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With all due respect to your excellent post, there are cases in which "holding back" is the wise thing to do. .
Oh yes.
As you might have noted in my post, I stated that there are cases when a child *is* helped by being left back. I myself (extremely shy, Oct 30 b-day, with a kindergarten start date cut-off Dec 30, it was 1959) would definitely have benefited by being held back, but my mom went ahead and sent me and I had some bad times but survived.
Yes, trends are taking the place of looking at individual needs.
Kids who should not be held back are, and vice versa.
But look at teacher/child ratios.
Public education is, and has been, going through some major changes along with those silly trends.
Some schools are being closed, while others are over-loaded with students.
Isn't this off-topic? You're citing articles about parental involvement, which is sometimes correlated to the "self esteem" movement but is not the same thing.
Parental involvement is a good thing if it's done responsibly. If parents are merely using legal threats to get their kids into the college of their choice, then it's obviously not so good. But I didn't get that from the articles you posted.
Last edited by TheHarvester; 08-26-2007 at 04:08 PM..
Fairfaxian, you remind me of my older son. (He was a summer birthday, but I did not hold him back. )
For him, things worked out okay in the end, and he is very happy now in grad school.
I know what you mean about social connections, but usually, at some point, people do notice the Emperor's clothes.
Isn't this off-topic? You're citing articles about parental involvement, which is sometimes correlated to the "self esteem" movement but is not the same thing.
Parental involvement is a good thing if it's done responsibly. If parents are merely using legal threats to get their kids into the college of their choice, then it's obviously not so good. But I didn't get that from the articles you posted.
No. My point in posting the articles was to somewhat answer the question that some people in this thread were asking of "what happens when the kids enter the workforce?" I thought the point of this thread was about how kids are not being taught to deal with disappointment. Some of the cases in the articles were about college grads being turned down for jobs and their parents are calling the companies to find out why. It also talks about how parents are at the job fairs basically answering interview questions for their kids. If this is off topic, my bad.
I started seeing that "entitled" behavior not too long after the advent of the Hold Back Kids With Summer Birthdays trend. In Denver when my kids were in elementary school, the cut-off date for kindergarten was Sept 15, and many summer birthday kids, especially boys, would be held back by their over-protective (yet ambitious) helicopter parents.
I can't tell you how many prima donna boys I've seen. They have never failed because they have never really been challenged.
Of course some children are helped by being left back. But sometimes all it does is create a false sense of confidence.
What infuriates me is that with NCLB, the tests become the curriculum, and in this business of trying to make everything "equal," we've dumbed down everything. Our best and brightest kids, the truly gifted, never get what they really need. But the politicians sure get to look like they're doing something. This is called Influence Without Responsibility.
I agree with Harvester and Tri about decent sportsmanship, and not running up the score.
A funny example: many years ago my husband's soccer team (they were young guys then) played against Denver's professional soccer team. They were getting killed. The professional team ended up offering to trade goalies.
It made the game a lot more fun, and everyone had a good time.
I held my oldest son back a year....mainly because he was on the small side for his age and I'd seen enough parents back when I was young push their kids AHEAD a year as that was the fad at that time.
It's tougher socially for boys, especially if they are younger and smaller....making sports, dating, social maturity etc etc. a lot tougher on them.
I have no idea why the people you are mentioning did this but there are lots of valid reasons.
P.S. My son is very bright...99th percentile on the tests etc. and had we been in a smaller town then perhaps I'd have feared he'd be bored but the schools here are excellent so I thought it was more positives than negatives.
I think there should be a little less of the "let's kick the SH*T outta them" sentiment that bullies/better athletes/etc seem to have, combined with a while lot more of people making the (frequently difficult) decision to quit whining/blaming and actually go out and put forth your best effort, every time. I know, that is pretty much asking for the impossible, but it is still worth wishing for.
I think that would pretty much solve all the complaints that have been voiced on this forum.
I am sick of the excuse that any child goes bonkers because he/she was picked on by some bully. We had bullies at school and nobody in my schools shot the school up or anything.
While I agree with the general premise of this thread, this one snippet has to be sorted out:
Bullying isn't simply saying "HAHA you suck!", It's a set of destructive and violent behaviors. I have been called very many a racial, social, and sexual (becuase all clumsy guys must be "gay") slurs and yes, I have been violently attacked.
Bullying is not something we should tolerate, becuase even when you get away from school shootings, it's still not safe. Haven't you heard of one drunk guy saying something to another drunk guy and the former gets shot? People need to learn to keep their ****ing disgusting comments to themselves.
Bullying causes a lot of problems....and not just physical violence etc.
First and foremost it impedes learning as students will miss school, not focus as well etc. if they are being bullied.
Second, a number of bullied kids have some serious issues from it....sometimes ending in suicide.
So, the benefits of not allowing bullying aren't really of the stop someone going postal.
I can think of several occasions where I had to protect someone younger or was protected by someone older from being bullied by one of the guys in our school. Several of the bullies in question are now in prison or were killed in the commission of a felony....not some of the nicest guys you ever met.
You know, I was recently organizing a birthday party for my 2 year old. Just a few of her neighborhod pals over for lunch. I researched party ideas for 2 year olds on the net, and learned that "we shouldn't play games where there are winners or hand out prizes". Give me a break! So when did a game of musical chairs, pin the tail on the donkey, or hot potato hurt anyone? We played it when we were young and all turned out fine. It's the ridiculous self esteem, politically correct, wanton liberal crazy movement that wants to redefine everything in soceity from holiday celebrations, school etiquette, as well as child sports and birthday parties, etc. It's all liberal nonsense and ought to be dismissed. Time to vote out liberal nut cases!
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In a perfect world
