Every Advantage

Thank you for the many thoughtful comments. A few responses:

I have certainly talked this over with his preschool teacher, but that has still left me hovering between my two choices. She thinks that he is ready both academically and socially for kindergarten. Her concern is the much less predictable “What about when he’s 10 or 12 or 16?” I know he’d be fine academically, at least in the early grades (after that, how can any of us predict?). He’s very bright and, because of watching Breadan master reading, has excellent pre-literacy skills.

His social interactions are another matter entirely. How he acts around others when I’m present is drastically different from how he acts when I’m not present. If I’m there, he’s mommy’s little baby, wanting to be held and hanging on to me as I leave. On the days that I parent help, he refuses to talk to anyone, teacher or classmates. But when he’s on his own, without me, he’s just a normal little kid. Somewhat on the quiet side but he definitely has friends and participates in the group activities in an acceptable way.

So, in that regard, I almost think it would be good for him to start school on time (note I did not say “early,” because next year would not be early) because it would allow him to be his “big” self more often. I wouldn’t be around as much and he wouldn’t sink back into me. But of course (flipside), if he really needs that nurturing time from me, then there’s no reason I shouldn’t give it to him for as long as I can.

My dad said just yesterday, “Give this child every advantage you possibly can, he deserves it.” And I think that if I really believed he would suffer by being the youngest, I would hold him back. But I don’t really believe that he’ll suffer — although I know he might suffer — hence my dilemma.

Mark also thinks we should wait. “Why not?” is his reason. And I do actually have an answer for that. In our district, there is an enormous achievement gap between the lower income students and the higher income students, one that exists prior to school ever starting. More than half of the children in Braedan’s school qualify for free or reduced lunch based on national poverty standards. For those families, you send your child school as soon as they’re able, late birthday or not. And I don’t mean to imply that these families use school as free, all-day childcare. But it IS free, all-day, high-quality education and why would they not take advantage of that as soon as possible? Austin will start school with many advantages over (some of) his classmates: he’s been read to every day of his life, he’s been exposed to a great many things, ideas and places, he attends a high quality preschool. I’m not entirely comfortable adding yet another advantage on top of that: an extra year of physical and emotional development. Not that I want to “dumb it down,” but it just seems to create unnecessary inequality.

Now many people have said to me that I shouldn’t sacrifice my own child for the sake of the common good. And again, I wouldn’t do it if I believed he was being sacrificed. But I also think that if everyone puts their own personal interests ahead of the common good, then there is no common good!

So, all this being said, I’ve already registered him in the pre-K class at his preschool for next year. And I will also register him for kindergarten next month, just to give us a little more time to decide. He is not much help in the matter — he claims he wants to go when one particular friend, seven months his senior, goes. But that friend’s parents have yet to decide whether he’ll attend our local public school or another parochial school where they attend church, so that certainly shouldn’t be our deciding factor.

And in terms of Austin’s health, there are reasons that go both ways there too. Obviously, if he were to be on dialysis in this next year, I’d keep him preschool so he could do that in the morning and head to the hospital in the afternoon. No point in enrolling him in kindergarten just to pull him out three days a week. But that doesn’t seem to be a pressing issue right now and hopefully won’t become one (knock on wood). We still expect that he’ll need a transplant at some point in the future but most parents schedule those over summer break (really, like instead of two weeks at camp). And if he’s older, he can easily see a hospital tutor to keep him on grade level. So I can’t make a decision based on such unknowns.

And then there’s my personal motivation, which in truth is only a tiny little piece of this. I remember with incredible clarity sitting in the hospital cafeteria with Mark, picking at my breakfast, two weeks before Austin’s first birthday, while he was beginning an eight-hour surgery. And Mark said to me, as gently as he possibly could, in an effort to prepare me for what might lie ahead (not that you can ever be prepared for such a thing), “Honey, you have to wrap your head around the idea that this child will probably not make it to kindergarten.”

I will not rush it for that reason, I promise, but come hell or high water, this child is making it to kindergarten.