A friend posted on Facebook an end-of-school photo of her child saying now they know they made the right decision to hold the child back a year and have the child repeat kindergarten. She said the last year had ended in tears and this year ended with a happy, successful and confident child. She knew they made the right decision to repeat the year.

When I was in school, readiness was an option in Gwinnett if they felt like the child wasn’t ready for first and they didn’t have to repeat kindergarten. I’m not sure why that option went away. I don’t know if it was funding or just educationally it fell out of vogue.

Redshirting in kindergarten is really common, especially for boys, but I think usually they repeat a preschool year and not the kindergarten year. I think in kindergarten you would be with kids you would go through school with but in preschool you might not end up at the same elementary school with those kids so they wouldn’t know you repeated.

We had wondered about holding Walsh back a year to develop his maturity since he is a May birthday but both the preschool teacher and the kindergarten teachers said he would be too bored if we held him back. So you have to look at a number of factors; not just maturity.

So have you held your child back a year or made them repeat a grade? Why did you do it? How did you do it? How did you know if you made the right choice?