
Study finds improved self-regulation in kindergartners who wait a year to enroll - fluxic
https://ed.stanford.edu/news/stanford-gse-research-finds-strong-evidence-mental-health-benefits-delaying-kindergarten
======
rtl49
It's refreshing to read an article about a scientific study from a university
press office that doesn't exaggerate or misinterpret its implications. Perhaps
it's a luxury of prestigious schools.

I suppose a reasonable hypothesis to draw from this is that a too structured
environment in early childhood is destructive to mental health. But I wonder
whether they're considering the possibility that being one of the older
children in the class carries certain advantages that might affect the
development of the child's personality.

If my memory serves, Malcolm Gladwell explored this topic in the book
"Outliers" when discussing differences in birth month frequency between
successful Canadian hockey players and the general population, except it
focused on differences in physical rather than social development between
children in the same classes but different age groups.

If something similar were taking place here, delaying kindergarten for the
general population wouldn't solve much.

~~~
steven2012
In Texas, familes will often hold their children back so that they are
physically larger and more coordinated so that they can excel in football. Not
being from Texas, I had never heard of this but apparently its common.

~~~
inthewoods
Indeed - it even has a term - "red shirting". I believe there is some movement
in some states to limit the ability to do this.

For my family, I have adopted a "play the child, not the age" approach. My
oldest son was clearly ready for kindergarten at age 5, my middle son is not
so we're delaying him for one year.

One part of this not discussed is what cut off dates do to the process. My
oldest son was born in December - while my middle son was born at the end of
July. If we put him into kindergarten, he would have been one of the youngest
kids. My daughter was born on September 1st, thus she will always be the
oldest in the class.

------
CIPHERSTONE
We started our son when he was 6 as opposed to 5 and we have zero regrets. It
seems like the emotional development between 5 and 6 year old boy is generally
pretty huge.

Grade-wise he mainly gets A's and a B here and there. Honors classes, etc.

While I don't attribute the age he started completely to this, I do think it
had a rather positive impact (currently in 8th).

Conversely, I think I started kindergarten at either 4 or 5 and
struggled/hated school my entire life. Even had to put up with Evil Nuns.
#jake #elwood Food for thought.

~~~
devindotcom
Just as a contrary (edit: or perhaps corroborative, depending on what we are
attempting to show) data point, I was put in at 4 and was just fine, even in
honors/advanced classes (not boasting, as if I could, just adding that
circumstance).

Worth noting that my family, despite my parents breaking up around that time,
was very supportive and, if not well off, at least not struggling financially.
I went to public school K-12.

Seems things work both ways, but possibly the risks are greater in going in
early than late — but, as usual, the outcome depends far more on other
circumstances.

~~~
oso2k
I'll second devindotcom's sentiment. This seems like a "frog no legs can't
hear" [0] / "inconceivable" [1] explanation. I'm a Sagittarius/November baby
and I entered Kindergarten in September at 4.5 years after 18 months or 2
years of pre-school. I remember my mother had to fight with the school (where
she was a teacher's aide) to get them to take me "early". I had almost no
behavioral issues all through school, was a career 3.75 GPA student, graduated
5th in my high school class (3.91 GPA) at a large East Los Angeles Public High
School after taking a total of 4 AP classes while playing baseball for 3 years
(lettering for 2) all the while volunteering as a youth sports coach in
baseball, basketball, and flag football. I attended CSULA to study Computer
Science (though I was accepted to my first school, FSU and my second school,
UC Irvine) and I've since gone on to work for NASA/JPL and the Air Force. My
brother, who is a Pisces/March baby entered school at 5.5 years, but was
similarly accomplished (3.97 GPA in high school, Lettered 4 years in Baseball
and 3 years in Football, attended UCLA). My parents always struggled a little
bit financially, with my father seeing his last notable raise in the 90s while
I was still in high school.

To put it another way, "I do not think you measured what you think you
measured."

