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My daughter was horrible at math during kinder and 1st grade and I homeschooled her. It was a nightmare. Now she is in 6th grade and really good at it, she actually got a A the last quarter(in regular school now).
Kids are just ever changing and in your case I wouldn't use math as example only because she can benefit either way you choose. She can get help for math if you need be or she can get chance to get ahead if you have her repeat. The decision is YOURs alone. You are her biggest support and will do what you think is best. Already you are doing that. If it were me I would have her repeat especially if she has a bond with the teacher. This doesn't always come out in our favor. Also just think, if you keep her in 1st, you have one more year with her before she moves on in her adult life.
It sounds like there are very few negatives to holding her back. She is excited about it, she will be in an age-appropriate grade level, she could use the academic reinforcement, and you have already had her tested. Did she have a full learning disabilities test? My daughter is 7 and was tested at 6 for learning disabilities. She is dyslexic, but strangely enough, her reading is coming along well but her math is a serious struggle. Anyway, I don't know what part of the country you are in, but here in the Southeast, school birthdate cut-offs are Sept 1, and many children with summer birthdays, even May birthdays are held back, so that many children are 8 years old when they start 2nd grade. I believe this is appropriate because the curriculum taught in kindergarten is more appropriate for 6 year olds than 5 year olds and so on. Sounds like your daughter has a great mom who is really looking out for her!
Another factor to consider with placing her with her age appropriate peers is the fact that in 10 years, she'll be on the same page as her peers with being able to drive, get working papers, and celebrate other "tween/teen year" events with her classmates.
After teaching 32 years, I found that the older student (some who had repeated, some who had done a transition program, and those that had been held out because of cut off dates) had fewer issues coping with the demands of high school and young adulthood, because they had been given or learned the skills needed in their earlier years of development.
It sounds like she's a wonderful candidate for repeating, perhaps providing some accelerated work for her to make sure she doesn't get bored with many of the repeated lessons/concepts. Higher level reading books? Involvement in something of interest outside of school; music, sports, dance, children's drama group, Scouts?
I would explain it to your daughter not as "we are holding you back" but just that you are making a correction to get her with kids her own age now. Explain that there was nothing wrong with her old school, but they had different rules, and so that's why she started at a younger age. Now she will be back with people her own age.
In my experience as a teacher, kids generally struggle with being the very, very youngest, to some degree or another, which sounds like the case here. I think in the long run it will do much more good for your daughter to be with same age peers (because really, we're not even talking about retaining your daughter--your daughter was started into K younger than is typically allowed because of a school switching situation, which sometimes happens) than any small bump to the ego she might feel over being in 1st grade again. Clearly it cannot feel good to her at the path she's currently on, right? If she hates math, refuses to do it, needed remedial help in reading and seemed to struggle at points? It wouldn't make sense to keep her on the same track and expect things to magically get better. Correcting now and allowing her to start experiencing academic success early on OR identifying that wasn't enough and more intervention is needed seems like a beeter way to go, rather than allowing this problem to build into 2nd grade, 3rd grade, 4th grade... when her self-esteem is shaky and she's convinced she's just a mess at school. I would not want her to be a year younger than all of her classmates and know she was struggling because she was a 1st grader stressed out because she wasn't ready to do all this 2nd grade work. My two cents.
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