Samantha Turnbull’s five-year-old son flapped belly-down in a puddle of water on the footpath outside the cafe where she’d met another mum for coffee. 

“Buddy, get up. What are you doing?” she called. “I can’t understand you!” he yelled back. “I’m a barramundi!”

Samantha watched her friend’s five-year-old daughter quietly sip her babycino, and sighed. “And this is why he’ll be spending another year at preschool,” she said. 

Despite his penchant for floundering in path puddles, her son is smart. 

He has an encyclopaedic memory when it comes to anything to do with animals, particularly dangerous ones, and loves reading books and telling stories. 

But her decision to hold him back from big school until just after his sixth birthday had nothing to do with his academic ability. As her son spent a good chunk of every day on his own imaginary planet, he constantly ran around with, and battled against, make-believe creatures. She never quite knew if it’s a human she was talking to, a zombie, an owl, or a seahorse. 

And she didn’t want to stifle that crazy free spirit any earlier than she had to. 

“I just knew that another of year of ‘play’ would make him much happier than pulling on a uniform and starting the 13-year slog of big school,” she says. 

She was also comforted by the fact kids don’t start school until seven in Finland, reportedly a mecca for education. Then there’s advice from some parenting experts that certain boys are developmentally ready to start school later than others.