Almost 7 year old in kindergarten!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I care too. Because it's a "trend" -- it's not a one off thing. It's not good for the kids who are held back or for the kids who are the regular age.

Maybe let's let the parents of the kids decide what's good for them.

Then let's do this with starting K early. Or skipping grades. To only do it with holding children back makes no sense. Parents are only the best judge when it comes to retaining children, but when it comes to acceleration schools are the best judge?

There is a child in my child's middle school who is 2 years old for grade due to some unusual circumstances. In lower elementary school, that child was fairly reasonably placed but gradually growing into their own. By later elementary school, the child was top of the class and socially ahead of their peers, the parents would have been interested in doing a grade skip had it been something they could do. Now in middle school, the child is obviously bored, should clearly be at least the grade ahead if not in their correct-grade-for-age, and the parents hands are tied by a decision they made when their child was considerably younger. Back then, the school was supportive and it was no problem, they fully understood the situation and the parents choices. Now? Oh no, the child's doing fine, don't rock the boat. It's nonsense.

Agreed, that is why we moved our chid ahead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are you concerned exactly?

Yeah, OP. Does the presence of this kid some how tarnish the sheen on your shiny snowflake?

Because the redshirted kids seem to be the ones behaving badly - and constantly taking the teachers' attention away from the kids who are the right age.

That's interesting, because we had the opposite experience. In my child's class, it was always the kids who were on the younger side who were causing trouble, particularly one kid whose birthday was on September 30 so was four when K started. Apparently, the school had told the mom that they didn't think he was ready, but she sent him anyway. That one very young child took up a lot of the teacher's time because he was so immature. He needed more time before starting school, but his family wanted him in school even though he wasn't ready so the whole class was lost time almost every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I care too. Because it's a "trend" -- it's not a one off thing. It's not good for the kids who are held back or for the kids who are the regular age.

Maybe let's let the parents of the kids decide what's good for them.

Then let's do this with starting K early. Or skipping grades. To only do it with holding children back makes no sense. Parents are only the best judge when it comes to retaining children, but when it comes to acceleration schools are the best judge?

There is a child in my child's middle school who is 2 years old for grade due to some unusual circumstances. In lower elementary school, that child was fairly reasonably placed but gradually growing into their own. By later elementary school, the child was top of the class and socially ahead of their peers, the parents would have been interested in doing a grade skip had it been something they could do. Now in middle school, the child is obviously bored, should clearly be at least the grade ahead if not in their correct-grade-for-age, and the parents hands are tied by a decision they made when their child was considerably younger. Back then, the school was supportive and it was no problem, they fully understood the situation and the parents choices. Now? Oh no, the child's doing fine, don't rock the boat. It's nonsense.

Parents are the best judge (in public school) when it comes to retaining children in one, very specific, very limited circumstance: they can send the child to kindergarten on time, or they can send the child to kindergarten one year later. That is it. I don't think it's grounds for overturning the entire age-grade structure of the public school system, but if you do, then I urge you (sincerely) to start working on that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Sincere question: how do you know who's redshirted in your child's class?

I am always curious when people ask this question. People have birthday parties. Also, if you volunteer at school or chat with kids when they come over for play dates or meet at the park, things like their birthday and age come up, even if you aren't intentionally looking for the info.

Yes, people have birthday parties, but there are plenty of kids in the class who either don't have a birthday party or don't invite my kid to the birthday party.

I'm guessing that the people who know the birthday of every kid in the class have their kid in private school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Sincere question: how do you know who's redshirted in your child's class?

I am always curious when people ask this question. People have birthday parties. Also, if you volunteer at school or chat with kids when they come over for play dates or meet at the park, things like their birthday and age come up, even if you aren't intentionally looking for the info.

Yes you can find out a few birthdays that way - but I would doubt you could find out birthdays for the entire class. I can't imagine even retaining the information anyway - because who cares? I only care for DD's closest friends.

[Anonymous]

Sincere question: how do you know who's redshirted in your child's class?

I am always curious when people ask this question. People have birthday parties. Also, if you volunteer at school or chat with kids when they come over for play dates or meet at the park, things like their birthday and age come up, even if you aren't intentionally looking for the info.

Yes, people have birthday parties, but there are plenty of kids in the class who either don't have a birthday party or don't invite my kid to the birthday party.

