Holding Back: Why Our Five-Year-Old Isn't Going to Kindergarten

Monday was a big "first day of school" picture day on Facebook. We did not participate. We did celebrate a "first day of second grade," with photo documents and colorful signage as proof; we just didn't post them anywhere. Not because we're that worried about our daughter's privacy or believe that she is now fodder for a new wave of cyber terrorism. We may have just forgotten, or maybe it will be part of a "can't believe how she grew in just 9 months" montage come early June. Or because her brother isn't going to kindergarten this year and we don't want to draw his attention to it.

There were decidedly fewer "Held out of kindergarten this year" signs showing up on my feed today, though if we were so inclined, we could have pulled one off. We held our middle child-- all 5 years, 1 month of him-- out of kindergarten this year. It was not a frivolous decision-- this is one we struggled with for a while, back and forth, over and over. Right or wrong?

His July birthday puts him at the younger edge of the kindergarten class of 2014-15. In our opinion, this would put him at a disadvantage compared to his other classmates. Not for his entire academic career, but for the all-important first 3-4 years, up to third grade, when students generally get frustrated easier and begin to hate school.

The disadvantages aren't severe. Intellectually, he probably could handle the workload. And if they've added recognizing state shapes or translating hideous Curious George bleats into English to the kindergarten curriculum, he may have graduated this year with honors. He passed the 10-minute test administered to him at registration in March, even though his drawing of "Daddy playing baseball" looks exactly like his printed capital R. But there are other, less discernible factors weighing into the decision...areas that are often overlooked when green
lighting kids for kindergarten that won't show up in a 10-minute registration session.

• Social and Emotional Factors -- He gets frustrated easily when things aren't going his way, or when things aren't perfect, to which the dent in the wall after a third-place finish in a family game of Trouble will attest. Poor sportsmanship aside, he also gets frustrated when he can't do things and, as we'll see in a second, there are quite a few things he can't do. In Day Care, he also tended to play with the younger kids anyway. Why throw him in with a bunch of older kids then and let him feel like the low man on the totem pole?

• Physical Factors -- As we found out in a well visit to the doctor a month ago, this kid has inherited all of his father's physical shortcomings. He's on pace to learn how to tie his shoes in 4th grade. More importantly, at his first Occupational Therapy visit, a test of hand strength revealed he actually has no muscles in his arms. (Not really, but he scored a 0, whatever that means.) He has been working with his Occupation Therapist to build hand strength by threading beads with one hand, lacing string through cardboard, and pulling small tiles and lining them up with weights tied to his hand. Watching him struggle makes me physically uncomfortable, but watching him eventually succeed gives me hope. Hope that he continues to build this strength so that when he's asked to write 5 sentences by the end of kindergarten, he'll at least be able to hold the pencil.

          Also, after his first day of Day Care, one which involved a two-hour nap, he came home and nearly passed out in his spaghetti. He's not ready for full-day kindergarten.

None of this is done with sports on our mind. Our genealogy has made it quite clear we do not have the next Babe Ruth, Peyton Manning, or Larry Bird on our hands. We don't even have the next Rafael Belliard, my all-time least favorite baseball player. Fear not, fellow Delaware parents...our son will not enjoy any distinct athletic advantages over your kid and will not be awarded athletic scholarships at yours' expense because he's months older than your child. (Though if he did, it would in a very small way make up for my district's 6th-grade Track Meet, where we all lost to some kid who looked like '70s Ted Nugent. Digressing.) Talent determines worth in sports, not a few extra months of age. 

There are many, many reasons to simply forget all this and enroll him in kindergarten. One reason for every dollar we'll pay in Day Care costs this year, in fact. Plus we'll be delaying his earning potential on the other end when he graduates school, as people have noted. But he'll be working into his seventies anyway, plenty of time to get beaten down by the man. This will afford him another year to just be a kid.  One more stress-free year, with the hope of more stress-free years in the future.

How much would you pay today to have another year of your childhood back? This is in some ways a gift to him, one that he will never quite understand and certainly will not be able to justify or quantify when we can't buy him a car on his 16th birthday. Or even his 21st. But a gift nonetheless.

I come from a family of teachers. My parents, step-parents, brother, sister-in-law, step-sister-in-law, aunts, they are all over the family. I married a teacher. Probably close to 200 years of teaching experience at our fingertips and not once has any of them heard someone say, "I really regret not pushing Johnny through." You hear plenty of the reverse, however. But each child is different. Many with July birthdays are ready. My son would definitely survive.

But would he thrive?

