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Mechanchim that believe push child up if academically child
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Dolly Welsh




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Dec 10 2014, 12:46 am
Here is an assignment:

Go to the motor vehicle department. After lunch. It's crowded now.

You are to sit there and wait your turn. You are allowed nothing to read, no cell phone, nothing whatsoever. Just sit there. Doing nothing. For a long, long time. No, you can't chat your neighbor. No, you can't pick up a discarded newspaper. Just sit there.

Now you know what it's like to be a child in a class that isn't advanced enough for him.

Are you ready to scream yet?

Now imagine that you have to do this day after day.

If you have an outlier, a smarter-than average, fight like a tiger for him, because the gifted never get served. Nobody feels sorry for them. All concern is reserved for the slow. The gifted are considered not have a problem. But they do.

Maybe put such a one in an advanced class with a shadow to support him socially, a defender.

Tutoring. Something. A "club" where the handful of that kind can group, bond and be taught at their level.
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Dolly Welsh




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Dec 10 2014, 12:49 am
It's not terrible to have twins in two different grades.

"You are each getting what you need" you say firmly.
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amother


 

Post Wed, Dec 10 2014, 12:59 am
A very wise preschool director told us (when our insanely bright son was in the same situation) that pushing ahead girls is generally more successful than pushing ahead boys. Boys often bond over sports and a child who is 11 months younger than his class will be smaller and less coordinated than his classmates.
We kept our son back, and he did very well, both academically and socially.
One important factor, though, was that the school was able to meet the needs of gifted kids with creative teachers and some enrichment programming.
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seeker




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Dec 10 2014, 1:12 am
amother wrote:
A very wise preschool director told us (when our insanely bright son was in the same situation) that pushing ahead girls is generally more successful than pushing ahead boys. Boys often bond over sports and a child who is 11 months younger than his class will be smaller and less coordinated than his classmates.
We kept our son back, and he did very well, both academically and socially.
One important factor, though, was that the school was able to meet the needs of gifted kids with creative teachers and some enrichment programming.

That's an interesting point about sports. Still, I'm not convinced that that means leaving back is less of an issue for girls. The social scene for girls seems to start younger and more intensely so if a girl is not developmentally ready I think it could be a setback for a lifetime potentially, if she starts being left out or at the immature end of her class at a young age, I think the self-image could follow her. I've been told you can just repeat kindergarten or P1A if it's not working out socially, but if you already moved her ahead because she's so smart then all the more so she won't want to repeat all the same things when she's older and more advanced already!

I keep saying you but what I really mean is me. I'm in this dilemma with my 4-year-old right now. She is easily among the smartest in her class but the class is unbalanced towards the older end and a lot of the kids are way ahead of her socially. She isn't quite at the bottom, but she's not ready to compete in the social scene and I'm worried that she may never catch up as groups and images (including self images) are forming already now. I was also the youngest in my class so this is something I've seen firsthand and may be doing even too much projecting. But I am worried about what I'm seeing, and yet afraid that she will lose out by being held back when she's already closer to 1st grade level and it's only early in kindergarten (which, for the non-NY-ers, is really what most people call pre-K.) She just turned 4, has a handful of classmates who are already 5, and has very advanced verbal/pre-reading and math skills but is socially/emotionally average at best.
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catonmylap




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Dec 10 2014, 1:21 am
I wonder how much we are creating this problem and making it worse...

Is the November kid who goes to the regular class he should -- 10/11 months younger than the other kids or he is a year/year and half younger since so many of the other kids were held back?

We should really only be holding back kids with genuine needs to be held back, not everyone...
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seeker




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Dec 10 2014, 1:43 am
catonmylap wrote:
I wonder how much we are creating this problem and making it worse...

Is the November kid who goes to the regular class he should -- 10/11 months younger than the other kids or he is a year/year and half younger since so many of the other kids were held back?

We should really only be holding back kids with genuine needs to be held back, not everyone...

Not sure who you're responding to but mine is probably an average of 9-15 months younger than the others. There is one kid who was left back for legitimate developmental issues (now caught up but about a year behind her age), one kid who I don't know but also must have been left back because she turned 5 already early in the year, one December 2009 kid who probably just wasn't ready to move up with the older kids of that year. Maybe one other left-behinder, unsure why, maybe like mine just a November kid who wasn't able to compete in the older class. Then it just happens to be that the kids born in the neighborhood that year seem to be concentrated in the early months. I think there are a whole bunch of birthdays from January-March perhaps, I'm estimating here, but I do recall last year (they were mostly in preschool together too) having what seemed like at least one birthday party a week for a while. Then there is maybe one birthday a month for the rest of the year, with my kid being the Very Youngest at the end of November, so the average age is very skewed toward the older end. She's also the oldest in our family so she didn't have older social role models - I notice some of the more aggressive kids in the class are from the bigger families, I guess they learned how to do the group interaction thing at home, whereas all my kid learned at home was tame dinner-table conversations with adults and stuff like that. She is also used to a very high level of respect and some independence, and has a hard time with following directions in school - which I wonder if it's a developmental thing, like maybe she just needs more time to do her own thing, or if the teacher is right that it's a skill that needs to be drummed into her. I JUST DON'T KNOW! Talk to me in 1st grade, that's where I already have professional experience, but I honestly don't know what is best for a just-turned-4-year-old. Especially when she's mine Wink

