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As a mom to a lot of boys I have to come down on the side of holding him back. I also have taught preK and substitute in Kindergarten classes at my sons' school. The part that stuck out to me is that he had trouble following directions unless it is one on one. I can completely relate to that and understand that it really does develop later in boys. So much of Kindergarten is following directions and the teacher will have a lot of kids in her class. As much as the teacher would like to give one on one time to every child it is not possible. Everytime a teacher has to stop a class to look a child in the eye to tell them what to do, is a time that child is singled out. The ones that don't listen unfortunatley are the one that have to pull cards or lose smileys or whatever the discipline procedure is. It really can be hard on the child's self esteem.
I have held back all of my boys and have not regretted it once.
Holding a child back now won't damage his self esteem but having to hold him back later on will definitely have a stigma attached to it.
Academically my boys were ready for kindergarten at age 4 but socially it would have been so hard on them. At 5 they were even smarter and were not bored in Kindergarten. Their teachers recognized how smart they were and challenged them and also gave them extra privileges. All of those things made them feel so good about themselves and has really set them up to love school and feel like they are intelligent and they expect more from themselves. All in all it has made everything so much easier.
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