Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school keeping my child back a year

am I crazy to consider holding my 4 yr old back a year so that she will be a little older and better able to handle being bored? not sure if that makes sense or not?

I would consider keeping my child home for kinder but then putting them in first grade. Personally I don't think you're supposed to put them a grade behind. Some people think it helps. Everyone's got an opinion.

The logic seems counterintuitive to me, because if she's a year older and wiser, she's likely to be even more bored.

At that age, handling boredom isn't likely to improve with just a year, at least from what I've seen. I personally would never hold a child back for that reason, but we also chose to accelerate which a lot do not agree with either for our late summer birthday child.

Why are you concerned about her both being bored and also not being able to handle being bored? If you're worried about her being bored because she's gifted, holding her back a year isn't going to help - instead I'd be investigating what options you have for schooling in your area - is there a gifted program starting in K? Are there charter schools with alternate philosophies or curriculums that might provide good intellectual stimulation or creative/project-based learning or self-pacing etc? How good is your neighborhood school?

If you're worried because she doesn't handle boredom well now - what types of situations are problematic? Knowing a little bit about the details might help us a bit in answering. I found that at that age, a lot of behavior was situational for my kids. That doesn't mean we didn't have problems with boredom in school, just meant that what was challenging before they entered school didn't necessarily predict what happened when they actually were in school.

Best wishes,

polarbear