I guess the issue is that you need to have a cutoff date somewhere, and the oldest kids are always going to be about a year older than the youngest kids. In larger schools with parallel classes I have heard of splitting the classes by age (I think most don't but probably should) so the kids in each class are closer to each other in age and can develop together more appropriately, rather than having to worry about a still-3-year-old making it in the same class as an already-5-year-old, which is what we had going on for a couple of months (we are a smaller community though so no split classes option)
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eschaya




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Dec 10 2014, 10:21 am
Depends on the child; social, emotional, physical development are really important. We pushed DD ahead and it was a great decision. She is tall and emotionally mature in addition to being advanced intellect wise. On the other hand, we chose not to push DS ahead (even though he is even more advanced academically) because he is small and scrawny, and is emotionally weak. You need to take the entire child into account. Speak with his current and past teachers. Watch him interact in social settings. It can be wonderful or it can be terrible. Don't take this decision lightly.
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Hashem_Yaazor




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Dec 10 2014, 10:45 am
amother wrote:
A very wise preschool director told us (when our insanely bright son was in the same situation) that pushing ahead girls is generally more successful than pushing ahead boys. Boys often bond over sports and a child who is 11 months younger than his class will be smaller and less coordinated than his classmates.
We kept our son back, and he did very well, both academically and socially.
One important factor, though, was that the school was able to meet the needs of gifted kids with creative teachers and some enrichment programming.


The school psychologist who met with my son this summer to approve his skipping was also concerned about this. My son is very bright, extremely socially capable, and he was entering a school where the curriculum for his grade would almost be like holding him back considering the skills he had acquired in his former school. In addition, he is in the older part of the class, so he would not be skipping by a full year, but more like a half. I am not very pro skipping. I skipped and it didn't solve my problems, only the school's so they wouldn't feel like they had to give me an individual curriculum. But for this son, in his situation, I felt it was the right thing.

The only concern the psychologist had was regarding sports. My son loves sports. He's skin and bones, though, and also genetically short, and she was concerned that this coupled with being a year behind on motor skills, would make him feel bad at sports. I took that into account, but ultimately decided it was not enough of a reason not to skip. My son does not care how well he does. He's never been the winning guy on the team. He enjoys playing for the fun of it. He's not had issues with bullying ever, he's just everyone's 'pet' and older boys 'adopt' him. He also has extremely strong verbal skills and a mouth that can defend himself if he ever feels he was attacked. He's always played with older kids and not only in teams of his own age. And he doesn't even play sports all that much, he just likes talking about them much more than he goes out and does it.

You have to know your kid if sports is really a big issue with them or not.
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amother


 

Post Wed, Dec 10 2014, 10:49 am
Op here for many reasons I want to push my son ahead. The problem is that the young mechanchim of today just say leave everyone behind I want to speak to an older mechanech who has seen many kids fm graduate and has real experience.

Does anyone have any recommendations for me? I'm willing to travel anywhere in the states to meet the person?
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Hashem_Yaazor




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Dec 10 2014, 10:58 am
seeker wrote:
That's an interesting point about sports. Still, I'm not convinced that that means leaving back is less of an issue for girls. The social scene for girls seems to start younger and more intensely so if a girl is not developmentally ready I think it could be a setback for a lifetime potentially, if she starts being left out or at the immature end of her class at a young age, I think the self-image could follow her. I've been told you can just repeat kindergarten or P1A if it's not working out socially, but if you already moved her ahead because she's so smart then all the more so she won't want to repeat all the same things when she's older and more advanced already!

I keep saying you but what I really mean is me. I'm in this dilemma with my 4-year-old right now. She is easily among the smartest in her class but the class is unbalanced towards the older end and a lot of the kids are way ahead of her socially. She isn't quite at the bottom, but she's not ready to compete in the social scene and I'm worried that she may never catch up as groups and images (including self images) are forming already now. I was also the youngest in my class so this is something I've seen firsthand and may be doing even too much projecting. But I am worried about what I'm seeing, and yet afraid that she will lose out by being held back when she's already closer to 1st grade level and it's only early in kindergarten (which, for the non-NY-ers, is really what most people call pre-K.) She just turned 4, has a handful of classmates who are already 5, and has very advanced verbal/pre-reading and math skills but is socially/emotionally average at best.


