? Do they have multi age classes? I would have had my daughter place in K-1 multiage if I had to have her repeat. It would have helped to smooth over the fact that she was still in kindergarten. Good luck to you.

technically in our school district he should be in pre-k ths year and k next year with his bday after 09/01. My daughter is 09/03/2006 and the public school system won't take her for K next year b/c shes 2 days off...your son if I'm realizing this right is the youngest in his class....he's not behind emotionally at all it seems, he J. should be in the pre-k with the kids his age...maybe....techincally...IDK this confuses M., a lot..I'm torn on what to do with my daughter, shes in pre-k this year, and may have to do pre-k again even though the teachers say shes ready because of the 2 days.....who knows....holding him back though, he won't ask questions if you put him in a diferent K next year, so hes still getting a difernt program, and then he'll actually be in the right year, since he should be starting K this year coming up based on birth dates anyway..which they say is good for boys, he'll have an advantage in sports being the oldest in his class, and emotionally and mentally too

It's quite common where I live to have Kinders go through twice. Mainly the people I know do it because they don't want to pay for another year of preschool and their child makes the age cut off but they know in their hearts that their child is not ready for the rigors of first grade. They often do a year of public K and then go private.

As his parent, you can twist a positive spin on this. Kindergarten is so fun, etc...

If this has continued to be a question from pre k, I would seriously consider what the teachers are telling you. Every child in every grade knows where they stand academically in their classroom (even if the teacher goes to great lengths to disquise it and never mentions it). Why would you want your child at the bottom academically? School only gets more and more difficult and when he is in fourth grade struggling, he will remember how hard it is as an adult. Where if he has another year of K, it may not be such a struggle.

Good luck and no, this isn't an easy decision.

My mom held my brother back in first grade and he always hated being the oldest kid in all his classes. He too had a late birthday, so he started kindergarden at 5 years old and turned 6 in September of the same year. So he was always 2 years older then all the kids in his class throughout school. When we would bring it up he would get mad at my mom for holding him back, when he was already a year older than everyone else. In my opinion, I wouldn't hold him back. Good luck in making the right decision.

If you have any doubt that he can handle 1st next year, trust the teacher and hold him back! It is so much better to do it now and not in 1st or 2nd. My Kind. teacher told my Mom to hold me back and she didn't, I struggled in school until college when it finally clicked. Otherwise, I would get him into tutoring this summer, so catch him up a little.

Hi, L.:
What will he be doing during the summer?
Could he catch up then?
Just want to know.
D.

It happens and is totally normal, you have to trust your teacher. You can have him evaluated by a 1st grade teacher aswell as get their opinion. My aunt teaches 1st grade and had to have one of her students who started the year repeat K...the parents were resistant but she explained to them what the standards were and didnt want him to fall behind.

Every child must meet the requirements to move on to the next grade if your son hasn't meet them yet do you think he will in the next 5 months before school gets let out?She told you now ahead of time to prepare him for the questions he may ask to why he isn't able to move on to the 1st grade it's not like kindergarten even kindergarten was different from when I was a child & that was half days.Children need to learn these skills so for they are ready to handle themselves in a conductive way,i'm reading that he isn't able to sit,focus, read,write am I correct.Does he work on his writing & sight words at home?They will not pass a kindergartener till they know what sounds the alpahbet makes,the sight words,& write & know the upper & lower case ABC's.Everday practice with him he still has time to catch up & be ready but it isn't just going to take the teacher to help him.You had this question at pre K now in kindergarten is there a learing disability that he has?

Here is something a lot of parents don't always think about. As a mom, you first think about friends and how he'll feel if he has to repeat, and as you asked, will he one day wonder what happened? As a teacher, I think about what will happen if you send him along. He will most likely continue to struggle. What will that do to his self-esteem? If school is constantly too hard for him, or if he has to work harder than his peers, how will he feel after a few years of doing that? I've seen many students that struggle. They have low self-esteem, can be teased by other kids, and get labeled by their peers as not very smart (which is a shame because they don't always see these students for what they have to offer and see their strengths).

Especially since he is very young, I would let him do kindergarten again. He will be so much happier in the long run!

My son was a very young 5-year-old when he first went to kindergarten. I had reservations about sending him, but everyone told me that he was ready! It turns out that he was not ready at all, emotionally/socially speaking, so we had him repeat. We actually moved during the summer between so he changed schools as well, which lessened the blow I think. He was very aware of what was going on and even still comments about how he's in 2nd grade but he should be in 3rd. I just keep telling him that he is exactly where he should be, and he is. He did very well the second year. Just help your son to focus on the positives, like the new friends, and explain that it's better for some kids to be the oldest in the class and how cool that is.
Good luck! It's a tough decision, but better to do it now than when he's older.