We decided to Hold - Just Deal With It

My youngest was born 7 years ago August 15. Hours after delivery my sister-in-law asked me "Are you going to send him to Kindergarten or hold him when he is five?' I looked at her like she was crazy and rolled my eyes. As the years passed in a blink though I began to grasp the enormity of the question.

L makes the school age cutoff by a mere 16 days. Depending on what we decided he would either be the oldest or youngest in his grade. Our decision "to send" or "not" and the repercussions of both could affect his self-esteem and school success for years, maybe for life. For a while it felt like L's whole life would be defined by what we decided. Total stress!

We finally decided to hold him and begin kindergarten late. At 7 and 2 weeks he just started first grade. Which BTW is the cause of an untold number of unsolicited opinions from friends, family and oddly enough complete strangers. It seems like everyone has a strongly held opinion on the subject of "to-hold-or-not-to-hold" and I apparently look like I want to hear it. I don't.

"We sent our daughter and she has done just fantastic. She is president of her class and is getting all straight A's....." - This comes from parents who decided to send their children even though they fall very close to the cutoff. Somehow our holding L is a challenge to their decision. If it worked for them then we should assume it would have worked for us and we are doing L a dis-service by holding him.

"So your kid is 1 year older than everyone?" - This typically comes from parents who have children in the later half of the year and feel we are giving our son some sort of unfair advantage thereby directly making their kid's journey through school more difficult.

"We didn't hold our son in kindergarten and now in middle school he is struggling socially. We're seeing behavior issues as he tries to keep up with an older crowd. You are totally doing the right thing." - This comes from parents who decided to send their children even though they fall very close to the cutoff and for whatever reason they think they made the wrong decision.

"He's so smart. He'll be bored." - This typically comes from grandparents, relatives and friends who think today's parents over-protect our children. Back in their day you played the hand you were dealt. We are therefore coddling L.

Right or wrong we held him. That was our decision. I know it seems crazy but your child did not come into our decision making process. We did research and based OUR decision on OUR child, OUR circumstances and OUR values.

Not that it matters but we're talking 16 days. I have no way of knowing where the other path would have taken us. I am tired of having to justify the path we're on. It has been three years can we just move on? I truly and sincerely wish you the best on your path but stay the hell off of ours.