4 year old and maturity level

[sheila <3 WDW]

Sorry, I posted this last night and then never checked it again until just now. Oops.

Has she had any preschool experience or other experience with other adults (day care, Sunday School, etc.)? Does she throw fits and baby talk for others or only at home/for you?

She is in daycare, but it's an in-home daycare (my sister) and there are 6 other kids there. I don't notice the baby talk much at home (maybe I'm used to it and ignore it?) but my sister has mentioned it. Even though it's not an actual preschool, my sister has her education degree for early elementary (my mind is blanking on the actual term..basically she is certified to go be a teacher at a preschool, she just chooses to do an in-home daycare).

Our youngest dd's kindergarten teacher told us in October of the school year she needed to repeat kindergarten then said it again in February of the same school year based on maturity because academically she was doing great. She was one of the youngest in her class. We chose to send her on. Her 1st grade teacher & 2nd grade teacher both said we made the right choice to send her on. My God Daughter went through the same thing. Her teacher had taught kindergarten & 1st grade and said in her experience girls mature quickly between kindergarten & 1st.
Ironically, our 8yo is almost as mature as our 10yo at this point.
Sorry not of more help but every kid is different.

That's very helpful! I never really thought about how much she would mature during Kindergarten and first grade.

The behavior that you've described is exactly what I see in my DD now, and I wouldn't hesitate to send her to school.

Yay, it's not just me! Sometimes I feel so alone and don't know what I am doing wrong. Good to know it's more common than I thought!

She asked if fit throwing was normal for 4 year olds and she said that she used time out repeatedly. I did give advise about whether or not to send her to kindy. I also let her know that the reason she has a child who throws fits is because she has obviously listened to all the expert "advise" about time outs and ignoring bad behavior and not using discipline and now she is seeing the results that so many countless other parents are seeing, out of control children. Sadly 4 year old having fits is becoming "normal"

I'm not sure if you are referring to spanking or something instead of just time outs, but we do spank, also. We usually put DD in time out and if she repeatedly gets out or doesn't stay there we will spank her once. If that doesn't work we do it again. The second time she knows we mean business and will stay in time out. I just hate getting to the point where we have to spank her a second time (just one or two swats, not repeatedly hitting her).

Several posts mentioned not giving in. We don't. That's why I don't understand why she keeps doing this. I will tell her I can't understand her whining/screaming/crying and will ask her if she thinks that will make me change my answer (she will say no). She's just so stubborn and I think impulse control (someone else mentioned) is an issue. She's always been very high-strung/emotional. Even as a baby she would go from sleeping to awake and screaming/crying. She was colicky and nothing could calm her down. (DH and I sometimes joke that she is still colicky )

Thanks for all the replies!

Oh, and everyone who mentioned if she was a boy they would say hold "him" back - well my son just turned one last week....in a few years I will be going through this again with him!

 

[Spunky946]

Preschool Director here...25 years experience. My advice is always this..."If in doubt..hold them out." I have NEVER had a parent come back to me and say, "I wish I had sent them on." I have had MANY parents come back to me and say, "wow, you were right!" My experience is that most kid have outgrown the type of behavior by five. I agree another big thing is whether or not she has been to preschool. That will make a huge difference. I firmly believe that most kid really need one year to prepare them for preschool. I would not "waste" the year, but a really good preschool or transitional kindergarten may gift her the year she needs to grow up a little bit.

My ds is now 8 and starting 2nd grade. He has a June bday and we were told the same thing. We did hold him back and he did a great transition program for kids who either missed the cut off or were held back. It was hands down the best thing that we could have done for him. Some of his best friends are a year younger then he is and it does not show, which tells me it was the right decision. I was told the same thing, that if you are in doubt hold them back. I have a friend whose daughter had to repeat kindergarten and she regrets sending her in the first place. His preschool teacher recomennded that we hold him back.

Now my dd is 4 with a July birthday and I'm not sure what we are going to do, but I still have another year. I will wait to see what her teacher this year says. She is a very different kid socially then her brother was at the same age, but I worry about her in middle school being one of the youngest. Good luck.

 

[nchulka]

I'm not sure if you are referring to spanking or something instead of just time outs, but we do spank, also. We usually put DD in time out and if she repeatedly gets out or doesn't stay there we will spank her once. If that doesn't work we do it again. The second time she knows we mean business and will stay in time out. I just hate getting to the point where we have to spank her a second time (just one or two swats, not repeatedly hitting her).

