<story><title>Study: Kids whose parents hold them back from school a year have advantages</title><url>http://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/science-says-were-sending-our-kids-to-school-much-too-early-and-that-can-hurt-th.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rhapsodic</author><text>For two of my children, my spouse and I decided to send them early because they missed the cutoff by a few months. Our reasoning was, we could either give them an extra year of preschool childhood, or post-school adulthood, and we decided the latter was more valuable.&lt;p&gt;From an academic standpoint, both children were able to excel. There was no question they were smart enough to start school.&lt;p&gt;But one child was shy, and not socially adept. And I think we made a mistake with that one. That child is the smarter of the two, but is not doing so great as an adult.&lt;p&gt;The other was both socially and intellectually gifted as a preschool child. That child is still in high school, and is thriving both academically and socially, and has very specific, ambitious goals for college and career.&lt;p&gt;Gender indicators in this post have been left out deliberately. I realize they could be germane to the discussion, but I left them out for the sake of privacy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>barking</author><text>I think that the fact that one of your children was naturally shy is the real issue. 
Shy people tend to have difficulties that non-shy people don&amp;#x27;t have.
I could be wrong of course, but that&amp;#x27;s what I believe, as a shy person who on account of my birthday started school about a later than average.
I also have siblings who are utterly different to me and who are high achievers etc.</text></comment>
<story><title>Study: Kids whose parents hold them back from school a year have advantages</title><url>http://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/science-says-were-sending-our-kids-to-school-much-too-early-and-that-can-hurt-th.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rhapsodic</author><text>For two of my children, my spouse and I decided to send them early because they missed the cutoff by a few months. Our reasoning was, we could either give them an extra year of preschool childhood, or post-school adulthood, and we decided the latter was more valuable.&lt;p&gt;From an academic standpoint, both children were able to excel. There was no question they were smart enough to start school.&lt;p&gt;But one child was shy, and not socially adept. And I think we made a mistake with that one. That child is the smarter of the two, but is not doing so great as an adult.&lt;p&gt;The other was both socially and intellectually gifted as a preschool child. That child is still in high school, and is thriving both academically and socially, and has very specific, ambitious goals for college and career.&lt;p&gt;Gender indicators in this post have been left out deliberately. I realize they could be germane to the discussion, but I left them out for the sake of privacy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nemonemo</author><text>Thank you for sharing your story. Last year, I and my wife deliberately decided to minimize applications to schools with my kid who seems to have similar social&amp;#x2F;academic tendency as your first one. We applied one school where such kids could also be thriving, and ended up not getting accepted. She would need to go to a school this year, and within a year, my kid became much more mature than a year before, and we &amp;amp; people around her think the delay was probably good for her. Just wanted to add my anecdote.</text></comment>