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How do you support your summer-born child?

1 reply

Cellotapecandlestick · 12/11/2025 13:33

My DD is 9 years old, in Year 5. She was born in late August.

She's a lovely, quiet girl. In school, she is never picked for sports teams, choirs, or put forward for anything, She is very well behaved, her teachers describe her as "no fuss" and they have "no concerns." I suspect they barely notice her. She's bookish and loves her friends at school.

She tries out for of these activities and just wants to participate with her friends. I've asked her teacher if they could try and rotate a few opportunites for sport, drama, etc and she told me it was "merit based." - because, heaven forbid their school doesn't win everything.

It starting to get to her: she says "I am rubbish at (insert anything here) and isn't putting herself out for things as often. We've got her doing private classes climbing, swimming, and cubs. She does private music lessons. We have lovely times as a family - but I hate to see her identifying as "bad" at things when I suspect she's average but young. Almost all activites are based around Sept 1 birthdays.

Any other ideas to support summer born kids? Do we just wait this out? Wish we had chosen a less obnoxious primary school?

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Lulumush · 12/11/2025 13:36

I held mine back a year for this reason. Would you consider this?
I would also get her trying team sports outside school. Tennis, football, basketball are all good options that stuck for us and resulted in new friends outside of school and greater resilience generally. Also if you have it nearby I'd also recommend air cadets (in our experience much better than cubs/scouts) from age 12.
Hope this helps.

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