I have a suggestion for you. You say that the second time she knows you mean business and obeys, that means she can easily be trained to obey the first time. You need to let her know that from now on there will be no more chances, no more telling her to sit in time out repeatedly and giving her many chances to comply. From now on every time she throws a fit or tries to get up she will be immediately spanked. Within a short period of time you should not be having to spank at all! It's like when you get a cat and you spray them with a water bottle every time they jump on the counter. If you don't do it every time, or just shoo them away you are going to have a persistent problem, if you do it every time within a couple of days you can put the bottle away, they'll never get up there again

Think of it in terms you can relate to. You know the speed limit is 65, but you also know that the police really aren't going to pull you over unless you're going over 70. Now if the police started setting up cameras all over and mailing tickets to anyone going 66 or above all the time, you would start obeying the law right away! Your DD will be easy to train, it's going to be much harder on you, but it will be so worth it to have a pleasant child that you can really enjoy spending time with without the worry of embarrassing tantrums

Best of luck to you

 

[Mouse House Mama]

Yikes. I hardly think my 4 yr old who is trying to figure out her emotions and how to handle them lacks discipline! There ARE consequences for acting inappropriately in my house. My DD also is dealing with a new brother who is taking all of her mommy's attention as well as less structure in her life since school is out for the summer. So yes, she "throws fits", and we are working on ways for her to get across her feelings better. But she's FOUR, and "impulse control" is not in her vocabulary.

While I don't agree with the delivery of the poster you quoted I do agree with the sentiment. Meaning- I know you are ignoring her behavior and giving her time outs but that clearly isn't working. Not every punishment works for every child. Some kids respond better to extreme positive re-enforcement, some respond to being sent to their room to calm down, some repsond to time outs etc. Sometimes as a parent you have to see the meltdown coming and head it off and redirect. I think that is what the poster might be implying. There is a learning curve as no two kids are exactly alike. Just something to think about. I do not think that frequent tantrum throwing like you describe at that age is typical. She has to be getting something out of it. You need to figure out what that is and change your behavior and she will take your lead. Good luck as it can be a challenge.

As for holding her back- I hardly ever agree with redshirting. I would send my child. She knows her work. She just needs to learn to behave better. She will model after her peers. Good luck.

 

[MSSANDRA]

Yikes. I hardly think my 4 yr old who is trying to figure out her emotions and how to handle them lacks discipline! There ARE consequences for acting inappropriately in my house. My DD also is dealing with a new brother who is taking all of her mommy's attention as well as less structure in her life since school is out for the summer. So yes, she "throws fits", and we are working on ways for her to get across her feelings better. But she's FOUR, and "impulse control" is not in her vocabulary.

I think maybe you just answered your own question as to whether or not she is ready for school. Yes, she is four and yes she lacks impulse control and no she has not mastered the ability to figure out and control her emotions. Does that make her undisciplined? Not in my book. It makes her a four year old that might be a little immature and maybe not quite ready to deal with the discipline and structure of kindergarten. Could you beat her into being a totally obedient robot that reacts out of fear every time you tell her to do something? Maybe..Do you want to do that? I hope not. EVERY child is different and every parent parents differently and the results are different every time.
My boys were and are being raise to be strong, well behaved young men that do the right thing because they understand it is the right thing and they are leaning that many times there are different choices and I have NO problem with them discussing those other choices with me in a polite way. Of course I get final say with the five year old. My now 20 year old was not ready for kindergarten at 5. Was it the way I parent or was it his development? Does not matter to me as now at 20 he is a amazing mature and self disciplined college student whom I am soo proud of . I have no doubt the little one (whom has a oct BD and was held back by the cut off date) will follow in his footsteps. BTW- Spanking or physical discipline of any kind is not a part of our parenting style.

 

[Julie711]

Our DD 4 1/2 yrs old is going through a "tempertantrum phase" right now also and wondering what to do. She started preschool last yr which was 2 days a week for 2 1/2 hrs each day, now this yr will do pre-k for the same time. She is fine in preschool, teachers always said how good she was & actually how good of a talker she was . The last few months at home have been a little rough, we have DS which just turned 8 months so shes going through the baby talking also, but the fits she throws are horrible. I have a 13 yr old nephew that has add & other things that he has a therapist and doesnt even go to public school b/c hes been kicked out several times for his "bad behavior" and im starting to think that my daughter being around him isnt a good idea. She picks up on things and watches him lash out and throw fits and I believe thats where she is getting it from. We do time outs as well, little spanks etc but it doesnt seem to help, she just will lay on the floor and kick & scream. I hate to yell but she just pushes me to my limits sometimes. Im also a stay @ home mommy so im around it all day. She isnt like this everyday and all day but she does it enough. Any ideas for me?

 

[dragonfly57005]

I held my June baby back. Her preschool teacher agreed that socially she wasn't ready. She still is a homebody but thrived last year in kindergarten . I don't regret it. Her cousin with a June birthday started K last year too even though she is a year younger. She is extremely shy but her mom said she did just fine.

Depends on the kid.

Go with your gut.

