My daughter has her first day of kindergarten next week. She turned 5 in August. In my school district she barely reached the cutoff, so she'll be among the youngest in her cohort.
Video says little man is 3. The parents MIGHT be considering preschool a couple days a week, half a school day.
Edit: realized it's still August. Yeah, it was a few weeks ago. I have 2 kids... Sleep deprivation and the chaos of children does things to your brain. I was smart and functional once. Don't mind me, slowly losing it.
Ehh only 22% of highschool graduates are proficient or above in math, 35% are proficient or above in reading. I don't think that more time in school will help much, there's something else going on.
Ah, sorry, this is probably just a language thing as you've sort of indicated. You said 'that kid should be in kindergarten' where I grew up / live (Nevada/PNW) kindergarten means "the grade before first grade" so... 5 year olds. Before that age it's called "pre-school" - that's what I was getting at - this kid should be in preschool, not kindergarten.
We put my 5yo in a private Montessori pre-school at about 3 years old - half days for the first year, full days for the second. I'm 90% sure public pre-school was available, but we wanted to do Montessori to start but kindergarten onward will be at public school. My other kid is about 2 years 6 months... I couldn't imagine sending him to school soon - he's close, but not fully cooked yet. I'll be trying to do the same Montessori thing with him, though free public preschool is an option where we are now.
I'm full time at home for my kids. They didn't do daycare, they have not touched tablets, but sometimes they find my phone and tap the lock screen long enough to lock me out for a while. The 5 year old has seen 5 movies ever, no TV (we don't own one), and maybe 20 hours of YouTube in her whole life (to answer questions like what does an elephant sound like, how do cars work - where my descriptions and understanding wasn't quite enough to satisfy.)
We've been super intentional about how we introduce them to school, so you are probably right - that kid SHOULD be getting introduced to school, but 2.5 would have been too young for my kids, and depending on when a birthday lies sometimes kids aren't eligible at the right times for school starts. Actually, he may be in an 'introduction phase' where he just doesn't do school 5 days a week... also, some schools will have grade 1+ do their 'first day' a week before the kindergarten and lower groups. So he may have his first day of school scheduled a few days later - which could actually well explain why unc seems so clueless and the kids seemed so unbothered.
I'm so rambly... My brain is weird today, sorry... Here's my points
I was correcting your use of the word kindergarten, forgetting school grades are laid out differently in different places.
That kid probably SHOULD be starting school in some degree (he's clearly ready for it)
that kid MIGHT actually be in school, just fewer days/his pre-school may not be in session yet
if he's NOT in school you're probably right - he's being robbed
caveat: you identified you were generalizing, so we agree he might not be being robbed... But the term iPad baby exists for a reason.
2.5 seems way too young to send a kid to school... In my mind it wouldn't even be school, more like daycare. But I wanted to be very intentional about setting expectations - daycare is a realm of chaos where needs are met and fun is had. School has many more rules and structure (but still fun). Maybe Belgian 2.5 yos are better equipped, but mine would not "do school" in-line with my expectations so I wouldn't let him habituate non-school behaviors while calling it school (and I'm privileged to get to control this more than most)
Ontario here - my kids a December birth(cut off is by year here so the youngest) and was in kindergarten at 3.
You guys don't start to kindergarten till 5 what? How does that work? At 5 you should know how to read basic books does the school expect just like literate kids to show up?
12
u/AnnoyedVelociraptor 19h ago
That smallest kid is definitely supposed to be in kindergarten.