I've got a child who is young for his grade, and the alternative placement would have been unbelievably inappropriate. His borderline birthday turned out to be a stroke of luck.
I've thought the same thing a few times especially about my older one. Both of my girls made the cut off by days and the youngest only b/c one district pushed the cut-off out by two weeks the year she started making her eligible that year whereas she wouldn't have been in years prior.
I was unaware that people held kids out a year until my oldest started and I started hearing from people that she was too young and should wait a year for K. I'll always remember calling our neighborhood school to ask the principal about this. She told me that "the younger students
invariably fail" and that being younger would get harder and harder academically as she got older. I believe the final words from her were something about how she'd need remediation in K and throughout school and I would be doing her a great disservice starting her that year. Having learned more later, I know that pretty much everything she told me was baloney and I can't tell you how glad I am that we didn't wait especially since she wound up skipping a grade later even with having started on time.
I'd agree that your son not having the good luck to fall on the younger side of that cut-off does make it seem even that much better of an idea to move him ahead.
