Do I hold my daughter in Pre-K or push her to K

[michaela]

My daughter was born December of 04. She attends a private school, we had her in preschool at 3, and she just finished Pre-K now at 4.
The school gave us the choice to push her to K next year or hold her in Pre-K for one more year. This came today as a surprise, last week her teacher was adament on keeping her in preK.
Her teacher suggested keeping our daughter with her in Pre-K due to her age. The teacher has some concerns regarding her emotional side, she mentioned that my daughter is the last one to finish some tasks she gives and asks for help to finish them, she is a perfectionist, she takes her time to finish any task properly, and she gets upset if she doesn't finish. Plus she doesn't want her to be the youngest in her class. Initially she was to stay, today her teacher said she will move her to K if we want to, we have been asking alot of questions about this possibility.
My daughter knows her alphabet, numbers, shapes, she speaks 2 languages. She writes her name, phone number, we are almost reading. Academically she is ready I feel.
I am so confused. I want the best decision for her. Could you please relay your experiences, anything to help me with my decision.



Concerned Mom

[Unregistered]

If I were you I would get as many different opinions as possible-kind of like getting 2nd, 3rd, and 4rth opinions before getting surgery.

You might try contacting local universities. Sometimes they have programs were the college students are learning speech development and other child related fields. The college students are monitored by a proffessor who has experience in that field. Sometimes you can get free speech therapy, psychotherapy, ect. It never hurts to check and see what is avalable.

You could also try contacting a local elementary school and ask if there are any kindergarten teachers who would be willing to chat with you about what you can expect in kindergarten. They probably won't want to make a recomendation because they would not want to be legally liable. Still, curriculum varies a little in each state, so knowing what will actually be expected of your child might help.

You might also look for opinions on what social behaviors are expected in the local elementary school where your daughter will attend. School culture varies a bit. A perfectionist might feel more comfortable in a very structured setting, or she might do better with something looser. If you contact the school, then you can ask them whether the curriculum revolves around concrete skills (like spelling) or the more nebulous "higher level thinking". I could see how a child with high personal standards could find vague lessons to be frusterating.

[Unregistered]

If you know your daughter's pre-k teacher and trust her, what's the issue? Hasn't she been honest and straightforward with you before? Hasn't she spent many hours, days, weeks, months getting to know your child? Your daughter will be attending school for many years to come. Why not give her and yourself another year of childhood? What a gift! I have been teaching pre-k and k for over 17 years and have never seen any child harmed because he or she waited one more year to go to k. However, I cannot say the opposite is true. Many children feel pressured and hurried to do more at a younger age. The harmful effects of this are felt for years to come. Please take a deep breath and go with your gut.

[Teacher#1]

Hello Michaela, If her teacher suggests she stay in Pre-K I would follow her advice. She will be 4 years old starting Kdg, and being an educator, students who are that young starting school usually struggle socially and academically. The Kdg curriculum is very rigorous and entails writing, reading, and many content area skills. If you say your daughter moves slowly, she may run the chance of being left behind and/or become frustrated. As a Special Ed Teacher, I see many students who struggle in K-3 due to early school starts and lack of maturity. Why not give her the gift of another year in Pre-K, even moving her to another class or perhaps your local Board of Ed head start programs, if they are available in your area. A December birthday is still very young and your daughter's teacher is doing you a great service by imparting this information to you. Many times we teachers buckle under parents' wishes only to see the child suffer in the long run. It is better that she stays in Pre-K, gets her required skills, build solid social relationships and build her confidence at her pace and on her comfort level. I know this may not be what you want to hear, but my 15 years of experience has allowed me the knowledge to understand child development and how important it is in educating students.

[Unregistered]

I have to agree with the two previous posts who suggest you listen to the pre-K teacher. While academically your child seems to be ready for Kindergarten, you said the teacher has indicated concerns about her emotional/social readiness. The thing to remember is that academic skills can be learned. A child who enters Kindergarten knowing none of their colors, letters, numbers, etc.. can be taught these things. Social/emotional maturity, however, are things that can only be gained with time and experience. Giving your daughter another year of pre-K can only make her more successful when she goes to Kindergarten the following year.

