mad - kid in kindergarten has late birthday

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it op. My late-August birthday girl was called a baby and told she belonged in pre-k because she was still 5 in the late spring of her kindergarten year, by the 7 year olds in the class. Blatant red-shirting skews the dynamics.

You sent a 4 year old to kindergarten?

DP. If they are 5 at the end of kindergarten and their next birthday is in August, then they could have been 4 for at most a couple of weeks depending on the start of the school year. This would be on time for kids in this area (Sept cut off).

+1, my kid turned 5 a few weeks before K started, and there were at least 2 other kids in her class with birthdays around the same time (we did a joint birthday with those two). That's a normal time to start kindergarten.

The other 2 August birthdays we knew in K were boys, btw. Redshirting is not common where we live and most kids start K at 5.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it op. My late-August birthday girl was called a baby and told she belonged in pre-k because she was still 5 in the late spring of her kindergarten year, by the 7 year olds in the class. Blatant red-shirting skews the dynamics.

You sent a 4 year old to kindergarten?

In VA, as long as they are 5 by the end of September, yes you send 4 year olds to Kindergarten.

This is only an issue when parents hold back their kids for ridiculous reasons and then you have that kid next to a 7 year old.

[Anonymous]

As your child grows, OP, you'll get used to red-shirting and a million other differences among kids.

And then when you have older teens like me, it will be part of the normal landscape, when you observe that the smartest kids you know may actually be young for their grade, and that the red-shirted boy gets accepted to an Ivy with an athletic hook...

This is how it is. Deal with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it op. My late-August birthday girl was called a baby and told she belonged in pre-k because she was still 5 in the late spring of her kindergarten year, by the 7 year olds in the class. Blatant red-shirting skews the dynamics.

You sent a 4 year old to kindergarten?

NP here. I was 4 when I went to kindergarten. Fall birthday and the cut off was 12/31. My daughter (now in MS) has classmates who were 4 for the first month of K, and they're a couple of the most intelligent kids in the grade honestly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it op. My late-August birthday girl was called a baby and told she belonged in pre-k because she was still 5 in the late spring of her kindergarten year, by the 7 year olds in the class. Blatant red-shirting skews the dynamics.

You sent a 4 year old to kindergarten?

In VA, as long as they are 5 by the end of September, yes you send 4 year olds to Kindergarten.

This is only an issue when parents hold back their kids for ridiculous reasons and then you have that kid next to a 7 year old.

So the rules are good when they allow 4 year olds but not 6 year olds to start? Who makes the rules, not you, correct?

[Anonymous]

That’s within the rules for MCPS. There is a 25.5 month range of admission dates for kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

I have a hard time with this as well. It is ridiculous to have a 7 year old kid in kindergarten. Red shirting for a Spring birthday is too much. Late summer is fine.

[Anonymous]

One of my middle school kids has 2 boys in his grade who are spring red-shirts (April and may). Those boys were fine (and friends of my kid) until sixth grade, when the social differences became more apparent. Since then, those boys have gotten into trouble in terms of in-class behavior and limit testing during out of school get together. There’s a red shirted early summer bday girl in the grade who seems totally fine, though she did go through puberty early and for about 18 months looked like the other girls’ older sister!

[Anonymous]

OP, a LOT of people redshirted young kids during Covid and I don’t blame anyone for doing what they thought was best for their kid. Others make their choice for a variety of other reasons.

[Anonymous]

OP mind your own business. You have no idea what is going on with this child. My dd turns 6 in Nov and had to be pulled out of K to redo pre-k and will try K again next year. She looks completely neurotypical but has a host of issues including hundreds of absence seizures a day. I’d give anything for her to be functioning enough to be in K this year and not have thousands of dollars in therapist and specialist appointments and tears at night bc kids teased her (now for coming back to preschool and being the oldest). Knowing I’ll have to deal w/ passive aggressive parents like you when she’s the oldest kid in K next year just adds to our stress. You also don’t realize how much kids pick up on. Butt out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of my middle school kids has 2 boys in his grade who are spring red-shirts (April and may). Those boys were fine (and friends of my kid) until sixth grade, when the social differences became more apparent. Since then, those boys have gotten into trouble in terms of in-class behavior and limit testing during out of school get together. There’s a red shirted early summer bday girl in the grade who seems totally fine, though she did go through puberty early and for about 18 months looked like the other girls’ older sister!

