Hi, I am hoping to get some feedback from anyone whose child entered Kindergarten early, or anyone who had the opportunity and decided against it, or . . . well, anyone, really. I am stuck and there aren't a lot of people I can talk to about this in person without feeling like I am coming off as bragging about my son.
DS is 4.5 years old, and has a late October birthday. Our state has a September 30 cutoff for K. With the rising popularity of redshirting boys I was kind of glad to have a child who would be old for his grade without being held back. Now I have read a lot about the lack of proof that redshirting is helpful, plus the reason behind the trend seems to be the study cited in The Outliers . . . about birthdays of successful hockey players in Canada? What does this have to do with kindergarten again?
Our school system has a pre-K gifted program. Children who qualify attend a three-hour class once a week during the school year. To test in you answer some questions, have the child's preschool teacher fill out some paperwork, then send it all in and wait to be called for a testing appointment with the psychologist. The paperwork was all sent in by mid-November, but it sounds like they had a backlog so we did not get an appointment for testing until the beginning of March.
He did well on the tests (WJ-III and RIAS I think?) and qualified for the program by a wide margin (a couple of the subtests he scored in the 99.9+ percentile).
The meeting to get his full results was not until early May. As the psychologist went over his results with me, she asked, "so he's going to kindergarten in August, right?" I pointed out that his birthday is a month after the cutoff so we did not plan to send him. She strongly urged me to consider early entrance. I did not even know it was a possibility -- we only did the testing so he could do the happy little half-day each week and be identified as gifted before starting K next year. With the fact that he's only a few weeks shy of the cutoff and beyond academically ready as it is, she said waiting another year will pretty much guarantee he will be bored and possibly lead to behavior issues down the line. I see the point. I was bored in elementary school and got in trouble for my behavior around 5th/6th grade. And I am sure DS is far brighter at his age than I was. Early entrance is on a trial basis for the first grading period. After the trial period is done, the parents/teacher/school psychologist meet to decide whether to continue or not. I worry that if we did early entrance and it didn't work out he'd have lingering negative feelings toward school next year.
My main reservation is that kindergarten is full-day, 8-3. Those are some long days and I know DS will be worn-out and wretched afterward. He is currently in preschool 9-3 two days per week. He's actually switching schools this summer because the school where he was requires pre-k students to attend 5 days to "get them ready for kindergarten". He likes his school but since I know he's fine academically I didn't see the use in sending him every day before I really had to.
His behavior at school is generally fine (occasional reports of not listening, etc.) but sometimes I think six hours of being good makes him extra crazy afterwards. He's in a major defiant/button-pushing phase and will hit/bite/yell at us when we tell him to do something he does not want to do. Again, he's not doing this stuff at school but I worry that so many hours will push him over the edge at school and/or we will have a kid who is constantly miserable to deal with at home.
AND . . . it sounds contrary to the crazy behavior, but DS can also be overly sensitive to what he perceives as rough play, pointing fingers for guns and things like that. I know boys are boys and he will probably encounter more of that in K. However, bombs are evidently a-ok with him as that is his usual source of destruction of any block creation. He's also still clingy most days when I take him to preschool, but he's fine when I leave.
I wish we had half-day kindergarten, I would do it in a heartbeat then. To summarize:
+ Very bright kid, not far past age cutoff, fairly big for age so no worries about being obviously younger.
- Very emotional/sensitive kid, may be somewhat emotionally immature for his age, grouchy after long days and may leave giant teeth marks on mom's arm as a result.
I wish we had gotten the testing done sooner so I had longer to figure things out.
I am terrified of making the wrong decision, but I don't have a crystal ball to tell me the right thing to do . . . help!
