Do you live in New York? Most states paid attention to the research that it was better for kids to start Kindergarten already 5, and moved their starting dates. New York is one of the last hold outs. Too bad for your kid. |
| Honestly, my 15 year old is friends with the kids of our friends. They all play different sports, range from senior in high school to 7th graders (those are the extremes and generally not together). Nearly all of them did a performing art in middle school. And they were on summer swim team for the most part. All of them are A/B students, find baking, video games, going to the mall, movie, or dave and busters to be fun. And because we parents are friends, they are generally near an adult who will tell their parents what is going on when they are together at someone's house. |
Ahhhh, the $90k PG year of high school. An elegant solution. |
Yeah, where do you live that you have a 13 year old freshmen - yikes! I'm concerned about that. My district has a 9/1 cutoff, and my DD has an early September bday. So -- other than any red-shirted kids -- she is one of the very OLDEST in her grade, and she will turn 13 the third week of 7th grade. |
All anti-redshirters are bad at math. The vast majority of redshirted kids are summer birthdays who are 18 their entire senior year and turn 19 before their freshman year of college. Really not a big deal. For my kid, music has been his ticket to a great friend group. Kids who are serious about music can defer gratification enough to force themselves to practice - I think that’s why they’re mostly not up to sketchy stuff. |
Dp. This area has mostly 9/1 or 9/30 cutoff dates, and I think down south it can be even earlier. We used to live in NY where they had 12/1 and 12/30 cutoffs. In this area, a 13 yo freshman with an October bday will definitely have kids 13 months older than him in their class, and probably a decent number of kids 15 to 18 months older. My August bday dd was more than a year younger than a good number of her classmates. |
Uhm. No. |
It’s true in our case, but then we live in Southern California. |
| What’s up with using the word “wholesome”? I don’t get it. |
The studies have said the biggest drinking partiers are the ones in group sports, football, basketball, hockey, exactly who you would think would be the drinkers and partiers. That doesn’t mean they’re not good kids. |
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Sports. If he's not super sporty, then find a no cut sports team like XC. At our school, they are a close knit, fun bunch of kids.
Also theater, band, or another club. I know a lot of kids found their group -though they tend to be the "popular" ones- in that bullsh-- "Leadership class" at the HSs. |
| At many schools, not all, running (any kind) is a "no cut" sport. Better running coaches focus on helping each student improve their personal best times. I know of many cases where this sport attracted fewer (not zero; exceptions always exist) of the drinking/drugs kids. |
Most common thing to do is repeat 8th grade, not start later in K. Again, it’s usually the most talented athletes recruited to a sports private that allow the kids to repeat 8th grade at the private. |
OP wants her kids to be conventional, conservative and uninteresting |
Talented athletes aren’t given a scholarship to go to prep school except maybe in hockey where that seems to be the standard. Talented athletes in all other sports are recruited direct to college (or direct to pros for baseball or soccer). It’s mainly the people still indulging the D1 dream that do a 5th year…and they are paying full freight. Almost nobody gets a scholarship to IMG at $90k/year. |