[Unregistered]

Taking a minute to play the devil's advocate:not all immaturity is due to age. We've all noticed that some kids always seem to be a little more immature than their same age peers. Who's to say she'll necessarily grow out of it? Holding her back could just mean that she will be more easily bored during her school years.

Also, how can anyone tell from the OP if it is actually immaturity or if the child has a personality that is not condusive to formal education? Some kids don't. You could hold them back for years and still not end up with a conformist.

At the end of the discussion, the only person who ACTUALLY knows this child is the OP. Like it or not she is the one who has to live with the decision, not the PreK teacher. Sure, she should take the teachers input into the decision making process, but that doesn't mean she should abdicate responsibility to the teacher.

Kids change a lot from year to year. Some even change a bit over the summer. I assuming that we've all had kids do very well in our classrooms who didn't do as well the year before. Success fluctuates from grade to grade. It always blows me away when people are shocked that a child is doing eithor better or worse than they had in previous years.

I'm all for holding a kid back for a lack of measurable skills, but from the OP it sounds like the only "maturity" problem this kid has is an attention to detail and a strong need to do well. To me that sounds like a work ethic-wich is an important component of maturity.

I've heard of Kindergarten teachers recommending to hold kids back because they are introverted. This is horribly sad as that type of personality quirk is an essential part of a person's outlook on life. I can't think of a more judgement way to reject a person than to tell them their basic approach to life is wrong. It would be different if the teacher were aproaching this as a behavior problem-its always better to judge a behavior than to judge a person.

[Unregistered]

If your child is able to do everything you say, academically she is likely to be bored in pre-k again. You should talk to the pre-k teacher and find out how she will enhance your daughter's academics if you leave her in pre-k- a private school should have the flexibility to help children who are academically advanced. A child who is meticulous and takes her time isn't necessarily immature...this is likely a trait she will have for the rest of her life. As far as maturity in kindergarten, children come in at all levels, a kindergarten teacher should be able to handle a variety of personality types. If she will not be 5 until December, stop and think how it will affect her in the teen years if you put her ahead. One of my sons has a November birthday and we put him ahead at this age, academically everything was great..he excelled...but when it came time for all the other kids to drive and he was a year behind them, he wasn't too happy. He's going to be a senior this year and still academically advanced...when I ask him if we should have put him in the 'correct' grade for his age, he is adament that he is in the right place. All kids are different, YOU will know what is right for your child.

[annettemcd]

There are many good points made in other posts; I just wanted to add my two cents. I have two children and they are different in their approach to education, so needed different decisions made about their placement. My son missed the deadline for kindergarten in our state by six hours. I debated long and hard about which year to have him start kindergarten. I had him tested and talked to many people at his school. In the end, I held him back and it was the best decision. Though academically he would have been fine, I think that being the youngest in the class would have hurt him socially. Instead, he was the oldest in his class and emerged as a leader, popular with his peers.

On the other hand, my daughter was a perfectionist --still is. She struggled in kindergarten through second grade because of it. She was sometimes unable to even get projects started, let alone finished because of the high standards which she set for herself. Though she did fine academically, she did not start to do noticeably well in school until third grade and then every year was better than the last until she graduated valedictorian. Unhappily enough we live in a small town so that switching her into a different class was not possible when she was struggling in first and second grade.

