school dazed
// November 30th, 2006 // 8 Comments » // school
Cynical Dad is talking about parents who deliberately hold their child back from Kindergarten. As it has been explained to him, parents do it because their child is not mature enough for school and starting later will allow them to be more mature and prepared. Several of his commenters state the obvious notion that it is often the parents who are not ready. I had a mother explain it to me differently. She held her child back for a year so that her child would be more emotionally mature, physically more developed and able to be at the top of the class instead of just an average student. Since I know another family that deliberately moved to a school with very low achieving students so that their very average daughter would look superior academically, I am nonplussed to this manipulative parenting. Personally, I am still burnt by Noah’s kindergarten teacher asking that Noah repeat kindergarten after forcing him to use his right hand for half of the year, because “children from underprivileged homes do better if they are held back.” I refused to allow it and Noah has gotten grief at the school ever since. Add to that Tommy’s kindergarten teacher telling me that she’s just a babysitter for kids who don’t belong in school and I have a completely jaded disbelief in the entire public school system. However, since Amy has already told me twice today that she knows everything, she WILL be starting kindergarten next fall.
