Should Dylan have been held back a year?

I was just thinking about Rachel Scott being older than Dylan Klebold despite being a year behind him in school. Do you think Dylan was too young to make the transition to school in general?

For one thing, Dylan wouldn't have had such a close bond with Eric had he been held back a year before he entered Middle School. This time is critical for most teenagers.

If he was held back he would be old for his grade instead of incredibly young for his grade. He would have probably benefited socially due to this aspect.

Also, instead of graduating in 1999 he would have graduated in 2000. He would have started Columbine in 1996, not 1995.

In my home country I was kind of young for my own grade and some parents had discussions with my Mother about pushing me into school despite me not being ready yet by her own admission. My Mother wanted to hold me back initially because she felt I wasn't adapting properly, and in the end, this became a problem. I threw tantrums in High School and my behavior mimicked Dylan's in class (I got low grades despite being heralded as "intelligent" and "gifted" to some degree).

I don't know if it would have helped his depression but I think having more social connections would have benefited him greatly. It also seemed like the grade below Eric and Dylan's didn't take much issue to them. I don't know if Dylan's feelings of isolation and hate would brood the way they did.

Discuss.

That’s a great question. I’m a month and a half younger than Dylan and also started school early. I was 17 when I started college and the youngest of all my peers.

I’m not sure if it was his age or other factors, I think he was bored in most classes. I went to school with a kid who pretty much slept through every class and aced all the tests. The work is wasn’t challenging for him.

This is an interesting subject that I've not seen discussed before. I will say the schools in my hometown did decide that starting school so early was detrimental so they made it a rule that if you were born after Aug 1 you had to wait to start school until the next year.

In Dylan's case I am not so sure what would have happened. It seems like when he was in high school, a lot of kids intermingled. Kids like Devon and Brandi were hanging out with seniors when they were juniors. Being that would have made Dylan a jr while Eric was a senior would that have changed much? IDK. He could have been such a loner and shy person perhaps he would have drifted to the TCM anyway.

Then again Dylan is such a grey area to me. Much more so than Eric. I think there are a lot more what ifs with Dylan. Slight things that could have really altered events. So perhaps starting school earlier could have been one of those things. Maybe he would have found a different set of friends very early in his school life that stuck by him throughout high school and got him thru those years.

Lizpuff wrote:

This is an interesting subject that I've not seen discussed before.  I will say the schools in my hometown did decide that starting school so early was detrimental so they made it a rule that if you were born after Aug 1 you had to wait to start school until the next year.

In Dylan's case I am not so sure what would have happened.  It seems like when he was in high school, a lot of kids intermingled.  Kids like Devon and Brandi were hanging out with seniors when they were juniors.  Being that would have made Dylan a jr while Eric was a senior would that have changed much?  IDK.  He could have been such a loner and shy person perhaps he would have drifted to the TCM anyway.

Then again Dylan is such a grey area to me.  Much more so than Eric.  I think there are a lot more what ifs with Dylan.  Slight things that could have really altered events.  So perhaps starting school earlier could have been one of those things.  Maybe he would have found a different set of friends very early in his school life that stuck by him throughout high school and got him thru those years.

That is true a lot of friends that they hung out with were all different grades. Correct me if I’m wrong wasn’t Devon a sophomore?

Many people had said Dylsn was more mature for his age as well even though he was quite shy.

Plus if he only got held back because he wasn’t connecting enough with classmates and he was socially awkward that would embarrass someone like him a lot more and probably make him angrier.

I think intellectually Dylan was "above normal"however maturity wise, he was "below normal" . I mean at 17 years old his brain isn't even fully developed. The "rational" part of the brain doesn't fully develop until about 25 years of age. Scoring high on testing and whatnot in school has nothing to do with brain development. The can appear as smart as Einstein but have no rationalizing skills.
Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brains rational part. This is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgement and an awareness of long term consequences. Teens process information with their amygdala, which is the emotional part. In teens brains, the connections between the emotional part of the brain and the decision-making center are still developing and not necessarily at the same rate.
Dylan was full of emotion, not always in front of people but we could tell in his journals and from eye-witnesses in the shooting that he was full of emotion. In my opinion, I think it would've benefited Dylan to stay back in 8th grade. Eric would've gone on to Columbine, Dylan would've meet other peers, maybe better influences for him and also gained a year of maturity and brain development. The possibility of Eric and Dylan being as close as they were if Dylan stayed back is much smaller. This was a great topic, thanks for posting!!

TaylorsMom wrote:

I think intellectually Dylan was "above normal"however maturity wise, he was "below normal" .  I mean at 17 years old his brain isn't even fully developed.  The "rational" part of the brain doesn't fully develop until about 25 years of age.  Scoring high on testing and whatnot in school has nothing to do with brain development.  The can appear as smart as Einstein but have no rationalizing skills.
Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brains rational part.  This is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgement and an awareness of long term consequences.  Teens process information with their amygdala, which is the emotional part.  In teens brains, the connections between the emotional part of the brain and the decision-making center are still developing and not necessarily at the same rate.
Dylan was full of emotion, not always in front of people but we could tell in his journals and from eye-witnesses in the shooting that he was full of emotion.  In my opinion, I think it would've benefited Dylan to stay back in 8th grade.  Eric would've gone on to Columbine, Dylan would've meet other peers, maybe better influences for him and also gained a year of maturity and brain development.  The possibility of Eric and Dylan being as close as they were if Dylan stayed back is much smaller.  This was a great topic, thanks for posting!!

I agree but I do think he if ever was to be held back it had to happen very early on. Holding him back in 8th grade would have made him feel inadequate and embarrassed.

That's a good point! Holding him back in elementary school would've been a more ideal situation.

Even in elementary school he would feel the same this is a guy who still complained about things back in daycare.

Giga143 wrote:

Even in elementary school he would feel the same this is a guy who still complained about things back in daycare.

But if you started his kindergarten a year later chances are he would have never known the difference.

Dylan, Eric and Rachel are the same age to me. They're all from the same year of birth, the difference of a few months so doesn't really matter. Emotional maturity does not always coincide with age. And people of different ages can quite well communicate with each other, especially if the difference in age is literally several years.

I'm only chiming in because I'm nearly the exact same age as Dylan would be now. My birthday is 9/29/81, so he was actually only 3ish weeks older than me. I too, started kindergarten at age 4, so I was always the youngest in my class (1999). It sucked when everyone was getting their license sophomore year and I had to wait until October of my junior year. But, other than that, I never felt developmentally/intellectually/ socially younger than my peers. That's just my $.02 on that aspect.
However, it might have made a difference and caused NBK to never happen, just due to the "butterfly effect" of changing that tiny detail in Dylan's life.