To think school should’ve let me keep ds4 back a year?

[BulletinGuru]

hi im new here so sorry if this is in the wrong place.

my ds4 started reception this week, hes only just turned 4 in feb so hes one of the youngest. hes finding it really hard, crying every morning, not wanting to go in, teachers saying hes not joining in with carpet time and gets upset when hes told off.

i did ask last year about keeping him back until hes older but school said its not really possible unless theres “special reasons”. i just feel like hes not ready yet. hes still quite babyish, wants his dummy sometimes at night and struggles with writing. some of the other kids are nearly 5 and it seems unfair hes expected to keep up.

dh says “he will be fine” and i should just give it time but its horrible seeing him so upset.

aibu to think they should let younger ones start later?

You need to encourage him to grow, which means stopping the dummy and helping with toileting.

I actually had a youngest in the year 27th August and worked hard for her to be ready to start reception. You've missed the boat slightly but need to start asap.

Assuming no SN this is on you OP
You should have spent the last 6 months or more preparing him for school, I am assuming no Pre school or similar?

There will only be a handful of kids who are already 5 - those who turned 5 in the first week of September. Yours is in the older half. What did you do to prepare him for school?

Because if she was in Scotland, where the cut-off is the end of Feb, then she'd have been able to defer no problem (Aug to Feb can defer with no special circumstances). She also says the older children are about to turn 5, so if they're still 4, then a Feb birthday can't be the youngest (in Scotland the eldest children in P1 are about to turn 6, youngest just 4.5.

Ironically, BECAUSE of the infinitely stupid deferral system, her son could actually be one of the youngest now.

OP -

Did he go to nursery/preschool? If so, did they raise any concerns?

Where are you geographically?

What has his journey been like with potty training - that alone, let alone dummy, is unusual at 4.5 unless there are additional issues.

He's 4 and a half. He's not one of the youngest at all. Was he in nursery before starting school?

It does sound like it's more of a you issue than your son. Sorry to sound harsh but you've held him back. He still has a dummy and still isn't potty trained. He's almost 5!

Did you prep him for starting school? Instead of trying to come away from the issues, you probably need to tackle them head on with the school helping where they can. I'm sure he will grow in confidence fairly quickly.

I wonder if you’re a very young mother OP? This all just reads like you’re a bit clueless and may benefit from speaking to your health visitor to access some support

I don't mean to sound harsh, OP, but barring disability/special needs, this is a situation of your own making. It's insane to have an able bodied, neurotypical 4.5 year old who is still in nappies and has a dummy!

Of course the teachers won't change him. It's school, not nursery. Who would teach the rest of the class while the teacher changed nappies?

He should have been trained over a year ago, have you taken him to the GP? Are you not worried that he is so far behind, developmentally?

The dummy I'd have ditched when his teeth started coming through as they can cause teeth to not grow in right.

It sounds like you've babied him far too much and now he is, predictably, struggling with the very age appropriate expectations at school.

We don't just use our hand when we write. We use our whole body...we use our other hand to steady the paper for example. School won't be expecting him to write straight away. They will be working his gross motor skills, obstacle courses, big movements, as well as simply learning to grip a pen. Later they will do activities like drawing lots of circles counter clockwise. This is because so many of our letters are written counter clockwise 'e' 'c' 'u' 'a' - it's to help them have the eye-hand coordination to begin to form letters. They might expect letter formation by the end of reception but certainly not at the start, so don't worry about not writing or being interested in writing, it will be a gradual process

As someone who lives in such a country, most children are in pre-school fulltime from the age of three and its very similar to pre-school, reception and KS1 in England.

I'm very confused that your priority is him being able 'write well' rather than getting him potty trained and ready for school.

Mine was tiny at just 4 and he used to fall asleep in lessons. They just take time to settle, give it a month and see how he gets on.