 

[Lemurone]

My son turned 5 2 days before kindergarten started and 2 weeks before the cut-off. He was ready, he had attended full-time pre-k and did great. Another girl his age in the class was not ready, and as a frequent class volunteer I could see how age ain't nothing but a number. She was very immature and not able to handle direction or control herself when things didn't go her way. Reminded me a lot of my youngest daughter, who luckily is a couple of months behind the cut-off so is forced to wait. I think how when my son was her age, he was about to start pre-k and there's NO WAY she could do it. A lot of kids from my son's pre-k who technically could have started kindergarten didn't.

 

[asmit4]

I don't know how it is in your district but in our district it's less about emotional capability and more about educational milestones. Most of the kids that are entering kindy here have had preschool and pre-k for 2 years. In our kindergarten they are WAY past 'this is A week, this is BLUE week, A is for Apple, BLUE is for Blueberry'....when I was in kindy we were learning the letters, numbers and at the very END just starting to spell words like CAT, HAT, MAT. Now our kindy is not even spending ANY time on the alphabet or colors. They are going STRAIGHT to READING-kids in our kindy are reading and I'm not just talking one fish two fish, I'm talking beginner chapter books. For math, they are working not on 1, 2, 3 but 2,4,6, what # comes next? and showing coins and asking them to answer how much $ is there. The emotional maturity can be dealt with. If your child is behind academically- it's hard to catch up. I was shocked when I looked at the kindy curriculum- kindy is like end of 1st grade when I was in school.

 

[AZMermaid]

I am a teacher (1st grade... next year Kinder) and one of the ways they sort kids into Kinder classes at my school is by dividing kids with July/Aug/Sept birthdays who are "young" equally, so one teacher isn't overloaded because they (and generally the boys) take more teacher time. A lot of time they are "fine." But I ask parents when they ask me, do you want him to be "fine" or do you want him to be a leader? Many many many times the younger ones are perfectly capable academically, but have social issues- sometimes pretty minor, but always there. When I taught 3rd grade, I had a girl with a Sept birthday and she was always trying to fit in and just didn't quite make it. She was a nice, "cool" kid, but she was just too young. I always say hold them a year. I have never had a parent regret it, but I have had dozens of parents tell me "If only I would have waited a year, then..." My son's birthday is 9/6. There is NO way I would ever in a million years send him early. Yes, he will be tall. Yes, he may be a little bored for the first 2-3 years. But, maturity issues never go away. A kid who is young in kindergarten, is into Barbies instead of Bieber in 4th grade, still thinks boys are icky in 6th grade, drives late, starts college at 17 etc etc etc. It is a tough 13 years that there may be issues, not just Kindergarten.

 

[AZMermaid]

I don't know how it is in your district but in our district it's less about emotional capability and more about educational milestones. Most of the kids that are entering kindy here have had preschool and pre-k for 2 years. In our kindergarten they are WAY past 'this is A week, this is BLUE week, A is for Apple, BLUE is for Blueberry'....when I was in kindy we were learning the letters, numbers and at the very END just starting to spell words like CAT, HAT, MAT. Now our kindy is not even spending ANY time on the alphabet or colors. They are going STRAIGHT to READING-kids in our kindy are reading and I'm not just talking one fish two fish, I'm talking beginner chapter books. For math, they are working not on 1, 2, 3 but 2,4,6, what # comes next? and showing coins and asking them to answer how much $ is there. The emotional maturity can be dealt with. If your child is behind academically- it's hard to catch up. I was shocked when I looked at the kindy curriculum- kindy is like end of 1st grade when I was in school.

Yes, and with Common Core rolling out in most states, this is going to get more and more pronounced. It is expected that all kindergarteners will be writing a paragraph (with some support) by the end of the year, for example. Starting on page six are some examples of what is expected from an average kindergartener (mid year too, you can see the Disneyland one is dated January).

 

[Princesswikki]

I will say we gave our daughter that extra year. She is starting Kindergarten in the fall & will turn 6, the first month. I was more concerned about her being on the younger end in college. That year makes a lot of difference in college.

 

[NotUrsula]

I think that if the tantrums are the one issue, you should go ahead and send her, after a lot of discussion about how tantrums are unacceptable at school.

All it will take is one kid throwing one tantrum like that at school to teach her that the other kids would punish her for it more than the teacher will. Kids who throw tantrums in school get teased and called babies by the other kids, and IME that is enough to stop it cold in a school context.

 

[pjacobi]

Highly recomend "1,2,3 Magic" to prevent tantrums:

http://www.123magic.com/



-Paul

 

[Bastiansmom]

I honestly don't know why this comes up all the time. Our school's kindergarten enrollment cutoff is Sept 1st. My son's b-day is Aug 30th. We never considered waiting a year for him to start school. (Pre-K, age 3)

I'm so glad we started ON TIME. Around March or April of Pre-K we found out he has really bad vision and needed strong prescription glasses. We had no idea. He didn't show any signs of having vision problems and was ahead of most of his peers academically.

