<p>happy and pepper, the good news is that there is summer to get their acts together before school starts. They are, as someone said, “soiling the nest” so that it will be easier for both of you when they leave.</p>
<p>ShawD has had a party every night, it seems, since graduation more than a week ago. She did call to get picked up early from a party where people were drinking way too much – it made her feel uncomfortable. </p>
<p>She will celebrate her 18th birthday this week – unfortunately, I’ll be in Singapore on the day. She’ll leave for Paris before I get back. But, I did get her for her graduation/birthday present a stunning blue pearl necklace and earrings when I was in India – they go with her very blue eyes. She wore them to graduation. </p>
<p>One question: She went to a public elementary school and then private middle and high schools. She seemed young-ish when she was about to start kindergarten and thought about keeping her back but got a big push (almost threat) from the then principal about how she needed to start school at the legal age. In the private schools, she is one or two years younger than the majority of her classmates – the parents at these two private schools (or more) seem nearly uniformly to hold their kids back. I turned 17 shortly after I graduated from HS and ShawD will turn 18. Most of these kids are 19 or 20. Are your kids 18 or are they older? How about their classmates?</p>
<p>^D is 18 now; she’ll turn 19 shortly after she starts college. We did public school all the way. When she was in “pre-K”, the nursery school principal suggested we give her “the gift of time” (i.e., hold her back). She would have made the cut off for our public school for entry in Kindergarten (5 by Dec 1) but she was a little immature. </p>
<p>At the time, I remember being conflicted about it. I thought it meant there was something wrong, and I was upset she wouldn’t be going to Kindergarten along with her nursery school classmates (ok, all six of them). Another mom who was told the same thing let her son go to Kindergarten, and guess what – at the end of that year, the public school strongly suggested he repeat Kindergarten. So they ended up at the same place. </p>
<p>For my D, I think it’s really helped her. While she doesn’t always make perfect choices, she has a level head and good judgment. I think the extra year really helped.</p>
<p>S turned 18 in April. I graduated HS one month after my 17th bday. My parents pushed me into school early and it was OK til middle and high school when socially I had a hard time. S has always been in private school and his preschool/elementary school has let others start early, but S was not ready for it and based on my issues of always being the youngest I wouldn’t have allowed it. An old classmate of my 11yo D’s moved, always kept her S in private but doesn’t feel her S is stimulated enough. She found a private middle school that will allow her son to skip 6th grade. IMO, her son is very immature and has always had trouble making friends. I think that instead of trying to push him academically she should be concerned with his social growth in these important middle school years, but I am not his Mom.</p>
<p>OTOH, I do know of kids whose parents held them back going into boarding school in the hopes that the extra year will give them a boast. </p>
<p>Like college I think each kid is different and it really comes down to fit.</p>
<p>D turned 18 last month. Don’t think I could have held her back- in fact if her birthday was earlier in the year skipping a grade might have been beneficial but it all worked out just fine. </p>
<p>Actually the birthday caused a bit of a glitch with her college’s mandatory alcohol questionnaire/counseling online form. One question asked what was her alcohol intake in an average month (= 0) and another question asked what was her alcohol intake the previous month (2 glasses of champagne for her 18th birthday- with us I might add). The online form then indicated a conflict in the answers and would not let her complete the mandatory questionnaire. So she did what any self respecting teen would do- she lied. :rolleyes: </p>
<p>We are hoping this was not representative of administrative hoops for the school. If so, I can see another long 4 years.</p>
<p>My Jr. daughter has a late September birthday, and the cut off date for starting school in NH is 10/1. My husband and I thought about holding her back so she would turn 6 shortly after starting kindergarten, but we had no concerns with her socially or academically. Had she been a boy… we might have thought longer and harder about it.</p>
<p>My son turned 18 in April, but several of his fellow graduates are older. Some of them delayed starting kindergarten due to late birthdays, a set of triplets was premature…so they were held back by the parents for developmental reasons… but some of them repeated a year of school after transferring from public school to private school…to help make them academically competitive for the remainder of their education through high school. </p>