Being a perfectionist is not an issue of maturity, but it definitely can affect how a child does in school. Even now in college, my daughter has a tendency to think "too big" when planning a project or a paper and may need help scaling back to a reasonable level, but with a 3.93 GPA, she is obviously coping with the "problem." You might want to consider working with your daughter and with her teachers to teach her to limit the scope of her projects during the initial planning stage so that she can finish them in the allotted time. If she is like my daughter, she plans to do the best, most complete, most thorough project possible and needs to learn that that is not always the best plan. You might want to show her that a well-written short story may be more of a "jewel" than a rambling novel. A painting of a single rose may be more breathtaking than a huge landscape. An simple account of the life of a single individual more revealing than an epic about a nation. Also be sure that you do not comment on her work and ask why it is not bigger, better, more complete, more thorough, etc. If she is like my daughter, she is setting very high standards for herself and you expressing a need for higher standards will only frustrate her. This may require asking her teachers to make a point to quietly talk to her very early during the work on an independent project about what she is planning to do, not later when she might already be working on too big of an idea.

My daughter has learned to have her perfectionism work for her. She is planning to become a medical illustration where attention to detail matters a great deal, but realizes that she is poor at doing cartoons and quick sketches.

[TashaTTT11]

I was faced with the same decision 19 years ago. My son took the placement test after getting out of Pre-K, Aced it and went on straight to 1st grade. I was happy, not only academically did he succeed, he would be with students who was also his height since he was tall for his age. At the onset, it was great, my son was academically able to keep up with his peers. As he got older, around the 6th grade, I realized that his peers were dealing with issues he has not experienced and his mentality was not on the same page as theirs. I changed schools where he now is in a school where the grades are combined so he is with his peers more often. There is definietely a lot to think of here. Pray about it becasue everyones situation is different.

[Unregistered]

As a pre-k teacher that has been in the field for many years... I would hold back if the instructor is suggesting. It is not something that teachers take lightly and in my experience... children do pick up academic skills very quickly these days and it is more of a norm for children to enter kindergarten at the stage of beginning reading then learning their basic skills. The one thing children can not be pushed in is their social and emotional side. So often I see those children getting to 2nd and 3rd grade not knowing how to fit in with the other children and so they end up either the class clown, behavior issues, or the child who is overlooked because they lack confidence in themselves and their ability. If you find yourself on the fence... there is a reason you are on the fence. Give them the opportunity to be the super star that they have inside of them.

[Unregistered]

There is a rush in our country to hold every child back. But not every child needs to be held back. My daughter was on the list to be held back - for her birthday only. I held firm, she was just on the cusp of reading (and began before K began!) and in all other academic areas she was ready. Socially and emotionally we (parents) thought she was ready. Long story short, she ended up graduating at 16. She turned out so bored in class that she skipped forward. Another of my children had was heads and shoulders above his peers-physically. Academically he was just a bit ahead. I put him in K and when he didn't like it, on the 2nd day the K teacher told me he was too young. I again went with my gut. I went and observed the K class. I was not surprised my child didn't like it. It was like mini boot camp! I pulled him out and put him in another school's K and he immediately flourished! He was just on the young side.
Ok all that being said, some children are better off with another year. First ask yourself, what will your child get out of 1 more year? How will you keep him/her challenged and learning? What will the preschool do to help your child? a year of repeated tasks might frustrate your child. No one wants their child to be bored and become a discipline issue.
The final choice is up to you. With all the input you are getting, you are the one who will make the choice. Yes it is possible for a child to repeat K with excellent results if it turns out he needed a bit more. It is also possible with wonderful teachers and you at home your child will flourish. No one can decide except for you.
Good luck I am sure you will choose well and either way your child will do wonderfully because you are obviously so caring.

[Unregistered]

As a teacher of a multi-age kindergarten and first grade class, I see how your child may be ready academically. It is extremely important to think of her socially. If for any reason she may not be socially ready to move onto first grade at the end of kindergarten I would keep her in pre-k now. Research shows that retention rarely helps kids because it is damaging to their self esteem. If you ever have to hold a child back I would recommend doing it before they enter kindergarten. Other factors to consider are that of the class she would be in. Is the class ability grouped for reading so that she can work at her own level? If not, and all children are required to learn letters at the same time, I would put her in kindergarten now so that she does not become discouraged and board when she enters next year. Good luck with your decision! It is a difficult and very important one.