spinoff of holding child back: pushing child ahead?

miami85

Sun, Dec 14 2014, 2:24 pm

I'm kind of in the opposite situation of my son is technically before the legal cutoff date, though in many schools in NYC many parents choose to hold back. I work in schools and rarely see birthdays past October/November and my child is a December. I also have many people in my family and close circle of friends who were end of December and did just fine, so I wasn't initially going to hold him back, then a speech delay came up which is also affecting him socially. On top of the fact that many states have cutoffs in Sept/Oct anyway, he would have to repeat a grade anyway, so we decided that he should repeat kindergarten and not go into Pre-1a.

Ultimately you have to look at the individual child and his/her needs and figure it out on his own. While social development is a big component, you want it to be "just right". I've seen kids who, I haven't seen their birthdays, but I'm almost positive that they were "held back" and they are slightly ahead academically of their peers and they are taller than their classmates and things come easier and therefore they start making trouble and can act chutzpahdik.