Kindergarten: Ready or Not?

It’s that time of year again when strangers look at my daughter and say, “How old are you?” 

            “Six,” she’ll reply.

            “Ah, you must be going into First- Grade.” 

            Then I feel it, the slight irritation, and say, “She just turned six so she is going into Kindergarten.”  Or I’ll just stew over it and it leave it alone.  Sometimes all they’ll say is “You’re tall for your age.”  In fact one woman with an especially small child said, “You’ll be the tallest girl in your class!”  You don’t usually seem to get these kinds of comments or even think about them when kids start moving into second-grade or above.

I remember hearing a friend talk about a mother she knew saying how she couldn’t believe that the mom had waited to send her daughter to Kindergarten until the next year and that she just wanted to avoid going back to work.  I kind of thought that was harsh and looked at my daughter just a few years from Kindergarten thinking I don’t think I’ll tell you my decision.  Before I even considered if my daughter was ready or not a child near us who’s birthday was in September was told by the Elementary School that she should wait until next year to start and I am ashamed to say, thought, “What’s wrong with her?”  Why do many people assume that it’s the age that determines Kindergarten and not the readiness?   

 It’s the time of year when I begin to doubt the tough decision of last year when my daughter had just turned five and seemed way to young and not really wanting to sit down and write for too long to go into five days a week of Kindergarten.  So after advice from her preschool teachers to wait and many hours of fretting and weighing the options we finally decided to wait until next year.  This year I thought in the span of a person’s life, what does it matter if a person graduates at 17 or 18?  I can only think and have heard that it is actually a positive thing to not be too young especially in middle school and high school when it becomes much more socially, and emotionally difficult.  When we went for our meeting at school I was told it was nice to see someone wait if that was the right decision for that child because most parents feel the pressure to keep up with the neighbors and send their child ready or not.  I also spoke to the pediatrician about school readiness and she said she can say she’s never heard anyone say they regretted waiting to send their child to school.

Another thing that is often assumed is that if you have a boy and he is young then you have more of a reason to wait to send him until his is older.  I have heard this many times in discussions with moms.  They always say, “Well he’s a boy so were going to wait.”  Maybe boys like to run and play and be rough and that’s not really conducive to sitting down and writing your ABC’s but many girls like to do that also.  Many girls like to play outside and have a tough time sitting down for too long with a pencil in hand.  It’s not really a child’s sex that determines their readiness just our assumptions about what a boy or a girl is supposed to require.  Girls are supposed to sit quietly and play with dolls, and have tea parties while boys play with trucks and trains, get dirty and just won’t stay away from the bugs.  Boys and girls don’t play together.  Well I can tell you that my daughter loves all that.  She loves dolls, tea parties, cars, trains, playing with ants and with both her girl and boy friends.  She often asks before we run off in the jogger stroller, “Can I take the ant with me?” 

“No,” I reply.  “Just leave it behind.” 

I don’t think we can assume that just because we gave our girls lots of quiet dolls and the boy’s race cars that spin around on fast moving tracks that either sex is more ready for school.

I was afraid last year when my daughter’s best friend was entering into Kindergarten that it would affect their relationship if we waited.   I was also secretly afraid that it would affect my friendship with her mom, my friend who I adore.

 In the end my husband and I made the decision we felt was best for our daughter and it hasn’t negatively affected anything.  My daughter is ready and excited to go to school.  She is not going to be one of the youngest kids in her class.  She is not scared and I won’t be pushing her out the door crying.  I might not even be crying.  We will be rejoicing in the fact that this year she is ready, and excited to start the next wonderful journey of her life.