Did your child go to a previous setting (pre-school/ nursery) before starting school? If so did they make any hints towards SEN? At 4 he is really too old to be having a dummy if he is NT and is very late with the potty training unless he has a medical need or SEN. If your DC is NT, it is no wonder they are struggling as they have been very babied and most reception classes have 1 teacher and 1 TA and have expectations of independence. If your DC is NT, you need to ditch the dummy (terrible for teeth and jaw development anyway) and start to build independence. If your DC is struggling to potty train speak to the HV service as they will give you support with this.

My friends DC has just gone into reception is SEN and still has a dummy although she is trying to transition them onto a chew toy rather than a dummy and isn't consistently potty trained and will only poo in a nappy. He has a care plan in place at school. His nursery made a huge push to potty train all the children who were still not potty trained and who were going up to reception in last summer term. My friends DC was one of them. They received a lot of help from the HV team over the summer.

Aw I feel for you OP, it sounds hard. I can relate as my dd is almost 4 & would no way be ready this year (luckily she is October born though) although she does have additional needs.

I believe school isn’t mandated until the term after they are 5 but they’d then start in year 1 so it could be really counter productive joining an established class.

It’s too late to go back & do something different but you can really work on this now. They’re more resilient & adaptive than we think. We’ve been prepping dd for school next Sep since summer and it’s been less disruptive to her than I expected.

Sadly it’s probably time for a little tough love from you, as we can’t always be the nice guy & need to prepare them for the world. You can be sad about it but he needs you to be proactive & not feed into his worries.

That sounds really tough for you as a mum, to have to leave him. I know in other countries kids don't start until the age of 7. My eldest was 4 in the July and started in the September so I felt very similar to you. He coped better than I did. All kids are different. Myself I had barely left my mum's side so I cried just like your son. Is there any chance of a settling in period whereby he goes short days to begin with? X

Why on earth didn't you make sure your child was school ready?

Pull ups? Dummy? Seriously?

It's time you started parenting OP. He's 4, not a toddler.

If any motivation was needed, that dummy will be hindering his speech. Children need to develop their mouth muscles, and a 4 year old with a dummy cannot do so to the fullest.

I had the same thought as you until I read OP’s update, where it does appear that she thinks he is too young simply because he’s still 4 and not because she’s in Scotland.

For me, this is precisely the problem with the deferral system.

there used to be a 12 month max gap, rather obviously we didn’t need the research to know that the youngest would find it harder at a population level.

and then some brights sparks decided to increase the potential age gap to 17 months via the deferral system.

anyone with any sense could see that this exacerbates problems, and simply shifts the month of the youngest from august to March.

this was obviously going to happen.

and now you have a situation with an extremely immature sounding 4.5 year old in the class with 5.5 years old.

absolutely stupid system

Interesting. DD didn’t go to pre-school, she was at a nursery and it felt very different to school, especially KS1.

In Scotland the cut off is 1st of March. However we don't have reception up here.
Deferral is for dec-feb born
Edited as posted to soon

thanks for all the replies, i know i prob should of been on top of the potty training and dummy earlier. we did try a bit over the summer but hes just really stubborn and gets stressed easily.

he was at nursery but never had probs there, they just said hes very sensitive and needs extra cuddles sometimes. no one ever mentioned SEN or anything like that.

dh thinks im overthinking but i just hate seeing him cry and clingy at school, i know its not ideal hes in pull ups but hes only 4 and half and i just felt letting him get used to school slowly would be better.

maybe i do need to push him more but i also dont want to break his confidence. i’ll speak to school and see if they have any suggestions for helping him settle.

You can, though I'm in Scotland where the rules might be different. If your child has a birthday in January or February of the year they are meant to start school, you can defer the start and get another years nursery funding. Maybe contact your council Education Dept?

I agree with this. You knew he would be starting school in September so you should have toilet trained him ages ago.

My daughter who is 4 was refusing to poo in the toilet but we made the effort to keep trying and mastered it early this year.

I didn’t want her starting school and not being prepared.

Why does he have a dummy at 4 years old? Xx

Unless your birthday is in the first 6 days in September every child will be 4 years old.