Ask Sherrin Blog

should my child repeat?

Sherrin discusses how to make a wise decision: 1. Understand the causes 2. Give your child the best chance to be successful

• 
  

  Understand the causes for the child needing to/possibly needing to repeat:

  
  
  
  
  • What is causing the lack of confidence?
  
  
  • What is causing my child to fall behind?
  
  
  • Is there something that I can do to boost their performance – how do they learn best?; what are the best strategies to use?; do I know their specific strengths and growth areas?
  
  
  • Will repeating ‘change’ the causes of the reasons to repeat or will my child just have the same troubles?
  
  
  • What can I do to strengthen their learning, regardless of whether they repeat or not?
  
  
  • Is it about the cognitive maturity of my child – are they younger than most of their peers, are they just slower at developing and with time will catch up?
  
  
  • Get independent advice in addition to the classroom teacher
  
  
  • Use your instincts – as parents you often know what is right for your child but then you second guess
  
  
  
  


• 
  

  Place your child in a situation where they have the best chance to be most successful

  
  
  
  
  • success is never a burden
  
  
  • success will make them happy
  
  
  • success will motivate them
  
  
  • success builds confidence
  
  
  • success and confidence transmits to making friends easily
  
  
  
  


• 
  

  what about the social implications?

  
  
  
  
  • children are far more adaptable than we realise
  
  
  • your child will have two sets of friends – some friends from last year and new friends from this year
  
  
  • success will motivate them
  
  
  • success builds confidence
  
  
  • if a child is ‘lagging’ behind then they often feel embarrassed deep down and this inhibits their self-view, so they may have to ‘act out’ and be a ‘clown’ for example in order to make friends and this is not healthy in itself as the child is more subject to trying to ‘fit in’ than being themselves
  
  
  • if the child however is placed in a classroom where they are more likely to achieve more successfully, they will feel more confident within themselves, will make friends more easily and will generally be less likely to be bullied or to become a bully and less likely to feel inadequate, less like to feel the need to attention seek and less like to do things that they think will make them more attractive or funny with others (compensate for their lack of self-view / self-perception)
  
  
  
  

There is no one rule fits all, but to make a wise choice re repeating, first gather the facts and understand the ‘causes’ of why this year did not work out as well as it could have. Find out if they can catch up with a little extra assistance. Understand that there is a direct link between success in the classroom and self-view. Give your child the best chance to be most successful as that will build their confidence, open the way for future opportunities and allow them to feel comfortable so that they can interact in a healthy way with others. There is no ‘exact science’ around when is it best to repeat, but a general rule of thumb is sooner is better than later or at a time when the child is going to change school or change from primary school to middle school /high school.

Personally, two of my three children repeated as their birthdays we right at the end of the school year and we found that they were almost like one whole year younger than many of their classmates. Repeating allowed them to mature cognitively and more easily achieve classroom success; they were generally more at ease within themselves and they have made lifelong friends with children from their repeat year. And when they were in high school they had a ‘deeper’ understanding of more complex and abstract concepts – simply because they had strong foundations (with no gaps), were self-confident and were generally a little more mature and independent.