I was the youngest in my grade by a few months (November baby) and graduated at 17. It didn't start to matter until everyone started dating and driving and stuff. I was in all AP classes, graduated with honors, early admission into the college summer program. I went to college in a small college town where the bars and tbe cops didn't really care if you were underage, so it didn't hinder my social life.
I'm a December birthday who started K at 4. 5th grade was the first time I remember it becoming an issue. First, math stopped making sense to me in 5th grade. I remember my mom threatening to send me back to 4th. In hindsight, I wonder if it had more to do with the teacher/teaching style. But that problem caused some issues with my self-esteem and I started trying to prove I was worthy of being in 5th.
That included finding and bringing a condom to school, to show off. Twice. I got caught the second time. Ugh, that was rough.
There were also a few times that my mom had to advocate extra for me, because activities that were organized by age and not grade often left me in groups with kids who were in grades below me. E.g., when I went to sleep away camp the summer before 5th grade. I was 9, but going into 5th grade. The cabins were organized 6-9, 10-13, etc. So all the other going-into-5th-graders were together, but they wanted to put me in a cabin that included freaking 2nd graders. THE HORROR! So my mom called and asked them to move me, which they did. There was a girl in my cabin in the opposite situation as me; she was almost 14 and stuck in my cabin. She did NOT like me. LOL
Other than a few growing pains, it wasn't a big deal for me. I had several friends who were older than me, but a grade lower. Not being able to drive at the same time (and, lol, taking driver's ed through the school at 14) kinda sucked, but since most of my friends were driving, I just hitched rides a lot.
I DO remember being FUCKING FURIOUS when my step-dad (who had married my mom when I was 15) tried to use my age against me literally the week I was starting college. I was trying to negotiate a later curfew, and he tried to say that being 17/6 months younger than my friends who were already 18 meant I was somehow less mature than them. I knew immediately that going to a junior college was a mistake and I started figuring out how to move out. I moved into the dorms at the local university my second semester; two weeks after my 18th birthday. My mom knew I needed that.
If you started kindergarten at 3, you would not have graduated at 17.
Ontario used to have grade 13/5 years HS. I was the 2nd last year. @teabag is also in Ontario.
Our age cutoffs are also totally different. There is no redshirting, and you enter a grade based on your year of birth, so cutoffs are Dec. 31. We also have JK so someone could be 3 for the first 4 months of the school year.
And we never fail kids/hold them back and almost never skip them. And you can't get held back or consequenced in any significant way for missing fairly significant amounts of school. And our testing doesn't affect promotion in the least. So our kids are all essentially within 12 months of each other in almost all cases.
I am sure if red shirting happened her I might have a different opinion.
My brother and I both started K at 4 and college at 17. My brother is a genius and did very well. He should have skipped grades but my parents didn't want him to because he was a little socially immature. He did quite well in college and is very successful now.
I was bright, but didn't really care about school. I did the work necessary but wasn't an overachiever. I was a star athlete and not that mature when I left for college. I did fine academically in college.
I have to say that my parent's parenting style (awful) is what mattered (to me) the most. I was not ready to be on my own at 17. I had zero self esteem and didn't know how to navigate so much freedom.
You know your child best but I don't think she will magically become her sister if you wait a year to send her
Post by foundmylazybum on Feb 28, 2015 8:38:42 GMT -5
Both my brother and I were redshirted. We had a little bit of a different scenario and we can both clearly remember it. I thought it helped us both academically, socially and for me probably athletically. I had a scholarship for running, but I also think that the social aspect helped with the athletics.
For my brother you could absolutely see a difference in him before and after and it was positive.
Also, In hs i dated a guy in the grade above me who had the same exact birthday, same year as me. He was the youngest in his class and I was one of the oldest in mine. You could see a lot of differences in him and me: he struggled socially sometimes, academically he was fine but he was a little bit more immature, and athletically even though he was an amazing athlete it really didn't work out. He ended up struggling a lot in college and it always seemed like he was just...a little young for the entire class, where I was " old" in mine. There was a difference, and you could see it bc we were together.
I was the youngest in my class, because I skipped a grade. My sister was too. In grade 7 and grade 10 I was the youngest kid in the whole school.
I would not recommend.
I did fine both socially and academically, but "matured" a bit faster because all my friends were older than me. Many of my friends had their drivers license when I was only 14, that's when I started drinking, I had a fake ID and was going to the bars at 16/17, etc. I think I would have felt less pressure to "keep up" if I was the same age or older as my peers.
this was DSD's experience, too. she did fine and is in college now (she started at 17!!!!) but it got a little hairy in the peer pressure department for a minute