Our daughter is in Kindergarten. When it came to deciding whether we were going to send her or wait a year, I literally agonized over the decision. You see, she has a late birthday (our cut off to start Kindergarten here is December 1st). But in the end, we decided to send her. Boy did that end up being the wrong decision and knowing what I know now, I would have never sent her.
You see, my husband was laid off last August…right before school started. While it was fun for her to have daddy home with her half the day, it also completely threw her for a loop. The Bella that we know, the outgoing girl who loves to chat your ear off, began to become withdrawn, never spoke in school and appeared to be very anxious in school. I started to communicate with her teacher and together we came to the decision that we think it would be best for Bella to repeat Kindergarten next year.
We are hoping (and I am pretty sure we are right) that giving her that extra year will help her grow and become more confident in the classroom. Not only that, our life as a family is going back to normal (normal as in, before my husband was laid off). I’m at home again and he is working. She even said to me the other day “mama…everything is all better now. You are home with me and daddy is working”. I almost cried.
Since her teacher and I spoke with her about doing the Kindergarten again (she is going to be a classroom expert…she’s very excited about this job) she has come out of her shell more, is more outgoing in class and she is answering questions! It’s almost like she knew all along that she was not ready and now that the pressure of moving on to first grade is gone, she is able to relax. Combine that with the fact that everything is relatively normal in our house again, we have one happy little girl again!
I have my moments when I wonder if I made the right choice holding her back, but I worked in her class the other day and while she is maturer than others in some regards, you can really tell she is the youngest in the class in other regards. So in the end, I would much rather hold her back now than get to third grade and realize I made a mistake and it be much harder on her to hold her back. Not to mention, those areas that I can tell she is the youngest may not be an issue now, but come 6th grade and they will be a much bigger deal.
What about you? Did you hold your child back? How did that work out for you?
I think you did the right thing for her! You’re her Mom, though, and it sounds like even though you’re unsure, you feel good. If she excels you can (maybe) move her up – but you can’t really go backwards. My nephew repeated kindy and he’s better off for it. (((Hugs)))
My 4 year old is an August 15th, our cut off is Sept 1. I am going to go ahead and let him start K5 next year but I do worry that he will have problems later.
My youngest has one year of preshool and some delays. If he isn’t ready to start kindergarten, we will wait a year. I think you did what was right for her. Kudos to you for being in touch with what your daughter needs, THAT makes a great mom.
You absolutely have to do what’s right for your child and your situation. So glad that she’s happier now!
Good for you for making a choice then figuring out what worked and what didn’t work about it. Nobody said parenting was easy 🙂