Newsgroups: misc.kids

I was not surprised to see so many parents advocated delaying their children
entering kindergarten. It seems to be a trend these days. Nobody wants their
child to be the youngest or smallest in class, ready or not. Parents
deliberately hold back their children because they want them to be the
biggest, strongest and smartest among peers. The kindergarten age has been 
artificial pushed to an older scale and now even the summer borns are
the youngest in class. However, I like to present a different story.

Our daughter was born on Dec 22. Early last year, I read many articles,
visited numerous schools, talked to many friends, teachers, and school 
administrators, and asked ourselves long and hard for the decision of
whether to send her to kindergarten. Because of this holding back trend, 
besides worrying about her academic ability and social maturity, we need 
to also consider her physical ability. She was small even among the 4
year olds and she would be in the same class with the 6 years olds. 

Friends of ours were holding back their kids. Her preschool classmates
older than her were decided to stay for another year. Our daugther, though
socially well adjusted and happy, was towards the quiet and shy side.
Her preschool teachers praised hightly her initiation, concentration, 
curiosity and eagerness in learning and promised additional materials 
that would be challenging enough for her if she stayed. (This was an
excellent Montessori preschool). The cut off date in our school district
is Dec 2. So if she went, she would have to go to a private school. Plus
that the after school care for a half day kindergarten created a big 
problem for us. We had every reason for holding her back. But she WANTED
to go and we felt that we should at least let her try. So with hesitation 
and reservation, we enrolled her in a private kindergarten.

In the next two months, things became more and more clear. I have never
seen she bloomed so beautifully and so quickly in such a short time. The
kindergarten was like a new world open to her. She was absorbing 
knowledge in light speed. She had hands on animals and plants, did 
multiplication (on her own. They were still doing addition in K), sang 
songs, played soccer and wrote stories. She started from recognizing words 
to reading book after book in about two months after Christmas. Perhaps 
due to her nonthreatening size that she was more pleasant to be with, she 
had many friends and had no problem on the playground. She brought home 
discussions that often surprised us. Not long ago she gave me a 
lecture about "the miracle of life". Seeing how much she has learned, we 
are now convinced sending her to kindergarten was one of the best 
decisions we had ever made for her. We could have crippled her learning 
potential or might cause a life time damage by boring her at the 
beginning stage of schooling if we did it otherwise.

Every child is different. Trust you gut feeling about your child and
trust you child. Don't hold back your child simply because the research
says so or everybody else does so. Visit the schools to see what they 
offer. If you think you child can make it, go for it. Give her the
opportunity and environment so she can develop her fullest potential. 
These youngsters can do amazing things. Give them a chance. 



Vivienne Poon
poon@hpcc01.corp.hp.com