<p>Another trend we see a LOT in the world of competitive sports in eastern MA … is for kids to repeat their 8th grade year or their junior year, by transferring from their existing school to a private or prep school - to make them bigger and stronger for athletic recruiting consideration AND to give them an extra year to improve GPA and test scores. </p>
<p>I guess it’s been going on forever in the form of doing a PG year somewhere. Some folks have figured out is is more desirable and/or cost effective to give their kid the extra boost while they are still in HS.</p>
<p>My son, who turned 18 in April, went to public accelerated/gifted elementary, private middle and is now in public specialized HS (math & sciences). Lots of kids at the middle school were older. I remember when the boys’ voices changed, lol.</p>
<p>So fun to log in and read about everyone’s lovely graduation weekends–despite heat, wheelchairs and ridiculous scheduling. </p>
<p>As for the age question, our son turned 18 in April. Our older son turned 18 the day before his HS graduation. Cut off date for kindergarten here is August 1. The trend is for parents of boys to hold their late spring/summer children back from kindergarten until they are 6. Some of it is maturity, some of it is the hope of future athletic success. We never considered it because our boys would have been bored to tears in preschool as five-year-olds. DS1 started reading the summer before kindergarten; DS2 started reading just before his fifth birthday.</p>
<p>We also see some of what MaryOC mentioned in repeating 8th grade, especially at another school (although public in our case) in order to meet transfer eligility requirements for sports and give another year to mature–academically and physically.</p>
<p>My D won’t turn 18 until late September. The Kindergarden cut-off was December 31st, and she was ready, so we never considered holding her back. A lot of her male friends did wait to start school, so they are a full year older than she is. She’s always done fine socially, but she hates being the youngest of her group. I do think that her age had some academic impact. For example, she was overwhelmed and dropped an AP class junior year, but had no problem with APs senior year. On the other hand, she is really ready for college, and I can’t imagine her dealing with another year of HS.</p>
<p>Proudmom: Glad to hear that you had nice weather and the party was success.</p>
<p>Collegemaw: I’m glad to hear that your daughter had a good time at her prom. I’d love to see the dress on Shutterfly.</p>
<p>My son turned 18 in February. I turned 17 in January of my senior year. I remember taking a test that allowed me to skip kindergarten and then in 2nd grade going to the 3rd grade for mornings and back to 2nd grade in the afternoons. I later found out my parents refused to let them skip me as they felt I was already on the young side. I wonder what I ended up doing in 3rd grade when I went for real! I was almost always the youngest and it did make a difference socially for me and not in a good way. My daughter will be right between where my son and I ended up-she will not be 18 until July right after senior year-which is fine for her.</p>
<p>I shudder to think if we had given him another year to mature! ;)</p>
<p>Congrats to our newest graduates! How nice for the parents who can give the diplomas-although if our school board is the norm I wouldn’t trade places with you! Good for you. :)</p>
<p>^ Interesting. We see alot of it too–generally with boys…though some have done it with grils… Though in earlier grades -well before hs-- because of developmental issues, like fine motor etc. Often in the k-5 range.
Years ago when I heard about it–I thought it was terrible…and didn’t get it…
However there are several in each class, and often those kids do better…have it more together academically/socially etc. National Merit winners, almost perfect SATs, top of the class etc etc
Kind of flies in the face of those parents who are pushing their kids to go faster/farther earlier…that waiting and giving th kids time to grow and mature reaps benefits
Sort of a “if I knew then, what I know now” I wouldn’t have judged those parents/kids…
We almost grade skipped our student…but kiddo is already one of the youngest in the class and would have turned 18 after frosh yr…glad we didn’t do the grade skipping thing…and I often wonder what advantage there might have been to have my kids start late.</p>
<p>My oldest three sisters skipped 1st grade…went right from kindy to 2nd grade …had the 1st grade curriculum mastered before they even entered kindy. My 3rd sister also skipped 3rd grade… she was bored to tears. They all thrived socially and academically …and all went on to be merit scholars and successful professionals (MBA/CPA, MD and JD). It was the right move for them.</p>
<p>I have a neighbor who skipped two important transition years… went right from 4th to MS (6th)… and then skipped 8th grade and went directly to HS. I was worried for him socially as he’s a bit awkward …but that could just be shyness? He has taken college courses at the local community college for the last three summers. His mother said he just wants to be done with HS… and move on to college. He may be brilliant, but he’s an odd duck. :)</p>
