I don't know about now... but back when I started school in CA, the cut off was Sept sometime because everyone with Sept B-days were the youngest in the class, and I, with my Dec. b-day was one of the oldest. They gave my mom the option to let me start earlier, but she didn't want me to be like THE youngest person for my grade and do EVERYTHING after everyone else. I didn't mind being on the olderside actually.

I think like everything, it really depends on the child. My son starts kindergarten in 2 weeks- he just turned 5 in July. His school's age cut-off is August 1st, so he will more than likely be the youngest in his class. However, when we mentioned to both his preschool teacher and his pediatrician that we were considering holding him back a year, both of them told us to seriously reconsider.

Why? Because my son tends to pick up on concepts fairly quickly and as his preschool teacher said- he has already mastered everything he needs to know in preschool. Holding him out another year would just make him really bored at preschool. And boys when they are bored tend to act out and not listen- and kids that act out and don't listen can very easily be labeled as ADHD or ADD.

My Ped. said she sees more and more kids being brought in to see her because a teacher has suggested ADD or ADHD when in fact, they are just bored and acting out.

So yes, when he is in middle school, he might not go through puperty at the same time as his friends, but some kids are late bloomers and some are early. We won't know until we get there!

my b-day was always during the 1st week of school (in august) but i was never the youngest kid in class. i think we had people with b-days as late as mid-january... so maybe back in the day the cutoff was feb 1? or maybe more people "skipped" grades back then?

If the parents have the right to hold their kids back for a year even if the birthdate is before the cutoff, parents should also have the right to have their slightly too-young kids tested for kindergarten readiness.

They do have that right.

I started school overseas (military brat). The cutoff stateside was September 1. For DoD schools it was December 31. I made it by 2 days. Parents can ask that their child be tested if they want to start them early. I was a smart kid. I lost most of that smartness when I got to college though, lol..

Parents do not have the right to request early entrance in all school systems. It depends on the policies of the system.

so much for parents knowing their children best. I would have no problem with all kids going through a kindergarten readiness evaluation. If they pass, they are in. If not, then a pre-K readiness program.

I don't think parents always do know their children best. Some parents think their kids are Einstein, Ghandi and Fred Astaire rolled into one when they can barely put their pants on.

FR, your son MADE the cutoff. He'll have other kids in his class that will be his same birth month. It would be different if he wasn't turning 5 until February or March of 2008 and you wanted him to start kindergarten this fall.

Again, when one makes the assumption that all 4 1/2 yo children are not ready for a structured kindergarten, one is assigning an arbitrary maturity level to certain age groups. There are kids (not mine) who are born in the early spring of the following year that are ready for kindergarten at 4 years, 6 months. Having a kindergarten readiness test available for these kids will determine if the kid is truly gifted/precocious as opposed to what the parents think.

The difficulty here becomes evident when choosing whom to allow to take the test in the first place. If you argue that saying four and a half is an arbitrary figure agewise, then under that same argument, someone with an extremely bright and gifted three-year-old might think her child deserved to take the readiness test and, assuming the child passed the test, start kindergarden with the rest of the five- and six-year-olds. Physically and developmentally, it is more obvious to see where three years of age is nowhere near ready to start school with these children regardless of mental capacity; however, the lines are blurred when the age in question approaches closer and closer to the norm for kindergarden, which is usually five years old. I'm personally a fan of the September 1 cutoff, which is pretty standard in my area and AFAIK in my state as a whole.

I don't know if all the GA public schools have the Sept. 1 cutoff but a lot of the private schools have a later date. I like that. Several other fall birthday girls and I formed the majority of the top reading group all the way through school. While Sept. 1 works for most kids (especially boys), there are many of us out there who were glad to be able to get around it--we needed to be in school early.

Our cutoff in Michigan is December 1st but they are continually talking about moving it back to September 1st. In our school district, kids take a readiness test if their birthday is after December 1st. You could fight for your child to take it a little bit earlier if you wanted to. Kids who don't pass the test go to Young 5's. The test includes an evaluation of social maturity as well as intellectual achievement and fine motor skills. My daughter's birthday is in mid January so she is one of the oldest in her class. She was advanced in all areas except fine motor skills. I chose not to have her take the test early because of the fine motor skills although she was reading long before she went to kindergarten. She is at the top of her class always and that's not a bad thing. I don't know if she would be at the top of her class if she was a grade ahead. I like the Young 5's concept in our district. If a child does extremely well in Young 5's, they sometimes go to first grade afterward. Most start kindergarten after Young 5's though. Development is so varied that a skill can suddenly appear or a child may mature in spurts. So, they may not pass the kindergarten readiness test but after one year, they may be ready for first grade. Flexibility is good. No matter what the cutoff date is though, there is potentially a difference in age of 364 days between the oldest and the youngest and that year can definitely make a difference.