[0]
[http://www.archerytalk.com/vb/archive/index.php/t-664362.htm...](http://www.archerytalk.com/vb/archive/index.php/t-664362.html)

[1] [http://cdn2.business2community.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/0...](http://cdn2.business2community.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/04/Princess_Bride_That_Word.jpg.jpg)

~~~
vectorjohn
Well, I'll give a contrary to your contrary. I started a year late (I begged
my parents not to make me go to school yet), and I got straight A's through
high school and have always been very self directed.

The point is, this is a study, our anecdotes are not.

~~~
ThomPete
A study which most probably might as well have concluded that it doesent
really matter since the objective is to determine selfregulation which is so
vague and slippery a term its not even funny.

------
teekert
As a non American: What is Kindergarten? Here (Netherlands) kids start school
at around 4, the first 2 classes are playing only, reading/more-serious-school
starts at 6. Everything before 4 is optional (unless you have a language
problem). Is Kindergarten just for playing or do kids learn to read and do
math?

~~~
derefr
Age 3/4 is considered "pre-school", and is just playing. (It's optional;
there's no public preschool, mostly just Christian private preschools that are
effectively a less-religious outgrowth of catechism—most of them are still
physically attached to a church in some manner. Kids make crafts and take
field trips [with heavy church community volunteer involvement] to parks and
public pools and pumpkin patches and so forth.)

Kindergarten is age 5-to-6, and is sort of to school as Candy Land is to board
games: no actual subject matter, but teaching kids the meta-skills of
"following the rules": sitting at desks, listening attentively to lectures,
responding to questions and not interrupting others, time management during
projects, etc. (Not as dreadful as it sounds; the "lectures" are group story-
time, the "questions" are things like "what did you do this weekend", etc.)

Also, there's some attempt in kindergarten at ensuring everyone can read—i.e.,
it serves as remedial education backstopping the bad parents who never read
with their children. That continues on in grade 1, but it's good to know early
who the problem children (problem parents) are.

~~~
vectorjohn
I don't think almost any kids can read in kindergarten, and I also don't
believe they even attempt to teach it there. Reading starts in first grade.
That is, when I was their age. Nobody knew how to read and we didn't start
learning it until first grade, and it was done as a group.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I don't think almost any kids can read in kindergarten, and I also don't
> believe they even attempt to teach it there.

Reading texts at the "emergent reader level" is part of the Common Core
standards for Kindergarten; as a number of states have adopted Common Core, I
think its probably pretty common for Kindergarten to teach reading.

------
kenjackson
I'd be curious to see the data difference between male and female. In some
other data I recall seeing boys seemed to react better to starting late than
girls did.

If girls do mature earlier than boys, then I almost wonder if we should have
different cutoffs for boys and girls...

~~~
illza
Oh they do, depending on how you define "mature". The primary difference isn't
really an age thing though. Typically, girls in classrooms are perfectly happy
to sit still and listen. Boys, not so much. Obviously, this isn't binary, it's
a continuum. But oh boy does it skew heavily.

When we're talking about a general rule for the masses, I don't think
different cutoffs would be that helpful past 4-years old. It would be more
beneficial to split them up and teach them differently. That said, it's far
more important for parents to make these decisions for their own child.
Sometimes they're ready, sometimes they aren't. But there's a lot of growth
that can happen when we aren't quite ready for something or when we don't
think they are. Everyone is far too afraid of failure, or barring failure,
afraid of difficulty. Let them try. They might surprise you. If they struggle,
help them along. The trouble is, there are a lot of kids who struggle and
simply can't or won't get the help they need to grow through it.

------
rflrob
I wonder about causation and correlation here. Presumably children whose
parents can afford to pay for an extra year of childcare before sending them
off to school can provide environments that also tend to produce self-
regulation. One could also imagine that if waiting a year is somehow the non-
standard choice, that having parents invested enough to take that option would
give similar effects.

~~~
ryanklee
The study compared children enrolled versus forced to delay entrance according
to an arbitrary date.[1] Socioeconomic status has nothing to do with it.

