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...".