In my mom's day, they had two classes each year. One started in September and one started in January. They graduated at different times. This seems like it would make things more individualized for each group, but it also seems like some aspects of it would be terribly complicated.

Hmmm, I lost my post. :mad: I should have started school at 6.5 instead of 5.5....

If you have a kid who will miss the cut-off AND you think he/she is ready, enroll him/her into the closest university laboratory school. Those schools (at least the one my siblings, my inlaw sibs, and I have encountered in various states) are much more concerned with intellectual ability as opposed to chronological age.

I hated being one of the youngest in my classes all the way K-16.

What's the hurry? I'm sure people told my parents that I was "ready" for kindergarten at 4 1/2, but they knew I'd still be ready at 5. They declined an offer to allow me to jump forward a year because they didn't want me to get ahead of myself. Plus, they were aware that every year counts when you're that little as far as personal development and social skills go.

As much flack as I get now from clients who had no idea that I'd be "so young," I don't want to imagine what it would be like if I was a year or two younger.

In some areas, the opposite situation is occuring--some parents want their children to be in the top reading group, and to be better athletes than their classmates, so they're holding them back a year and enrolling them in enrichment classes or sports camps to achieve that goal.

My eldest daughter was reading at 3 (taught herself, really) and at 5 was reading at a 1st grade level. Her birthday is Dec. 9. When I talked to the headmaster at the private school she was to attend, he asked if I wanted her to go to college at 17. Good point, I thought. She might be ready then, she might not. So I didn't enroll her at 4.
She went to a wonderful pre-school, read tons of books, and went to kindergarten months shy of 6. She did great - and all things considered, I'm glad I didn't "push". I think you need to ask yourself what is going to benefit your child on all fronts - not just scholastic.
As an aside, she has been home schooled since 6th grade, and her ACT score is in the top 5%. She is actually a very mature young lady - more than ready for college (though I'm not, necessarily!) and I think the extra year out of the system benefited her. That said, it's a call for a parent to make with input from the school, I think.

Hmmm....I'm one of those who swing back and forth. I spent my entire childhood clinging to my mother for dear life and she tried to make me as independent as possible. Now, she, and everyone else, are telling me that I'm too young to really be independent and that I have my whole life to learn how to support myself. :confused: I'd rather work and support myself, but my parents won't hear of it (and, to be honest, I enjoy living comfortably). So, I have a job and can provide for my own personal expenses, food and whatnot, but that's really it. My mom invited herself to come with me when I move to my new apartment by my grad school next week (a cross-country move). This is my first apartment without roommates, so she wants to help me move in and I don't mind. It's like a mother-daughter thing, decorating my first place by myself. But I'm driving her to the airport before I go to orientation--I'M NOT TAKING MY MOMMY TO GRADUATE SCHOOL. NO.

After this program is over, I plan to be financially independent of my parents. I think it really depresses them to hear me say "I don't need your help" and that's partially way I'm not more insistent about it (the other part is I like having minimal resposibility because I know, once it's gone, it's gone). But I don't want to be one of those spoiled little girls who wake up one day, 28 and married, and her parents are still paying her part of the rent.

I was enrolled in a laboratory school when I was 4. I attended kindergarten there at Stoner Hill Elementary Laboratory School (that was a mouthful, and now that I'm older, a really funny name). But we moved from LA after I completed kindergarten to SC. I was 5, and the state law was that you had to be 6 by October 1 to be enrolled in 1st grade. My mom made a mini-fuss, and the principal of my new school tested me. She said I was ready to roll into first grade, but the law was clear. So, mom piped down. I don't really guess I missed very much, but now I have a great story that I had to repeat kindergarten. Go figure.

Ditto.

(August 31 birthday here with a September 1 cutoff!)

What are "fine motor skills"? Tying a bow & things like that? I could read before I started kindergarten, but I couldn't tie a bow till I was almost 7. I could do other things, just not that. It was some sort of freaky mental block, I guess.