Further, the study explicitly claims causal relationships, rather than merely
correlative. I'm guessing as a result of the kind of fancy-pants regression
analysis they used. [2]

[1] "children who were born a certain number of days before the Dec. 31
enrollment cut-off and those born after the cut-off"
[http://www.nber.org/papers/w21610](http://www.nber.org/papers/w21610)

[2] "We estimate the causal effects of delayed school enrollment using a
"fuzzy" regression-discontinuity design"
[http://www.nber.org/papers/w21610](http://www.nber.org/papers/w21610)

------
jobu
Hard to say if this is true beyond Denmark:

 _" Dee also said while there are strong, large effects in the study, kids who
delay kindergarten in Denmark have universal access to reasonably good pre-K.
In the absence of consistent access to good pre-K, Dee said, children in the
U.S. may not be as harmed by starting kindergarten earlier."_

~~~
illza
So, in other words, kids who delay kindergarten (and had another full year of
pre-K in-leiu) tended to do better at sitting still in a classroom after a
full year of practice than kids who didn't get that year of practice?

------
aptimpropriety
I was young for my year after being pushed ahead a grade. I did fine
academically, socially, etc.

Two factors that make me want to start my future kids late:

-Social maturity: it's way easier to handle social dynamics with a year extra of emotional maturity. Particularly important in high school and college

-Physical maturity: older kids often perform very well in high school sports. I, for example, grew and gained ~15-20lbs after I graduated high school (playing sports). That would have made my HS sports career much different, and therefore college prospects as well

I don't see any reason to starting kids early for upper/middle class folks,
besides parent's bragging rights.

------
ddlatham
So we figured out that younger kids have a harder time sitting still and
paying attention?

~~~
corysama
We figured out that kids that start later have an easier time sitting still
and paying attention compared to other kids _of the same age_.

> “We found that delaying kindergarten for one year reduced inattention and
> hyperactivity by 73 percent for an average child at age 11,”

~~~
derefr
Can you rephrase this to say that the effect was basically by shifting all
learning material one year up? I.e., now the kids are starting kindergarten at
the point they'd be regularly starting grade 1, yes, but they're also now
getting grade 5 material when they'd be getting grade 6 material and so on?

If so, that suggests to me that we've inadvertently just scheduled everything
too early, and kids are getting bored and confused and acting out because they
can't understand (or can barely understand, and their brains are being taxed
to their limits and the stress is depleting all their dopamine.)

~~~
seandougall
There is some of that. As a result, many states have increased the enrollment
age, and now have transitional kindergarten, or TK, for kids (like my
daughter) who would have enrolled in kindergarten at an earlier age a few
years ago than they're now eligible for.

Seems to me a properly controlled study would have to compare kids who started
at an earlier age, then repeated kindergarten, versus their peers who waited a
year to enroll. Despite not exactly being feasible, that would measure the
effect of the structured environment at a young age without getting so apples-
and-oranges.

------
barneygumble742
This is very timely for me. Just this morning I was on the phone talking to
the school district about how strict the cutoff date is. Most of US is set to
Sep. 1 (9 months after the new year). My kids were born in mid-Sep. I read two
lengthy papers on late start-age and better school/social performance. The
article was discussing parents wanting their children to start early in order
to enter the job market early by a year. This is nuts! It's such a trivial
issue. I'm conflicted; I really don't want to pay $20k for another year of
daycare but I also don't want my twins to be have issues in school. Speaking
of, instead of diagnosing kids with ADHD, why not hold them back by a year.
There could be additional benefits of holding kids back based on their
development. I was always the youngest kid in class and I struggled through
school and I always knew that I should be with the class behind me.

~~~
pageld
That's exactly the position I'm in, at least eventually.

My son was born in early July and my wife and I are trying to see if we should
wait until he's a full 5 and be a year older than everyone or go when he's
basically 4.

The extra year in a job to me isn't trivial. It's a 50k + extra year of
experience decision. I left high school a year early and even though I'm the
same age as a lot of people around me, I have 20k extra in my 401(k), I'm in a
management position and I have graduate school finished.

The start advantage is fading as I get older though.

It probably still depends on the child. Some can probably handle it better
than others. Personally, I'll have to wait and see to see what the little guy
is like and what he can handle.

