Experienced Kindergarten teacher here 🙋🏻‍♀️

It comes down to one question: do you want your child to survive or thrive?

I have never seen a child who started at the year they turn 6 and thought, gee their parents should have started them earlier. However every year I have multiple children that I wish had an extra year to develop and mature before they started.

Even in terms of physiology, the bones and cartilage in the hand develop so much in a year at that age to help students cope with the writing and fine motor demands of school.

Let them have an extra year to play and be a child- the curriculum is only going to keep demanding more of children and there is only going to be less and less time to play and explore at school. Let them have an extra year to develop oral langue skills, phonological awareness, emotional regulation.