If you wnt to read more about this topic, it is being discussed here. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/...69#post4541169

So you were the kid with the velcro sneakers?!

So what if she was? Lots of 7 year olds have velcro sneakers. Why are you always picking on the ASAs?

Back on topic... I was "young" for my grade - my bday is Sept. 9th., our cut off was Sept. 30th. There were a couple kids younger than me- on in particular had a birthday in November - she went to private school kindergarten because the public school wouldn't allow her in because of her age, but then went to public school starting in first grade. She was certainly capable- she was in the gifted program with me.

If the cutoff were different, I would hope that my parents would've put me in private school as well. But back then (mid 80's) the helicoptering trend wasn't quite as strong. I was ready, but a lot of other kids wouldn't have been. I would've been bored and probably would've ended up skipping a grade along the way if I had started a year later.

Yes, I got my driver's license later than almost everyone else and couldn't drink legally until my senior year of college. But that wasn't too big of a deal.

My parents always allowed my brother and I to be very independent, and I thank them for that. Both of us are in good shape financially and have good jobs. I have friends and acquaintances who are up to to their eyeballs in debt because their parents always bail them out.

My boyfriend has a friend who is in his early 30's, has had numerous DUIs (thankfully never hurting anyone... he's in bad shape). He lives in Colorado. His parents allow him to stay on their car insurance because he'd never be able to get/afford it on his own.

That collegeconfidential message board is the biggest gathering of helicopter parents on the planet. It is disgusting how crazy some of these parents are. And we see a good amount of helicopter parenting here on GC as well...

I'm too old for velcro sneakers, silly...and even if I had been, I wouldn't have been making that fashion faux pas.

Munchkin03 - there was a documentary called "Go Tigers!" about a school/town in Ohio that absolutely revolve around the HS football team. Parents routinely held boys back from starting kindergarten, even if they were well past the cutoff, so they'd be bigger and more physically mature when it was time for them to try out for the team. It was crazy. Although I'm sure there are plenty of people around here who do the same thing.

:D

I loved my velcro sneakers. They had the Little Mermaid on them. And, they helped me make sure I had them on the right foot because I always knew the tabs went to the outside of the shoe.

For her, it was writing, tying, etc. While she wasn't delayed in those areas, she wasn't advanced as she was with reading and math concepts. Interestingly, I had similar issues in 1st grade with my poor writing and coloring and my teacher gave my mom a list of crafts to have me do at home to further things along (like one of those loop looms to make pot holders). I still enjoy crafts!

ETA: My kids had the disadvantage of having an Occupational Therapist for a mom. I was constantly doing developmental testing on them, starting from birth with that Babinski reflex and pretty much always knew exactly where they were developmentally.

That would probably be Massillon, OH. A former coach at the high school was a guy named Woody Hayes, I think.

"Back in the day," there were several huge football schools in Ohio including Cleveland East Tech, Cincinnati Princeton, Cincinnati Mohler (Notre Dame recruited Gerry F aust as head coach from the same job at Mohler -- which did not turn out well) and others. All of the Columbus schools were heavily into football, being in the figurative shadow of Ohio Stadium.

On a different subject, I think that the Columbus Public Schools must have worked off a calendar year for admissions for a while, because I dated a girl who was born on December 31 and she was the youngest kid in school for her entire K-12 career.

Going along with something we were discussing earlier in the thread...I had a really cute overall/shortall outfit picked out for the toddler this morning, and she had other ideas, and went to the sitters in pink flannel pajama bottoms and a purple t-shirt. I did, however, convince her to wear her sandals instead of her "clap shoes" (they're really just white dress shoes, but the older girls at the babysitters have tap shoes, so that's what she thinks they are) because they were tearing her feet up, since she wouldn't wear socks/tights with them.

Hey- at least she has flair!

My son just about lost it when I explained that his new school has a dress code and he will have to wear blue pants/shorts and a solid color polo-type shirt every day. He said he's not ready to give up his spiderman tee shirts yet. One more week!

Everytime Mariana sees something Spiderman, she yells "Mommy, Baby John likes that Spiderman". I always quietly think to myself that he's 9 months old, he has no idea who or what Spiderman is.

And one more cute Spiderman story...there was a woman who ran a "Children's Church" between services at my church, and she would take prayer requests from the kids...please pray for my dog/grandma/sister/mom/dad/etc. Well, she got to her own son, and he proudly said "I want to pray for Spiderman...".