~~~
barneygumble742
To me the extra year in a job is trivial because I spent close to 9 years in
school, working part-time to pay for college/grad school. And who knows what
the future holds? However, I am hoping that by the time they're in high
school, they will take dual-enrollment classes and finish college a year
early; something I wasn't able to do. I have twins and I spoke to my wife last
night about this...whatever happens, we both wish for them to be in the same
grade. We would hate for our daughter to skip a grade because she's developed
faster...which is also not fair to her.

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joedavison
Waldorf education (Steiner school) has been saying this forever. Formal
learning does not begin before age 6.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldorf_education#Pre-
school_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldorf_education#Pre-
school_and_kindergarten:_to_age_6.2F7)

~~~
jes5199
yeah but they also say that computers should be avoided because they are
influenced by the demon Ahriman

~~~
illza
Well, their reasoning may be faulty, but I'm not entirely sure the result is
wrong. In my opinion, computers should be avoided (in schools) when the
teachers have no idea what they're doing or how they're doing it. There's so
much technology in schools when a simple blackboard would get the job done and
save more time. Most elementary teachers don't have the time or interest to
learn enough technology to keep up with the changes from year to year. Don't
get me wrong, I'm all for kids having access to computers. I'd just like for
them to be able to get their questions answered or get real help when they run
into a problem.

------
mucker
Imagine the effects of never going to elementary school at all...

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wyager
I imagine that waiting a year to enroll can have a very high opportunity cost,
especially for accelerated kids. I started kindergarten a year early and it
was definitely the right choice for me. I would probably have died of boredom
a bit later on if I'd followed the usual age-based grade prescription.

------
sbov
There was a study linked here before that showed that while older children of
the same grade do better up to high school, younger children do better in
college and life beyond. A theory being that the difficulties younger children
face in schooling better prepare them for the real world.

So what do you optimize for?

~~~
Swizec
Will the difficulties they face when they're younger impact their grades and
in turn impact which colleges will accept them?

If yes, optimize for that not to happen.

If no, optimize for difficulty.

It's probably impossible to predict what will happen on an individual level,
these sorts of statistics are useful mostly on a populational level. Good
luck.

------
jonsen
There are things you learn in school. There are things you don't learn in
school. Some of the things you don't learn in school are important. If school
takes all a child's resources important things will not be learned. School has
a head start capturing the children in the morning taking the best part of
their day. One more year outside school could therefore be an enormous
benefit. If there is a good learning environment outside school.

------
jessaustin
Current Procrustean educational practice will seem quite barbaric from the
perspective of history. Many are forced into school long before they're ready,
but their presence means that many others are forced to repeat lessons over
and over for years that could have been mastered in months. Where education is
held hostage to ideals of conformity and equality, excellence is undervalued.

~~~
threatofrain
It's not because of American value in conformity that school is the way you
describe. It's logistics. If there were 1:1 teacher:student ratios, of course
things would be very different. After math, you go hiking with your teacher.
As you're hiking you discuss life and world events. Very personalized and
balanced growing plan for your child.

~~~
smokeyj
It'd be interesting to experiment with a model where the roles of student and
teacher are interchangeable. Some form of peer learning mesh network.

~~~
derefr
I would imagine you could learn a lot about peer education from the "one-room"
schoolhouses in developing countries. By necessity, there aren't enough
teachers to go around, and all the students of different levels are learning
together. If students manage at all in such an environment, it's because
they're learning from their peers. (Maybe not in an _effective_ manner;
there's no formal encouragement of the practice and nobody is given any
collaboration tools—but there are probably still learning strategies that can
be derived from what students _do_ manage to accomplish.)