<p>My sons’ youth football coach has 5 kids; the youngest of which, is a set of b/b twins. His oldest three kids went to private/Catholic HS after public school through 8th grade. Two of the oldest boys were recruited athletes in college. One of them did a PG year to aid that objective. </p>
<p>He also had his twins in our public school system through 8th grade, where they were B/B+ students. Instead of doing a PG year with them, he had them repeat 8th grade year at a tough, neighborhood parochial school not known for academics… where they could compete at a higher level athletically. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>When it came time to consider HS for the twins, he signed over custodial rights/responsibility to one of his older sons, who owned a condo in a town with a very large (for NH - LOL!), semi-private HS (free for the town’s folk…but paid tuition for non-residents). The twins stay with their older brother 3 nights/week so they don’t have to pay tuition. It’s NUTS in my book… but it is not really my issue to judge. The boys are thriving athletically … and doing well academically (still B+ kind of students). It will be interesting to see how this plays out for them when it comes time to shopping for college.</p>
My D will be 18 next month. Most of her classmates turned 18 during this school year. The cutoff here for kindergarten is turning 5 before Sept. 1. At her school (an arts school) we’re not seeing a lot of older kids due being held back for sports. This is, by and large, not an athletic bunch. My son skipped a grade, so he was 17 when he graduated, and turned 18 halfway through his freshman year of college.</p>
<p>Congratulations to all the kids who graduated last weekend and their parents!</p>
<p>Proudmomof2 – Hope you had very pleasant weather last weekend for the grad party. </p>
<p>owm – Congrats to DS2 on the additional scholarship $$$! </p>
<p>Arisamp – Congratulations to your wonderful daughter on the scholar athlete award! </p>
<p>Amandak – Glad to hear your S had fun at the prom. Your posts as usual are pleasure to read.</p>
<p>Happy belated birthday to BlueJr!</p>
<p>Snoozn – Loved your “tapestry” pictures on Shutterfly! Your D performance definitely deserves a whole paragraph in a local paper!</p>
<p>AvonDad – Happy birthday to your grandson! Can’t wait to hear about your S’s graduation and his speech. </p>
<p>DS’s graduation was last Thursday, so now he is officially done with the high school and looking forward to his time in college. He has already been to 3 grad parties and got either stomach flu or food poisoning and spend yesterday in bed. He is feeling better today. </p>
<p>Re: Children’s age. I have HS Class of 2011 and Class of 2018 kids. Both have birthdays in the beginning of the school year. My S (’11) started K when he was almost 6 and D (’18) when she was almost 5. Academically S was stronger, but he was a little bit shy when he was younger. But honestly, I think it was I who wasn’t ready for him to start school earlier. I didn’t regret holding him back, though I think he would not be disadvantaged in anyway if he would start a year earlier. We are looking at this as a “gift of time” (for him and for us). And so far I didn’t regret “not holding” my D back, but it’s too early to tell. She is doing fine academically and socially, but she has always been one of the shortest kids in her class (she would probably have the same problem if she started school later anyway).</p>
<p>keylimepie ~ Congrats on your DS’s graduation! Must feel great to be finally done with HS! Too bad he got sick, but sounds like he is recovering quickly, thank goodness…</p>
<p>Thanks, aria! His last day of school was 5/25, so as far as he is concerned, he was done some time ago. Makes it hard for my 5th grader now to go to school when her brother is staying home, but this week is her last too.</p>
<p>Hi all. Congrats to the new grads.<br>
My D will be 18 in November - she is in the wrong grade here, but started in a school district where the Sept - Dec b’day kids had a choice. Preschool teacher insisted we send and we did. It worked out great; she is just where she should be academically and socially. Only issue was being the last to drive, but she survived. I do wonder about the last to turn 21 thing though.<br>
S (2015 HS) is June baby and we sent him “on time” on the advice of preschool teacher. Well, academically and socially all is well, but he is competing in sports against kids who are often 15 -18 months older since it is very common to hold even winter/spring boys back here. At this age, it matters! I wish the sports were by age, not grade. It’s just not a level playing field. Fortunately, S does fine, but he is eagerly awaiting his growth spurt!</p>
<p>Have to get to work - no time to chat - but wanted to report on something cute my parents did. Their graduation gift to D was two checks. The first was a check in the same amount as they gave Son two years ago. The second was for something like $10.35 as a “cost of living adjustment.”</p>