Should You Hold Your Child Back — Repeating Kindergarten
As we all know, there’s no rule book in how to parent. We are always doing our best at guessing and hoping for the best. Let me walk you through my decision to hold my daughter back and have her repeat kindergarten with my insight as an educator and what I’m prioritizing as a mom.
The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
I have seen time and time again students come into my classroom thinking they’re “the dumb kid.” They have struggled in previous years and decided they are not as capable as others. This internal dialogue becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. They start to truly believe they can’t so they give up before they even try. If something is challenging they are quick to quit and shut down. They have a sense of learned self-helplessness that is incredibly difficult to overcome.
Instead, I’m hoping to evoke the opposite mentality with my daughter. By repeating Kindergarten, she will be more inclined to see that she is capable. Some of the initial work will feel easy and she will say to herself, I got this. That attitude then rolls into her attempting harder problems and a willingness to try. She has seen herself be successful in other areas so she knows she’s not dumb. She knows that she just has to try again. With this attitude, she will succeed because she told herself she was capable of succeeding.
The Teacher Lens
As a teacher, I was told of this story about how a Kindergarten teacher, when discussing the next year’s roster, intentionally told a first grade teacher that the most troublesome child was amazing. She made a point to tell that student’s incoming teacher that the child was smart and create a positive tone. She did this so that way the first grade teacher (without even realizing) would treat that student with love and kindness and assume positive attentions from the child.
Teachers don’t mean to set a bias on any child. However, if they hear that a child is disruptive or naughty or difficult they brace themselves (I speak from experience). That energy is picked up by the child. That child is treated accordingly. However, if a teacher hears how helpful a student is or how smart they are, they will assume that that child can be a helper or a leader and put them in positions where they can step up to the plate. Those positions provide opportunities for a child to feel a sense of confidence and pride. It makes them feel good to know they could contribute.
I didn’t want my daughter to be seen as the child who struggled the most. I didn’t want teachers to treat her differently or be overly helpful or not push her enough or not giver her opportunities they didn’t think she could handle. I was apprehensive to pursue an IEP (that’s a whole different blog) because I didn’t want a teacher to see “ADHD” and just assume my child is going to be a disruptive problem (because she’s not).
So, holding her back provided her extra time to practice skills so that the following year she wouldn’t be at the bottom of the pack. She would be closer to grade level and blend in.
You Won’t Regret It
I heard this over and over again. “I don’t know anyone who regrets holding their child back, but I do know of people who wish they had.” There’s nothing wrong with giving your child extra time. Some kids just need that extra time for their brain to develop. Holding them back now is a lot easier than when they are older.
The older the child is, the harder it is to hold them back. By middle school, if you hold a child back, the probability for becoming a high school dropout sky rockets.
This has also provided us with opportunities for dialogue. We get to talk about how it’s okay to need extra time, how practice makes perfect, and how we all learn things in our own time. Hopefully this dialogue will transfer over when it comes to learning the piano or playing sports or whatever activities she pursues. Hopefully this dialogue becomes so engrained that as an adult, she will provide herself grace if she doesn’t get things right the first time.
Moving Forward
Now that we’re in the midst of her second go of Kindergarten, this is how we’re approaching her progress:
When she brings home new benchmark scores — instead of just praising that the scores are higher than before, we praise her for all the hard work she’s put into those scores. We show her the growth she made from last year and heavily praised the practice and effort she put forth into learning and improving.
We make an effort to get really excited over her growth. We get really excited. I want her to feel a sense of pride and a boost in confidence when she sees that her efforts are making a difference. That she’s growing. Is she the top of her class? Is she way beyond grade level? I don’t know. What I do know is that she has shown growth— and that’s what matters.
When it comes to doing things that are hard, we can say “You already did this last year. You know how to do this— you got this!” This also evokes some reassurance and confidence. She may have floundered last year; I don’t know. But all she knows is that she’s done this before and therefore she’s more willing to give it a go. Keep trying. Learning. Growing. And realizing that she’s more capable than she gives herself credit for.
She might have been fine if we didn’t hold her back. She might have managed to catch up to grade level and not think a second thing of it. But, I’d rather have her feeling overly confident than feeling like she scraped by. I’d rather be safe than sorry and give her the time and space to move at her own pace. Hopefully, now, she feels confident and ready to take on the world. Hopefully, now, that confidence will snowball throughout her life so she’s willing to reach for the sky.