------
alasdair_
My stepdaughters both started when they were six. This became an enormous
issue when they turned eighteen and we realised that one of them really needed
to repeat their final year but couldn't because they were too old. Had she
been entered at five years old, she would have been much more likely to
graduate.

------
analog31
Let's not overlook the economic effect of delaying kindergarten by a year.

But my main objection is simply that kindergarten has turned into an
artificial environment where self regulation is the primary survival skill.
Another approach is to take kids as they are, a year earlier, by adapting the
kindergarten environment.

------
callmeed
We are having our son repeat 1st grade this year–not because of his academic
progress but because of the social/maturity aspects this article speaks of.

There were "redshirt" kids in his class last year that were almost 1 year
older than him (he has a July birthday).

I think it was a good decision.

~~~
theseatoms
So those "redshirt" kids made your child's 1st grade experience more like the
2nd grade.

In one sense, this seems like an unproductive arms race. But it could be a
step in the right direction, towards placing children according to ability
rather than age.

~~~
jessaustin
No one seems to have mentioned the fact that in USA right now most
"redshirted" children are boys whose parents value athletic "success". The
theory is that those boys will be more likely to make the team when they're
competing against younger, less developed boys.

As a July birth who ceased being the shortest kid in his class in about ninth
grade, I'd say "meh".

------
Smushman
In other news, a new study proves that delaying enrollment in kindergarten to
age 33 results in a tenfold increase in attention spans and learning
potentiation.

------
gohrt
Study finds that the older children in a classroom are more successful. Policy
Proposal: make everyone the older children in the classroom.

Hmm....

~~~
Retric
Or, we could change the starting age band for each year.

Perhaps July is simply a poor cutoff.

Shift starting age by 1-2 weeks a year and class size would change little, but
you could quickly alter the age bands for each grade level.

Or perhaps we use 1/2 year bands. So, some students start in fall and graduate
in spring like now and other start in January and graduate in December. Which
also means someone could skip or fail 1/2 a year.

PS: The point being the current system is hardly the only way to approach mass
education.

------
noja
In which country?

~~~
viewer5
The article says Denmark:

"For the study, researchers used data from a nationwide mental-health
screening tool of children in Denmark – a survey that is widely used
internationally in clinical and academic settings – and matched it against the
Danish census. Linking the two allowed researchers to make analyses using
exact dates of birth, allowing for robust comparisons among similarly aged
children.

Because children in Denmark enroll in kindergarten in the calendar year they
turn six, kids born exactly on Dec. 31 would have started kindergarten earlier
that year, while those born a day later on Jan. 1 would be 6-years-
and-8-months old when they start formal schooling.

Researchers were thus able to examine differences between children who were
born a certain number of days before the Dec. 31 enrollment cut-off and those
born after the cut-off. They used full-sample sizes from the parent-reported
mental health survey; 54,241 parents responded when their children were age 7
and 35,902 responded when the children were about 11 years old."

------
dang
Url changed from [http://qz.com/546832/stanford-researchers-show-were-
sending-...](http://qz.com/546832/stanford-researchers-show-were-sending-many-
children-to-school-way-too-early/), which points to this.

------
db48x
Older children a more mature? Shocking.

~~~
olympus
I know. I interpreted this article as: 6 year old kindergartners are more
mature than 5 year old kindergartners. Perhaps they are as mature as 6 year
old first graders.

Delaying putting your kid into kindergarten is just giving them more time to
ripen on the vine. Delaying also means that you will be supporting them for
one more year before they graduate school and also takes one more year of
earning potential away from their working years. Food for thought.

~~~
corysama
The article is not comparing 5 years olds to 6 year olds. It is comparing 11
years olds who started school at 5 vs 11 year olds who started school at 6.

~~~
Dylan16807
But a big problem is that it's comparing 11 year olds in an easier grade with
11 year olds in a harder grade, rather than two groups that started at
different ages but still have the same age<->grade mapping.

