When I was 5 years old, my mother enrolled me in kindergarten at our neighborhood
school. I'm sure she didn't poll her friends to see if
they'd be enrolling their age eligible kids in kindergarten because for
the most part, she already knew.
Most of her friends were also enrolling their children in kindergarten
at their
neighborhood public school. If we were age eligible, we went. It's just
how it was done back then, at least in our middle class California
neighborhood. Sure, a few
went the private school route and a few more enlightened parents held
their autumn birthday children (especially boys) back a year; but in
doing so, they didn't conduct a massive search to find the "perfect"
kinder prep program in the frenzied manner we do today. In fact, the
children I know who sat out that first year, did most of the sitting
out at home, playing with their siblings. Had I been born an October
baby, I'm quite certain my parents would have enrolled me in
kindergarten nonetheless and off to kindergarten I might have marched,
a shy 4-year-old who might not have been quite ready.
Times Have Changed
In my four years of parenting my twins, I've gone to four different presentations on kindergarten readiness, polled 17 friends, read 781 (well, just about) related postings on parenting forums, toured 8 schools (so far), and read as many articles as I could find in the mainstream media. I've lost count of the number of times I've blurted out, "Great schools dot net!" I grimace at the term "red shirting." Everyone seems to know someone who regretted enrolling their developmentally young child in kindergarten, but few have heard of anyone who has regretted the choice to hold a child back. "We gave him the gift of a year, " they say. Additionally, we parents of multiples must decide whether or not to enroll our multiples in separate classes or whether to keep them together. My head is spinning from information overload.
So Many Opinions, So Many Choices
Given that I've done my research, do I know for sure what I'm going to do with my kindergarten eligible twins this fall? Uh, no. Complicating matters, I have boys (ding!) who are twins (ding! ding!) born in the fall (triple ding) who sometimes have social issue at preschool (GONG!). The one thing I do know, however, is that I will separate my twin boys in school. They need to develop their own set of friends. Then there's the economic climate, with financially strapped families sending their socially young children off to public school kindergarten because in these uncertain times, it feels secure to not have to worry about tuition. On the flip side, California's budget fiasco may see class sizes balloon beyond the 1:20 teacher to student ratio which, according to the San Jose Mercury News, is causing some families to choose to send their children to private schools. Unfortunately, our family cannot afford a Harker tuition (that's $32,250 at the high school level!) for even one of our children. So it's off to public school we may go, although I am considering affordable preschool alternatives with good junior K programs.
Your Young Einstein Must be Potty Trained
I've heard it said a thousand times that today's kindergarten is yesterday's first grade. That being said, a child who is academically ready for kindergarten may not thrive if he acts like a kid shows signs of "youngness" in the social arena (ability to focus, socialize with other children, regulate emotions, show self-sufficiency, separate from parent and so on.) Every teacher I've asked expressed a preference for autumn birthday children to not enter kindergarten until the following year. It's generally easier to teach without the distraction of having to monitor a socially young child.
The inner voice inside us parents would like educators to acknowledge that our children are bright. We want to scream: MY KID KNEW HER ABCs WHEN SHE WAS TWO! But teachers hear this all the time and what they want us to know is that teaching academics is the easy part - it's what they do - but the teaching and correcting of social behavior is far more difficult. And if a child is struggling socially, his issues will interfere with his and his classmates' ability to thrive in school and we want all children to succeed at school. Most 4-year-olds seem to not be developmental ready to handle the rigors of a structured classroom setting. For this reason, cities like Palo Alto have instituted a Young Fives program and psst...I bet some of those students are academic superstars! If Einstein had not been potty trained as a kindergarten bound kid in today's world, he would have had issues in public kinder. The one resounding piece of advice I have heard time and time again is that kindergarten is all about social readiness. Got a smart kid? Good, but is he potty trained?
California's Late Cutoff Date
In California, the cutoff date for kindergarten eligibility is December 2. Children must be age 5 on or before this date. The entrance age varies state to state with California among only a handful of states with a late cutoff date. There is a growing voice of opinion which thinks that such a late cutoff date sets these socially immature kids up for failure. Personally, although I wish the state would just move the date to September 1st and make the decision for me, I'm grateful to have been given this option during today's rocky economy. A year ago, I might have felt otherwise.
Despite all the noise on the kindergarten readiness
front, there are lots of families from all parts of society whose
children will be enrolled in kindergarten on the developmentally and/or
chronologically younger side. The reason for this varies, I assume. A
second grade teacher who teaches in a district that pulls students from
both sides of economic track, told me they spend many a meeting discussing the resulting "achievement gap"
in early childhood education. The age difference between the youngest
and
eldest child of the class may stretch to be as much as 15 months,
sometimes even
more. Yet despite not wanting to perpetuate the disparity, this same
teacher will not be sending her age eligible son off to kindergarten
this year; instead, he'll go back for another year of preschool. Yet
lower income families certainly cannot afford to give their children
the "gift of a
year." It seems like a bit of a luxury to be able to choose to pay for
another year of preschool.
Flip Flopping and the Economy
Of
course,
everything I've written above has been filtered through the
prism of my warped and tired mind. It's my experience - yours may be
different.
Each child and circumstance is different. Certainly, trends vary from
city to city. One day I say I'm sending my
boys off to kindergarten come fall; the next, I vow to hold them back.
I worry their "youngness" will show in kindergarten. I worry they'll be
bored back in preschool. I worry about the economy.
I weigh the pros and cons. I think I can find someone with a convincing
success story for every possible scenario. Then I still
have to decide which type of school I prefer for my twins: public,
co-op, charter,
religious, expensive versus affordable, etc, all of which conjures up a
whole new set of voices in my head. Still, what puts this all into
perspective for me is, unfortunately, the economy. I may just have to
send my kids off to public kindergarten this year, whether my kids are
ready or not. I can argue both sides of the kindergarten readiness
debate until I'm blue in the face, but from a purely financial
standpoint, sending my kids off to public kindergarten at age 4 may
make the most sense.
I just wish my twins had been born in March rather than October; they'll either be among the youngest or among the oldest in their class, neither of which is ideal for my twins, in my opinion. But as I can't change their birthday, I'll have to make a decision sometime this summer. A lot can happen between now and then and of course, I'm hoping that the economy improves. One thing is certain, my mother would be shocked at the challenges we parents face at the kindergarten level.
Cross-posted to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles from Mad About Multiples.
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