After he got his glasses, he completely blossomed. For obvious reasons (he could SEE!!) he did really well in kindergarten. However, because he was young and didn't get much out of Pre-K, he wasn't able to live up to his potential in Kindergarten.

We repeated Kindergarten. It really was the best choice and he's still doing great in school (going into 4th). I have no doubt in mind that he would have had to repeat even if we had waited a year to start. And then he would be an 11 year old 4th grader.

I'm pregnant again and this baby is due Sept 8th. As much as I don't want to plan on having him early, I sort of like the idea of having another late August baby. That way he can have an "extra" year of school and still be the same age as his peers.

Another thing to consider.... there is a quote by Tony Robbins:
"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten."
What are you and your daughter going to do differently over the next year that will make her that much more mature next year? maturity comes with experience, not age.

 

[monica9]

There is no reason to hold your child back. If they are capable of the work in kindergarten but their maturity level isn't there, then send them! Worst case, you just hold them back a year. At least give them the experience of kindergarten. They won't get anywhere holding them back.

Tantrums- my 4 year old is an only child. She was such an angel up until 3 1/2 then she started acting out. She would test us beyond belief at home and though I think we have great discipline strategies and have used the same ones as when she was younger, she is having her "terrible twos" about 2 years later!

I believe they are coming into their own. They now understand that they are their own person and they have the right to some choices. I think its pretty typical. Your child was probably testing you which is perfectly normal.

My child's teachers look at us like we are crazy because we say she's been acting up at home and want to make sure we are aware when she does there. they said she is a perfect angel and one of their best listeners. Always the first to clean up and help out and get in line,etc.

My mother always said she would rather us act up at home than out. I agree 100%.
And dont listen to that poster who said that you aren't disciplining your child correctly. They have no idea what you are doing with her. I've never seen 4 year olds be robots and listen to the parents every word. Things were different back in the day even though I still believe in respect and manners. I am a strong believer in Dr James Dobson and his parenting skills but you also have to realize that a child your daughters age is still molding into what she will become and some kids mature slower than others. She also has a 1 year old who needs a lot of attention so no wonder she is acting out for your attention, negative or positive!

Check out the book strong will child by james dobson

 

[HLAuburn]

My daughter turned 5 on Aug 5th before the Sept 1 deadline. We kept her in a preschool class one year longer rather than starting Kindergarten - and it was the best decision we ever made!

We felt like DD wasn't quite socially/emotionally mature enough - at the time she had some problems focusing and paying attention. Other than that, (academically) she would have been fine, but now that she is in 2nd grade and doing amazingly well in all areas, we don't regret it for a second.

What I tell parents who are on the fence is this: I have never met a parent who regrets "holding back". But I have met a lot of parents (my mom included) who regret NOT holding their child back.

What's the hurry?? That year just seems to make all the difference in the world.

 

[2girlsR2good]

I've seen many comments like "I have never met a parent who regrets "holding back".

Well I have. I've been a high school administrator for years. I've sat in meetings with parents of (usually) boys who are both old for their grade and struggling academically. It's an incredibly discouraging situation and often leads to kids checking out in one way or another. I've heard moms and dads say "if only he was a junior and graduation wasn't so far away."

Now, i will say that I believe that most kids will do fine either way in terms of when they start school. This is particularly true of summer birthdays--it just doesnt matter that much in the long run. Parents who say that holding back was the best thing they ever did can't really tell, can they? Their child might have been fine by October had she gone to school on time.

Good kindergarten/ primary teachers can handle a range of developmental and intellectual readiness in their classes. Kids who are a little immature will mature, supporting the notion that it was holding them back that made the difference. If a child is 6 in a room of 5-year olds, he should know more--a year confers a pretty big advantage. According to research, that advantage goes away by 3rd grade. When a student is a year older, learning issues can be temporarily masked by the child's greater life experience. This actually works against the child in the long run because earlty intervention is so important, particularly with difficulties that have an impact on reading (phonemic skills, dyslexia, etc).

 

[WantToGoNow]

My cousin held back her son because he wasn't ready. A yesr later her son and daughter started Kindergarten. The girl blossomed and the boy didn't. She then had to decide on holding him back and having the older child a year behind his sister - which would be two years behind his peers. So she sent him on and as a result he was behind academically all of first grade. Now they are starting second grade and he doesn't know all of the skills taught in Kindergarten - he still doesn't read. My cousin said if she could do over he would have started when he was 5 and then repeated it if necessary. You need to look past right now and what you want to how this will affect your child down the road because this isn't something that can be erased and started over. My dd is 5 weeks older than my cousins boy and will be in 3rd grsde this year.

 

[Michigan]

My birthday is September 23rd so I was 4 when I started kindergarten and struggled academically until high school. I would hold her back.