This was written by a mama in my 2013 Mothers of Triplets Facebook group. It addresses the issue of whether or not you should wait to send your child(ren) to kindergarten when they have summer birthdays and are barely five. As a former primary teacher, I saw so many benefits to waiting. And I always thought that’d be the route we’d go with our boys, especially with the issues we had early on with their speech/language, behavior, and emotional/social delays.
But now, after almost 2 years of preschool, they have grown so much! And they ROCK at school. They listen and follow directions, they interact and play with their classmates appropriately. Academically, they’re brilliant. Each of them has been reading to varying degrees for over a year now. They know their numbers. They can write. They know their address and phone number. Hell, they can name all the planets in our solar system (even the dwarf planets).
I recently picked up a brochure at their school...”Is your child ready for kindergarten?” They met all the criteria in the brochure. Their teachers continually remind me that they’re ready and that they’ll thrive in kindergarten.
Yet, I continue to second guess myself. I have several other friends with children who have summer birthdays and I feel like they’re all waiting. We seem to be in the minority by sending them. Are we making the right decision? Is there something I’m not thinking about here that I should?
I don’t know why this is eating at me so much. Part of me thinks I’m just not ready to send my babies off to school all day. But then another part of me just keeps questioning...are we going to regret sending them so early?
