I am trying to decide whether to let my son attend kindergarten early this year. He will be turning 5 in October, which is past the cutoff for regular public kindergarten. However, he could attend a private kindergarten and advance to public first grade next year. The private school where I enrolled him for pre-K is recommending acceleration; they say he's already on almost a first grade level in math and beyond that for reading.

I agreed to the switch, but now I have some reservations. My main concern is that his physical development is not as advanced -- he doesn't ride a bike without training wheels, for example, and he's a little bit shorter than the others in his kindergarten class. Am I setting him up to be the kid that always gets picked last for sports? I've heard that young children judge each other on their physical characteristics, so the taller kids are usually the popular kids.

My son is also introverted -- he never makes the first move. He's been in the kindergarten class for a week but hasn't really made a friend yet. Would he be better off in pre-K with his best buddy?

Right now I'm leaning toward pulling him out of kindergarten and back to pre-K, so that he can be one of the tall kids. Is this a sound idea? Our public school does have a gifted program (though I don't know much about it).