Regretting not deferring my son, will I always feel bad about my decision?

[MaryDmc]

We live in Northern Ireland and legislation came in that children born april may June could defer starting school by a year making them the oldest (the cut off date for school years is 1st July) our son is born June making him one of the youngest. The legislation came through when he was starting nursery and we really weren't sure whether to defer or not. He is quite smart and developing well and everyone around us said he was more than ready.

Hes now in Year 1/primary 2 and im filled with feelings of regret. He is doing fine in school, gettin on woth work and has friends but does lack confidence and I keep feeling ive done him a disservice by not giving him that extra year to develop. Realistically it's too late now and I doubt the school would hold him back given hes getting on fine but this feeling wont go. Im debating looking at private schools to see of there is an option to repeat or moving to a different area and requesting though not sure how likely it would be. Im starting to really worry about the future and him taking GCSEs and A levels being one of the youngest, anyone been in a similar situation?

Also to add my child has sometimes said he is annoyed being one of the youngest which doesn't help

I always think that deferring a bright child puts them at risk of being really bored and then disengaging from learning and acting up. If your son is doing just fine with the learning then he is good where he is.

My eldest is June born and I never considered deferring her. I am July born (schooling in England so one of the youngest) and I was always top of the class throughout school. I don’t think age in the year will have any bearing on exam results at 16.

Maybe have a chat with the school about it if you’re worried. You said you doubt the school would hold him back a year, but it would be as well to check that.

My child is the youngest and in y2, there are kids over 12 months older than him in the class and you can really tell the difference in emotional development. It does impact friendships at this age as he is much younger and can't express himself as well as the older children.

He is also very upset he is the youngest and hates it.

But he's also doing very well academically and if we had held him back when he was younger he would have been bored at home. I have observed that holding the kids back a year as many parents have done in his year has been more to do with sen issues, ie their child wouldn't have thrived if they were with children their own age.

Looking at my son ( and of course all kids are different) Moving him back now would definately not be the right thing to do in that he wd feel embarrassed; I know my son thinks the year 1s are"littlies to be taken care of" even though some of them are his age! Moving him into y1 now would knock his confidence for sure.

I personally think it will all even out as they get older. But your in the best position to know what's best for your child. Pls don't feel guilty we are all just doing the best we can...

Btw I was May born so really young for my year. It was annoying at first, but as I got older I loved it, I started to feel really smart and cool as I was in a class with older children. ( no comment on it this was correct or not . 😆 ). Looking back I don't think it impacted my exam results.

My DS was very young for the school year. He was also shy, and the oldest at home, so no older siblings to expose him to more mature things. I would say that whilst he was at a slight disadvantage initially, that had all evened out by Y3. He did really well in his GCSEs and A levels and is now at Cambridge, so overall, not disadvantaged.