Hi Opti,

I agree you may want to hold your S back from starting K. Boys especially may need a little extra time to mature. Especially with our life style and different states having different cut offs. Our youngest turned 5 on the cut off date where he started K. Which meant he started K at age 4 (turned 5 a couple of months into K). He did fine up until 4th grade. He was really struggling with his grades. We moved half way during the school year and put him back to 3rd grade to finish. One reason was because we could see he was struggling, but the biggest reason was because all the the kids in the 4th grade at the new school were already 10 in Jaunary and S would not be turning 10 until the following fall.

We are SO glad we did this. He now makes high honor roll every term and has been chosen to represent his grade in Math field day for the past two years.

I am going to recommend some things that I have read and used.

One book that really helped me was Boundaries with Kids, by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend (All of the Boundries books are wonderful, there is even one for marriage, check them out.)

Also I am a huge fan of John Rosemond. He has been a life saver for me.

Give yourself a pat on the back for realizing you need some help in this area and asking for it! That in itself makes you a good Mom. \:D


Me 54
DS19 and DS17
Married 06/1989
Divorced 01/2011