Some parents a "red shirting" their kids....

I live in the same state as you. We are one of the states where kindergarten is not mandatory. I think that kindergarten is a good building block for the rest of a child's school years. Some children however do not need it. My son needed it. My daughter may not. She is pretty advance right now and if she continues to learn things as fast as she has been then she might be one of the ones who could do without it.

In the state where we lived when the kids were at the age to start kindergarten it wasn't mandatory to start them when they hit the kindergarten age, When I went to register my grandson they offered to test any children if the parents wanted to see if they were ready for school. Well I had been trying to teach my grandson the alphabet for over a year and he just wasn't learning them. So decided to have him tested. Learning the alphabet and learning to read can be compared to learning to crawl and to walk. Not all kids are ready to crawl to walk at the same time,so why do we assume that they are all ready or mature enough to learn to read at the age of 5. So we kept him back that year and when he started the next year he took off with a bang and has been doing well every since. not all kids are ready for school at the same time. In My opinion they should all be tested to make sure that they are. When they are not ready it is a real struggle for them and they will become one of those statictics of the drop outs.

Yes! I was happy when my children were both able to start school later than many, as their birthdays just fell in that range.. I feel the push is on for children to start school sooner and sooner.. and some even want year round school. (If they do this they should make the days shorter and do away with most homework!) - Nowadays many folks are convinced (or are being convinced) they are deprived if there isn't head start for their children. I think kids should be kids! And not always under the tutelage of the state.

My son went to Kindergarten and lost ground. He had been in an excellent daycare program to be put in a kindergarten program where kids did not know colors or shapes, what he had learned in daycare was only used at home - he knew how to add, subtract and the fundamentals of multiplication and division from home life and day care. His teacher in 1st grade wanted to see how many kids could count to 25 and instead he demonstrated the fundamentals of algebra from one I had done with him at home. Kindergarten can also be a place that brings a smart kid down. He was also ADHD and got in trouble because he was bored out of his mind. It is based on the kid and a good preschool program can be more of an asset then school

I would consider this if I thought my children were not mentally and physically ready for Kindergarten....but the fact is, here where I live Kindergarten is only a few hours a day so a normal 5 year old should have been given enough through the past years to go. And if the child is not ready....then maybe there is a bigger issue at hand and maybe actually sending the child will help them more then keeping them at home...Just a thought

My son is in 1st grade. I live in a state where Kindergarten is not mandatory. I went ahead and registered him anyway last year thinking that it would be good for him. Well we stuck with it for 3 months. My son was a young 5 year old. He was actually the youngest in his class. And this year is still the youngest in his class. So school had started and I sent him. He hated it of course. lol. I mostly thought it was just him missing me, that he had never been apart with me. So I made him stick with it. And as the weeks passed he got stranger and stranger in his personality. He became so distant from everyone. And as days, weeks, months passed things just became worse. So I made the decision to pull him out. There were 40 kids in the class and the teacher was just mean to them all the time. So this year when September came I had him enrolled in a catholic school. Theres only 23 students in the class including him. He's doing much better. He's in first grade and doing really well. He just wasn't ready for kindergarten last year mentally it was taking it's toll on him. I still believe I did the right thing.

Newer ideas are coming up each year and I think they are just adding to the confusion. Here in India, our old Hindu system was to start educating the child from age 5. Then with British rule and western education, there were the nurseries in all school, kind of in-built kindergarten type. I attended school from 3yrs onwards when the system was nursery 1 at 3+, nursery 2 at 4+ and nursery 3 at 5+ and then standard 1 at 6+. This is still followed widely in many school across India but the problem is that kindergarten or Montessori is starting before 3+ age i.e. parents are now sending their children to kindergarten or prep schools from 18 months to 2yrs itself so that the child is ‘prepared’ to spend time with outsiders and can get ‘admission’ to the kindergarten level of a good school. I have done the same with my son, he attended a Montessori for about a year from age 2+ and then was admitted to the kindergarten of the school he now attends. Every system has its pros and cons and this is not exception. Ideally, children should be home-schooled till at least 4 or 5 years and then sent to a proper school but this early mixing with adults and other children of the outside world has its benefits too.

I'm in the UK and I believe our educational system to be a little different to yours. Kindergarten is not manditory here. We have the choice of whether to send our kids there, and they can be sent from the age of two years, if they are potty trained. I think it's a good idea to send them to kindergarten because they learn to socialise with the other kids, and learn about shapes, volume, water displacement, etc, which gives them a good start. After kindergarten, at the age of four, you can register them in the Nursery Class at the school, but for the first month, they only attend from 9 a.m. to 12 noon, after which, they go full time, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. This kind of weans them onto school work. The Nursery Class has books, abacus, and similar toys to those in kindergarten, but they are taught to use a computer, with young, educational games on it. When they're five, they start school proper. I really think this is a good system. Are your kids five when they start school, and do they go straight in, full-time, into classwork? Sorry to be inquisitive but I'm interested to learn these things. Brightest Blessings.