Isn’t this always the case in middle school though? Regardless of red shirting? Some kids physically mature and get into more teenage behaviors early, while others physically look like little kids ( and have more kid interests) through middle school. My son is this way (not redshirted) but so are many of his friends. Including one who was red shirted. I’m not sure it makes much difference TBH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP mind your own business. You have no idea what is going on with this child. My dd turns 6 in Nov and had to be pulled out of K to redo pre-k and will try K again next year. She looks completely neurotypical but has a host of issues including hundreds of absence seizures a day. I’d give anything for her to be functioning enough to be in K this year and not have thousands of dollars in therapist and specialist appointments and tears at night bc kids teased her (now for coming back to preschool and being the oldest). Knowing I’ll have to deal w/ passive aggressive parents like you when she’s the oldest kid in K next year just adds to our stress. You also don’t realize how much kids pick up on. Butt out.

This can be true for some kids, and it can also be true that others were just held back because the parents wanted to give them “the gift of time“. I was talking to Mom at a kids soccer game who commented that my son looked so big. He’s an October birthday who missed the cutoff and I said it was too bad he couldn’t just go a grade ahead. She then said that her husband was a September birthday who insisted they hold their April kid back so they he’s one of the oldest. The problem is, there aren’t any rules and it’s not unusual now to have a class with kids 18 months apart. That’s not great for the kids on either end of the spectrum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of my middle school kids has 2 boys in his grade who are spring red-shirts (April and may). Those boys were fine (and friends of my kid) until sixth grade, when the social differences became more apparent. Since then, those boys have gotten into trouble in terms of in-class behavior and limit testing during out of school get together. There’s a red shirted early summer bday girl in the grade who seems totally fine, though she did go through puberty early and for about 18 months looked like the other girls’ older sister!

Isn’t this always the case in middle school though? Regardless of red shirting? Some kids physically mature and get into more teenage behaviors early, while others physically look like little kids ( and have more kid interests) through middle school. My son is this way (not redshirted) but so are many of his friends. Including one who was red shirted. I’m not sure it makes much difference TBH.

Sure, there’s a range of when kids go through puberty. The problem in my kids particular class was that the majorly redshirted kids also went through puberty early, which exaggerated the differences. Parents don’t really have a way to know this when making these initial decisions so the consequences often show up in middle school when there isn’t much to do about it.

[Anonymous]

My kiddo just started this fall, at 4 years old. School started before the cutoff date. He turned 5 on the fourth day of school. We've already had a teacher conference and she led with the fact that my child very much belongs in kindergarten.

And already, plenty of classmates are turning 6. It's just the way it is. But I do hope that my kid isn't a target because of his age and height. He weighs 37 pounds! A 7 year old could have 20 pounds on him. My kid has had two altercations with a child in his class who has challenges: one time, my kid went to the nurse because of head injury concerns (he was fine); another time, the child had such a tight hold on my kid that they put out an alarm for all available adults to come running and unzipped my kid out of his hoodie, which was easier than prying the other child off the hoodie. Amazingly, my kid was like, "Whatever, I'm okay. Sure, I'll take a hug from the principal, and now can I please go back to playing?" I hadn't thought that age or size had anything to do with it, but hmm......

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it op. My late-August birthday girl was called a baby and told she belonged in pre-k because she was still 5 in the late spring of her kindergarten year, by the 7 year olds in the class. Blatant red-shirting skews the dynamics.

You sent a 4 year old to kindergarten?

NP here. I was 4 when I went to kindergarten. Fall birthday and the cut off was 12/31. My daughter (now in MS) has classmates who were 4 for the first month of K, and they're a couple of the most intelligent kids in the grade honestly.

Same. I have a November birthday and was 4 when I started. Now people act like that's crazy. It was fine.