You'll Be Sleeping with the Dog

This hippie dog and her babies have saved one family lots of sleep and bruised ribs, despite being a bed hog.

For his fourth birthday, our son got plenty of cool stuff...a soccer net, some books, and an eviction notice from his mother.

His mom kicked him out of our bed. Some time ago, we noted that of the three kids, the oldest and the youngest had no interest in co-sleeping with anyone outside of their stuffed animals. But the middle child couldn't get to sleep unless he had his fingers twirled around his mother's neck hair. That plus the consistent kicks to the crotch, kneeing in the small of the back, face-punching and eye-gouging equaled some sort of MMA thing every night in bed. The only thing missing was Gus Johnson calling the action bedside.

Having had enough, we sat him down and gave him the "You're 4 years old, you're a

big boy now" speech which never works on anybody of any age, including adults. But yet, somehow, it seemed to work this time. The light bulb suddenly went on as the lights went out every night. He laid down in his bed with his feet hanging out the bottom of the sheets.

The first few nights he looked pretty uncomfortable, so we removed the books, the baseball bat, the dump trucks, the Thomas trains, the lawnmower, and the Dirt Devil from his bed. "Here, this might give you a little more room." Then I insisted that he cover his feet with a blanket, despite the heat, because really, who sleeps well with their feet hanging out of the blanket? He relented, closed his eyes and turned his body dismissively away from us.

We were a little shocked that it was that easy. Once again God had given us only as much as we could handle, and once again He looked at us, snickered, shook His head, sighed, and gave us a huge break.

The first few nights, as half-expected, we were greeted in the wee hours by a semi-conscious kid coming back and either tapping one of us on the arm or crawling over us into his customary spot in the middle. So we had to reprise the "big boy" speech, to no effect. But progress was progress, in my mind, as at least he was starting the night in his own sack.

But I wasn't my wife, still getting her neck hair pulled and her butt kicked nightly. So we confronted him once more and asked why he was still coming over.

"Something was flying me over there while I was sleeping." It's no wonder kids believe in Santa Claus.

"Well, we'll have to tell that thing to stop now, won't we?"

(This was not much different than the time our oldest blamed all of her behavior on an imaginary friend named Baby.

"Baby said we should jump upside down on the couch with scissors."

"I told Baby not to, but she said you said it was ok to dump the whole box of Cheerios in the crack between the refrigerator and the counter."

At one point, we threatened to ship our daughter to a different family if it meant some time apart from this Baby character. At four, we couldn't afford to have her running with the wrong crowd. Baby quickly became imaginary unfriended.)

Our saving grace was a stuffed animal. Our family dentist gives away a stuffed animal monthly, and on a recent visit, the co-sleeper accompanied me. But I had forgotten to bring all the things that keep kids quiet in quiet places, like electronics and lollipops. Though I imagine bringing a lollipop to a dentist's office would get me on a list somewhere. Luckily, my son kept quiet and watched whatever movie they were showing on the TV. (It's entirely possible I am this dentist's only adult patient.) The receptionist encouraged us to sign up for this month's drawing.

The whole thing seems a bit fishy in retrospect. As I was lying in the chair, with tools hanging out of my mouth and angry drills threatening me, a cheery woman came in from behind and announced that my son had just won the drawing. Fishy for a number of reasons:

1. We just entered the monthly drawing 15 minutes ago.
2. My son was scheduled for his own appointment in two weeks and appeared as genuinely scared of the drill as I was.
3. My son, much to his credit, wasn't acting like a total jackass the way most kids do when they're bored.

The prize was a dog twice the size of Marmaduke. Imagine the biggest stuffed animal you ever won at the fair. Then imagine that animal training in the off-season with Barry Bonds. We had to re-arrange the back seat of the car to fit her (and her two babies!) to make sure everyone made it home ok. I was less nervous bringing the kids home from the hospital for the first time.

This presented a problem at home, as now my son wanted to sleep with this huge dog. And us. And the two babies.  Or it presented a solution. Given that two of us are in the 90th percentile for weight (for him that means "healthy", for me that means "obese") adding a big dog to a full-size bed was not an attractive option, since my wife and I had already been sometimes forced to each sleep with one foot on the ground, Newhart style.

So it was either "sleep in your own bed" or "sleep with no huge dog up your butt." He chose to sleep in what was left of his own bed after the dog, and the rest was history. And the parenting tip here is: If you want your child to sleep in his own bed, get him a larger-than-life stuffed animal that simply doesn't fit anywhere else. Also, simply tell him to behave in public and maybe somebody will rig a lottery in his favor. The results can net you that extra sleep you've been waiting for.