Kindergarden here is only half days, and when i started school i think it was only every second day.. but we called it grade primary back then. We just learned alphebets and begining to read and our colours. . I think a lot of kids that are in daycare learn that even earlier now a day, and i am teaching my daughter her colours shapes and alphabets now to get her used to everything. . she knows the colour orange but she can' say the colour, she says O, i think its cause an ORANGE is actually ORANGE, and we eat them often ;) My hubby just informed me that we have Junior kindergarden/preschool here in this provnce that is optional. . lol my kids are not that old yet.. he has a son that is 4 that lives with his mom.

i did wait the extra year to start my son in kindergarten because a doctor told me to wait. and at the time i was ok with it he was my first and i hated to see him go but if i had to do it all over again no way i wouldn't do it. he is now 7 and in first grade and when we were in oklahoma he was doing great in school but now that we are home he is not doing so well and up until friday i was so worried he was gonna fail and then he would of been 8 and in first grade. his teather is saying she thinks he is bord and that he can do his work and is very smart but each week they will stay on one thing in each subject and she says after monday he just starts slacking and she thinks its because he is bord with it. so i think if i would of started him sooner he would be in second grade and things would be more of a challenge for him.

This should be left to the parents i think in some cases it is a good idea if the child just is not ready for school other times i think some children would excell at going ealier.

If I were a parent my answer would be NO! As you well have observed, this country on the whole is in many areas far behind other countries educationally. I seriously believe that our system takes too long to educate students on subject matter and it has set a pattern of "I'll get to that in time." Life wasn't that fast changing when I was young yet the seeds of change had already entered the classroom. Students from the east coast were ahead of us on the west and students from other countries were on average 3 grades ahead of us in course studies. A major contributor to our decline as a leading source in industry, arts, science, et al. is our lowering of education's priority. I went to pre-school. Hated it. Didn't like being away from home. Who the he11 were these people?! And how dare they spank me! They're not my mom! So I walked back home at the age of 4 a number of times until mom explained to me why I needed to stay there. So I stayed cuz she wanted me to. But after I got over the culture shock, I found myself excited and eager to learn things. I got very hungry for new and different stuff. Eventually, I was sad to go home. The time flew by and I had no desire to interrupt what I was doing. In hindsight, I see this as a very good beginning and adjusting period for what was to come later - kindergarten. I had no problem with going. No fear of being away from home. No fear of new people, new location, new hours. I was eager to go to this place that had all kinds of stuff I didn't know about. It was GREAT to be away from home! A very happy camper I was! It set me up for a great learning experience. Until high school when everything was a repeat of junior high or lower. And they took way too long to move on to the next subject. And that's when my interest and eagerness in going to school plummeted. No, I'm not everyone. But the serious vast majority of my classmates were of the same ilk when it came to learning. And very few of us didn't have pre-school and none come to mind that didn't have kindergarten. If the education system were to take advantage of the eagerness of young minds to learn and keep the pace fast enough to the young, short attention spanned minds so that they don't get bored, I am sure we as a nation would very well benefit from it. So no, I don't believe in holding back a child in education.

In an attempt to be fair instead of judgmental, I think it has a lot to do with the child. One one hand, you are essentially sneaking in an extra year for the kids to grow and develop. You can teach them during this year so when they start school they are better prepared and do better in their classes. Starting off on the right foot academically can be handy if you live in a small town where the teachers can discuss the good and bad students in the breakroom. So long as your kid gets a reputation as a good kind instead of a bad on, you are ahead of the curve. You add another year to a kid's childhood. That gives them more time to enjoy being a kid without worries about school. When they get to highschool or play any sports with peers of their age, they are stronger and faster because they are a bit older. This is another advantage. What they lose is less concrete. Essentially, they wait another year to start their professional careers. This can, in some instances, take away from their savings for retirement. I don't know if this is a tremendously pressing issue. They might be a bit teased .. being older than the other kids, asked if they were 'held back' etc.. All and all, I guess I cannot see any strong detractions. Hrm.

I've known plenty of people who waited the extra year, usually when their child's birthday was just before the cut off date for kindergarten, and the child was 'young' for his age. Also, if they were less mature than most of the other children going to kindergarten. I have heard that there is not much benefit to doing this, but it seemed to be good for some of these children. They did well once they went to kindergarten since they had the extra year to prepare and to grow up a little. I would consider doing this if I feel my son is not ready when the time comes. If he is emotionally immature, or does not have the skills that will help him be successful in kindergarten, such as being able to follow directions. If he continues on the same path he is on now, I believe he will be ready. He is almost 18 months old, and he can follow directions, he listens well (most of the time) and has excellent communication skills. But you never know what may happen- it is still a long way off. I will keep an open mind as the time for kindergarten approaches.

Personally, I don't see the difference between starting Kinder at 5 or 6. When I was young (I am 29) people had their kids in pre-school and Kinder started at 5. With so many people working and kids being in daycare, kids are in a learning environment similar to Kinder. Before my son was in Pre-K4, he was in a daycare where they were doing letters, writing their name, etc a "school prep" program.