In Winchester, VA, the cutoff for fall birthdays for Kindergarten registration is September 30th.

In our county, it’s August 31st.

In some places, it’s July 31st.

It sure would be easier if they’d all agree to one date!

When we made the decision to put Pumpkin Doodle in Kindergarten last year, it was both an easy and a hard decision. On one hand, I knew that staying with the four year old preschoolers at church was not the right decision. She was so used to always being the oldest, the smartest, the bossiest (as the oldest of four little girls) that she was going to plow right over all of the other kids in her class.

On the other hand, I spent weeks analyzing what it would mean for the future — when would she start college, when would her two little sisters (who also have fall birthdays) start school, and so on.

I was torn between wanting the extra year with her at home — an extra year to teach her and build a relationship with her and an extra year for her to mature before heading off to college — and wanting her to have the same opportunities that I have had because I graduated both high school and college early (I graduated with a bachelor’s degree just a couple of months after we got married when I was 20, and we were able to start our family without worrying about whether I’d be able to finish).

As the year progressed, she learned to read and moved easily through her math and language arts curriculum. We noticed that socially she was very confident with other kindergarteners but that the older kids, even 1st graders, were intimidating to her.

And I continued to waffle about  our decision.

Then Dorothy from (Sub)Urban Servant said something that offered the perfect solution to everything I was feeling. She talked about how some of her kids are advanced and with that comes a juggling act similar to the one she goes through with her children who struggle with FASD and learning disabilities. Many of the things she mentioned were similar to the things I was trying to think through, and her conclusion was that through dual enrollment at a junior college during the last two years of high school, she’d be able to keep her kids challenged and moving forward without sending them off to a four-year college at 17 years old.

I realized that was the exact solution I was looking for, and we decided without hesitation that Pumpkin Doodle would stay in Kindergarten this fall.

She won’t actually be repeating the year, as we’re going to continue moving forward in both math and language arts, and we’re switching to an entirely new curriculum anyway, but she’ll stay in Kindergarten for another year.

I’m actually very relieved about the decision, and the two little ones (who both have mid-September birthdays) will both do two years of Kindergarten as well (because I do like that we started language arts & math at 5).

And as Dorothy says, “And the best part? It’s all a grand experiment. If we wake up tomorrow and something is not working we can just change it – moving ahead or behind a year with nothing more than an agreement between Robert and I.”