Has your summer baby (boy) struggled?

[Mumof3cheeky]

Just that really. I would love to know if your summer born (boy) with older sibilings has struggled in the early stages of school?

Hi, not sure if you mean struggled socially or academically but heres my experience.
My youngest DS is 5 and Yr 1. He was 5 in July. He is behind academically, cannot blend words yet and isn't writing many letters correctly.
He is under SEN for a speech disorder and has speech therapy once a week. He also has some 1-1 in the class room to help with his reading/writing. His Maths is very good though.
The Senco is unsure at this stage whether he is just a late developer or if there is a learning difficulty present but she wants to "wait and see" at this stage. They have no concerns regarding his behaviour and he has lots of friends. He has always been happy to go to school.
His older brother (Sept born) sailed through primary, exceeding in every subject (bar art), passed the 11+ and is in Yr7 Grammar school.

August 29th boy here. He's tiny, but we found out today that he passed his 11+ :) so proud!

A friend of mine little one is August born and really finding it hard.

my summer born was 4 in july and has just started reception. not struggling at all. he has already started to write a few words which he couldnt do before he started and he has picked up blending so is able to read/spell a good few words too.

we worried he would be behind as he has struggled with a serious illness since being born, but he has come on leaps and bounds already.

I have two boys who are very young in year (Scotland, so that means Jan/Feb birthdays here as school years are different). They have both thrived - are now 9 & 11. They are both strong academically and fine socially. My younger boy is small for his age and does look physically small/young against classmates.

My older boy was diagnosed with dyslexia in Yr 4, but I don't think this was caused / worsened by being young in year.

You'll definitely get stories about struggling young-in-year children, but there are also many who are just fine.

You couldn't get a much later summer born than my 31 August baby. Academically he's doing fab. Socially he's doing fine now but did struggle with finding his tribe at primary. The downside is now that his peers will likely be driving WELL before him. I remember feeling short changed by having an April birthday

Ds2 Is year 1 and turned 5 at the end of may. He is the 2nd youngest in his class. He has DS1 who is 8. DS2 is the best reader in his class and pretty good at maths. The only thing he is not great at is writing.
Both DH and I were a year young at school. I missed a year at age 7.
Age does make some difference but is not the only parameter. DS2 is Diddy for his year!

He has an older sibling too. June baby but has not struggled at any stage.

Yes. And not just through the early years, but all the way through primary too.
The problem is that it has a compounding effect:

• DS (Aug born) was young, didn't learn to read so quickly
• Was very. very tired in Reception - fell asleep in afternoons (missed reading sometimes)
• wasn't good at reading so didn't get picked for assemblies and things

--> poor self confidence/ self esteem

• was small compared to older peers. Not great at football due to immature physical skills and stature (Football is a key 'sorting' factor in boys friendship groups in primary I found)

Didn't fit in with the older/bigger boys --> friendship issues/fitting in Some teasing/bullying in older primary due to lack of sporting prowess. Result - completely turned off competitive sport at a young age, which closed doors to lots of after school activities/clubs/friends etc We have had to work with DS ALL the way through school to build his confidence and try to find things he is good at. FINALLY now aged 16 he appears to have caught up. He is 6ft, gorgeous (i would say that!), muscular (goes to the gym) and has discovered he is good at individual sport like cycling, skiing etc.

I so, so wish we had kept him back a year. I genuinely think he would have been a much happier child (and we wouldn't have had so many angst-ridden years )

DS2 August born

Immature at school rather that struggling. Bright kid.

Got his act together in YR 9

Just done his GSCE 9s & 8s grade
Representing his sport at county level with those in his academic year virtually 12 months older than him.

My 3 boys are all summer born. They've all been fine, other than a little tiredness during the first term or so.

If you have a summerborn you can request they start reception a year later when they are compulsory school age. Unfortunately depending on where you live it can be a bit of a fight but some areas will let you straight away.

What do you need OP? Are you looking for hopeful stories of summer born boys who struggled then excelled, so you can keep optimistic? (Which is a perfectly reasonable thing to want!) If so, then skip the rest of this post and move on!

Or are you looking for a more realistic picture? It's well known that the youngest in year are at a disadvantage on average - whether that turns out to apply to your kid or not.

My DS is definitely one of those who would have benefited from starting a year later, had we been able to find a primary that would allow it locally. He's still early on - Yr 2, but it's obviously been harder for him.

Yes absolutely and definitely struggled.
Early July born.
With up to 10 months between him & his peers the difference was vast in terms of development and academic ability.
He has continually struggled. Even now as a teenager he is the smallest in his year.

In year 13 my DS has finally caught up. My eldest struggled at uni. at the beginning.

Ds is born mid July and has done really well so far both academically and socially. He's quite shy but has grown in confidence a lot. He's only year 1 though.

Late July ds. Not struggled except with handwriting which he worked on last year relentlessly. Exceeded expectations across the board in his yr 2 sats and just been made. Free reader at the beginning of yr 3. He basically did it all himself. He reads fact books and does maths books for fun. Odd, but lovely kid.

No but my winter born boy struggled.

Summer girls can struggle just as much as summer boys.

DS1, now 9, is mid Aug. He’s definitely struggled academically and especially socially from when he started nursery. The fact that he was very clearly immature anyway plus young for year and male led his year R and 1 teachers to put all his struggles down to that. Nope, he is autistic as well, diagnosed at 7. He is however a tall well built kid so he doesn’t look like the youngest. He’s academically behind despite being really bright. Hard to know what’s his age and what’s his ASD.

Mine started reception in September (late August born), he was fine the first few weeks but has now been struggling for the last 2 weeks or so - behavioural issues and he is behind academically.

My DS is 7 and August born and he did struggle, he had extra reading/writing help with school and he’s now on par with the rest of them (if not slightly ahead).

I have one summer born boy and one autumn boy girl just started reception. MY summer born happens to be very academic so no academically he is very comfortable and actually needs more pushing. The exception is handwriting - his teacher said it's not unusually bad for a summer born boy but it does seem significantly worse than his peers and he's not keen to write because of it. Socially I do think he found it more difficult and would have really benefited from being amongst younger children.

It's a difficult one.
In reception he struggled. I'd say he was about ready to start school in the summer term in year 1. I regretted through infants that I hadn't been able to keep him back a year.
About year 4 he really blossomed (as his infant school head told me he would) and I was very glad he hadn't been kept back as he'd have been bored and frustrated.
He's now started secondary, and I think he'd have benefitted from another year at primary again.

So I don't think it's clear cut.

I have summer born dd and ds. Ds caught the rest by middle of year 1. Dd is bit slower but catching up. She is on year 2 now. Dd suffered more of being summer born. She fell asleep at school several times, her fine motor skills is weren't developed enough, emotionally she was young.