Q: I see on your website that you have written many articles on retention and/or delaying school entry for young children. So I was hoping you could offer me some much-needed advice on my daughter.

Long story short, my daughter is 6 and would be going on to second grade, but she is young in her grade because she started kindergarten at a private school that didn't have the same age cutoff as our public school. She moved to public school in first grade, and that would have been the ideal time for me to have had her repeat kindergarten and be with her peers the same age, but I didn't. I chose to have her go into first grade instead. She struggled somewhat with reading and a lot with math. In reading, she has now caught up and is on grade level, but she is behind in math.

Given all this, would you recommend retention for her in first grade? I do worry about the stigma of retention and how she would feel about it. The school is allowing me to retain her if I choose and has left it up to me to decide. The teacher thinks she should move on but said she would support me in my decision. She would have the same teacher. I know you don't recommend that, but my daughter really wants the same teacher. She is very shy and has a very good rapport with her. Complicating things further, she is in a dual-language program, and this is the only teacher who teaches this, so having a different teacher would mean pulling her out of the program, which I don't want. She has really benefited from the program and is reading and writing in both languages. Any advice?

A: You do have a difficult dilemma. We only rarely retain a child, and that's because of the negative effect on the child's self-concept. Given that your daughter is young in the grade and is barely at grade level in reading and below that in math, I would agree with your thinking that this is a good time for retention. The early grades are less likely to cause children psychological problems than later grades, in which peers are more aware of a child's being held back. The fact that you would like to keep her in her dual-language program gives no choice about her teacher. It is helpful that she enjoys the teacher.

Before you make your final decision, it might be good to have one more conference with her teacher to ask why she thinks your daughter is capable of moving forward. She may have much more insight into your daughter's capabilities than we do. It would be best if you could ask the school psychologist to conduct a comprehensive evaluation so you could feel more confident of the correct decision.

Dr. Sylvia B. Rimm is the director of the Family Achievement Clinic in Cleveland, a clinical professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and the author of many books on parenting. More information on raising kids is available at www.sylviarimm.com. Please send questions to: Sylvia B. Rimm on Raising Kids, P.O. Box 32, Watertown, WI 53094 or [email protected]. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.