Wanted to chime in on the 'holding back conversation..."
I am 30 and my birthday was actually the exact cut off day for kids either entering school (December). My parents enrolled me in pre-school and after the year they decided it was best to "hold me back" and I had a second year of pre-school instead of going with the group that went to kindergarten. One note, my Mom was a teacher in the community and recognized that I was a bit behind where I should be. Also of note, I had a pretty severe speech impediment that I had to go to Speech Therapy for which did not get rectified until Grade 1 or 2.
From a social perspective, this did not impact me one bit and one thing that's funny to look back on is I actually had a ton of friends in the older grade all the way through elementary and high school. Nobody looked down on me or thought I was stupid; I wasn't stupid, I just wasn't quite where everyone else was developmentally.
From an academic perspective I was an honors student in high school and went on to get a bachelors and a masters degree in business.
Not saying my experience should change the opinion of holding kids back, but I did want to share anyways. Additionally, even though my skill set would be a perfect fit for a teacher position there is no way I would go into that profession with how parents behave these days (and I only foresee it getting worse).
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