Are there parallel classes in her school? That you can send her to the same grade level but with a different teacher so it won't be just a repeat?

I moved my oldest with his class, and he was the youngest. Boys even older than him stayed back. He had a very, very rough time, but I couldn't see how I wouldn't move him ahead since he had taught himself to read when boys almost a full year older than him still had to wait to learn it in school. He's now in fourth grade, suffered through a couple of years of insecurity and bullying (by kids in other grades who he didn't know to report on :/ ) and only now that we've switched to a very different school system is he gaining his positive self-esteem back. I actually just found out his rebbe this year thought he was a weak to average student based on his performance when he first started in the class, and the rebbe thought he'd pleasantly surprise me that my son is doing the highest tracked work in the class with straight A+s now. I was more shocked to hear that he was not doing it at the beginning of the year. That is how much being in an emotionally insecure setting "killed" him inside.

My third has a similar birthday as my first (end of the deadline) but she's much more socially with her class, and makes friends very easily (she didn't always as it took her a long time to talk in public). She's flying through second grade level work in her tracked reading in her first grade class, but she is not complaining at all about being bored. She is reveling in being able to help her peers and teaches herself new things when stuff gets redundant (she picked up some rashi script last year in K by looking around her classroom while her peers were learning site words). I am thrilled she is where she is because there is no way she could just be pushed ahead since she did have her social struggles as a 2-4 yo, and she is excelling at reaching her appropriate age level. (That being said, she became quite good friends with a second grader on her own at recess, which is fine with me!) Girls can be snobby (I experienced this first hand from skipping into a grade where the girls saw I was so much smaller than they were)....let your daughter feel empowered that she can have good friends in peers her age level and be acknowledged for her academic prowess. It's a chance for her to give and shine.

BTW, for however socially stunted I was, I ended up in high school being friendlier with girls even older than I am because while I didn't have the same social skills and interests, I had a more serious maturity/inner and deeper thinking that helped me gravitate to those kinds of people as well. (Now as a mother I am having all my fun and sing and dance all day. Maybe I should have explored that side of me as a kid/teen!)
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Hashem_Yaazor




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Dec 10 2014, 11:00 am
amother wrote:
Op here for many reasons I want to push my son ahead. The problem is that the young mechanchim of today just say leave everyone behind I want to speak to an older mechanech who has seen many kids fm graduate and has real experience.

Does anyone have any recommendations for me? I'm willing to travel anywhere in the states to meet the person?


Sorry, I don't, but if you have gut instincts, don't ignore them. Are you looking for validation, or are you looking for someone who the school would be 'maskim' to? Or are you still hesitant and are looking for someone who can discuss the pros/cons? I don't have any recommendations, but depending on what you are trying to accomplish, maybe others would.
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summer0808




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Dec 10 2014, 11:53 am
OP I know how you feel. Anytime you ask they always say 'keep behind'. 2 problems with that. A the deadline keeps on moving back and back. Now I've heard of September & August being kept back. B, isn't there anyone that would benefit from moving up or being the youngest? It used to be that summer,early fall were the middle of the grade. Now Sep is the youngest!
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amother


 

Post Wed, Dec 10 2014, 12:10 pm
No one knows of any evaluator or mechanach that holds its not always the best thing to push a child back?
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seeker




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Dec 10 2014, 3:08 pm
HY, my current community only has one school with one class per grade. We are looking to move at some point to not-too-far-away so I'm not sure whether we'd want to switch schools if/when that happens...
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cuties' mom




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Dec 10 2014, 5:13 pm
My 3rd grader is the youngest in his class with a November birthday. Before starting pre-1A, I spent lots of time talking to the preschool director/ pre-1A morah in his school. We agreed that someone has to be the youngest in the class. Some kids could handle it and some kids can't. Ds has global apraxia, but he's smart and serious, and we agreed he would do better going to pre-1a and if we see its too hard, he can always go back. I haven't regretted the decision at all. Ds is doing fine socially. He isn't good in sports, but that really isn't the main part of the day. Most second graders are taller than him and better in sports, so keeping him back wouldn't have made a difference.
I work in public school, and they do not have this issue. Nobody repeats pre-k or kindergarten. In this year's pre-k class, there is one January birthday, one February, one March, 2 May, 3 June, 1 July, 1 August, 1 October, 2 November, and 3 December. Nobody makes an issue over the age difference between the youngest and oldest, because it is perfectly normal to have a one year age gap between the youngest and oldest. Public school tends to leave kids back a lot starting from first grade if there are academic issues. The problem we have in yeshivos was created by yeshivos.
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