Holding Back a Year

Finally I can stop worrying (about this topic) and we can just move forward.  We have decided to hold Espen back a year.  There was no easy way to decide this.  It was not without lists of pros and cons and debates and observations and gut feelings.  It is not a decision made without fear of future repercussions.  And of course we had to consider his social ability to make new friends. 

We weighed all the possibilities and "best case" scenarios for weeks.  It kept me awake at night, brought me to tears with worry.  We considered his age, size, social skills and knowledge base.  We struggled with just constantly adapting his education to his needs or just giving him a chance to mature and be more able to acquire information. 

We have to creatively force practice times at home.  We write, read, practice in strange ways at strange times.  We encourage.  We read to him and let him try when he has the desire.  We limit screen time.  We surround him with support. 

We celebrate when he tries and fails or succeeds.  We have heard his frustrations.  We have witnessed the anxiety and stress when we have to do homework.  We have seen him struggle with even 10 minutes a day of writing/reading with us.  Some days his focus is misplaced and some days he is spot on.  Some days he just can't seem to remember the letters and if he can't remember them, he struggles with what they sound like.  Yet some days he is amazingly on task and receptive. 

We finally just said out loud to ourselves, let's hold him back now instead of being faced with this later.  Let's let his mind and body have a year to mature to being ready to accept what 1st grade can offer him.  Let's let him gain a bigger foundation in his time, which may just be slower because he is young. 

We arrived at this decision because for 5 years we have subscribed to the notion that when Espen is ready he will be ready.  He may not be ready when other children are. And conversely, he may be well past them at some tasks.  We have used this idea for virtually everything he has done.  He excels at some things and is delayed at others but when he is ready for it, he gets it.  So as we looked to his education and the future, we decided he is not ready.  Pushing him now may have weirdly troubling consequences later. 

We have informed the school of our decision and it has thus far been a smooth process.  For which I am thankful.  It eases the stress from my mind to find support there!  We will transition our summer a bit differently this year to ease him into kindergarten again.  We believe without any doubt that he will adjust fine.  We also believe with no doubt that he will do fantastic and be ready to receive the information and be more ready then for the next grades.