Remember diapers? Yeah, they were pretty easy, weren’t they?

My daughter starts kindergarten in three and a half weeks.

I told one of my co-workers this yesterday and she was all “Nuh-uh! Already?”

I know.

Our district tests for kindergarten readiness in the spring. Not all districts do this and I consider us very fortunate that ours takes kindergarten placement so seriously. Of course parents can do whatever they want regardless of what the assessment suggests, but I was hoping it would be one more tool at our disposal to help us make the best decision for our child.

Secretly, though, I was hoping the assessment would make the decision for us.

The assessment took place last March at a local church. The children were handed off to the evaluators while the parents sat in a room and learned about the assessment process and what skills they looked at when determining placement.

All the while I listened I was hoping the results would be clear. Autumn is only two weeks from the cut-off date to even be eligible to attend kindergarten this year and would most likely be the youngest in her class if that’s where we decided to put her. Nathan and I discussed it and decided that if the test was inconclusive, meaning she could go either way, we’d give her another year and put her in pre-k.

But the test wasn’t inconclusive. As I sat down with the evaluator, a very nice teacher from one of the elementary schools, I was handed a piece of paper with the evaluation results laid out in a grid. On the left side of the paper were the skills that were tested; fine motor, gross motor, language, reasoning and whatnot. The top of the grid broke down how well the child tested in each category and the teacher pointed out where the child needs to be in order to handle the standard kindergarten curriculum.

Autumn tested at or above kindergarten readiness in each category, and at the bottom of the page where it asked the evaluator to note her recommendation, she had written “kindergarten.”

I was just about to issue a triumphant fist pump when the teacher lowered the whammy.

“While she did test ready for kindergarten, she would also do very well in pre-k.”

Emphasis on the very well.

The teacher went on to say that pre-k serves as an opportunity for children to continue to learn and grow before entering the big bad world of kindergarten and that Autumn would only be that much more ready to tackle elementary school if we gave her another year.

I didn’t get the sense that she was trying to push us towards pre-k, mind you. I think she was just trying to reassure us that pre-k was an option if we decided we wanted to wait a year. In the end, though, I signed the paper indicating we agreed with the initial assessment.

Of course the process wasn’t over. The assessment was on Thursday. Final placement would not be determined until we called the district the following Monday. We were given the weekend to sit and think about it, and since I happened to have a conference scheduled with Autumn’s preschool teachers in the afternoon that Monday, I decided to show them the results of the assessment and gather their input before calling the district.

Both of the teachers said they had a hard time making a recommendation. They each said Autumn is very smart but that a year in pre-k would help her become more of a leader.

“Kindergarten is not what it used to be,” said one. “Learning through play is crucial to child development and pre-k would help her build the skills she’d need to really excel in kindergarten.”

So here we had three teachers telling us Autumn was academically ready for kindergarten but that pre-k was the less risky option that would allow our child more time to be a child. It’s a practice called “red shirting” and many parents do choose to hold their children back a year. My parents did. Since my birthday is a week after Autumn’s and since Nathan and I live in the same district where I grew up, my parents were in the very same situation 34 years ago. I tested ready for kindergarten but the evaluator suggested pre-k. And so that’s where I went.

Now this is the part where being a parent sucks because these kinds of decisions are the ones that have the potential to have repercussions years down the line. Will she fall behind academically because we pushed her before she’s ready? Will she be that much more immature than her peers? Did we take away her childhood a little too early?

And, of course, will she hate us because she’ll be the last of her friends to earn her driver’s license?

I really wanted this to feel right. No matter what we chose, I wanted to know we’d made the best decision for our child. But it just wasn’t happening. No matter which way we went, there was an even balance of pros and cons that left me with a nauseating sense of uncertainty.

This is my child. My one and only child. I don’t want to make the wrong decision.

On the other hand, I also don’t want to play it too safe. I don’t want to limit her potential and I do want to challenge her.

I was not challenged. Even now, when faced with a challenge, I tend to look around it rather than through it. I procrastinate. I defer. I’m passive and a little bit lazy.

Would any of that have changed if I’d not gone to pre-k? Who knows? I’m not saying my parents made the wrong decision. They made the best decision with the information they had at the time. But I know my parents. They are not risk-takers. They never have been.

So maybe it was with a little bit of defiance that I signed that paper and later called the district indicating our desire for kindergarten placement. Both Nathan and I are prepared to give her that little bit of a push neither of us ever received.

I’ve had five months to think about this decision, and as we get closer to the start of the school year, my doubts have started to dissipate a little. I don’t think I’ll feel entirely comfortable until we’re on the other side of this first year, but even then I may still wonder if we did the right thing.

Our little home is in for some big changes within the next few weeks. It’s going to be an interesting transition and I have no doubt I’ll spend that first day of school weeping at my desk and wondering how this girl

turned into this girl.

Tagged as: decisions, education, kindergarten, Parenting, School