I'm guessing that the people who know the birthday of every kid in the class have their kid in private school.

I don't know the exact birthday of "every kid" in my son's class, but I know many of their general birthday months, and he goes to public school. We're a friendly family, and I volunteer at the school for 30 minutes one or two days a month on my lunch hour when I work from home. I also like to chat with his classmates when we meet up at the park or at play dates. Not to grill them about their birthdays, but just to find out a little bit about their interests, activities, and lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Sincere question: how do you know who's redshirted in your child's class?

I am always curious when people ask this question. People have birthday parties. Also, if you volunteer at school or chat with kids when they come over for play dates or meet at the park, things like their birthday and age come up, even if you aren't intentionally looking for the info.

Yes, people have birthday parties, but there are plenty of kids in the class who either don't have a birthday party or don't invite my kid to the birthday party.

I'm guessing that the people who know the birthday of every kid in the class have their kid in private school.

I don't know the exact birthday of "every kid" in my son's class, but I know many of their general birthday months, and he goes to public school. We're a friendly family, and I volunteer at the school for 30 minutes one or two days a month on my lunch hour when I work from home. I also like to chat with his classmates when we meet up at the park or at play dates. Not to grill them about their birthdays, but just to find out a little bit about their interests, activities, and lives.

Are we not supposed to know kids birthdays now? Is it a big secret? Maybe some people who red shirted their kids are sensitive about this but...oh well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Sincere question: how do you know who's redshirted in your child's class?

I am always curious when people ask this question. People have birthday parties. Also, if you volunteer at school or chat with kids when they come over for play dates or meet at the park, things like their birthday and age come up, even if you aren't intentionally looking for the info.

Yes, people have birthday parties, but there are plenty of kids in the class who either don't have a birthday party or don't invite my kid to the birthday party.

I'm guessing that the people who know the birthday of every kid in the class have their kid in private school.

I don't know the exact birthday of "every kid" in my son's class, but I know many of their general birthday months, and he goes to public school. We're a friendly family, and I volunteer at the school for 30 minutes one or two days a month on my lunch hour when I work from home. I also like to chat with his classmates when we meet up at the park or at play dates. Not to grill them about their birthdays, but just to find out a little bit about their interests, activities, and lives.

Are we not supposed to know kids birthdays now? Is it a big secret? Maybe some people who red shirted their kids are sensitive about this but...oh well.

I know the exact birthday of every child in my sons private k because they are written on the wall and celebrated. Didn't exactly take detective work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Sincere question: how do you know who's redshirted in your child's class?

I am always curious when people ask this question. People have birthday parties. Also, if you volunteer at school or chat with kids when they come over for play dates or meet at the park, things like their birthday and age come up, even if you aren't intentionally looking for the info.

Yes, people have birthday parties, but there are plenty of kids in the class who either don't have a birthday party or don't invite my kid to the birthday party.

I'm guessing that the people who know the birthday of every kid in the class have their kid in private school.

I don't know the exact birthday of "every kid" in my son's class, but I know many of their general birthday months, and he goes to public school. We're a friendly family, and I volunteer at the school for 30 minutes one or two days a month on my lunch hour when I work from home. I also like to chat with his classmates when we meet up at the park or at play dates. Not to grill them about their birthdays, but just to find out a little bit about their interests, activities, and lives.

Are we not supposed to know kids birthdays now? Is it a big secret? Maybe some people who red shirted their kids are sensitive about this but...oh well.

I know the exact birthday of every child in my sons private k because they are written on the wall and celebrated. Didn't exactly take detective work.

They are printed on the wall in DD's class as well - but no years are listed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Sincere question: how do you know who's redshirted in your child's class?

I am always curious when people ask this question. People have birthday parties. Also, if you volunteer at school or chat with kids when they come over for play dates or meet at the park, things like their birthday and age come up, even if you aren't intentionally looking for the info.

Yes, people have birthday parties, but there are plenty of kids in the class who either don't have a birthday party or don't invite my kid to the birthday party.

I'm guessing that the people who know the birthday of every kid in the class have their kid in private school.

Last year we didn't have a party, this year we did. There are only 12 kids in his grade and they interact a lot with the lower grade, so I invited all the kids so no one would be left out. We know we are not invited to all parties and we are invited to some that others are not. That's fine. But, given their ages and small class size, I was not excluding any kids (or siblings). About 2/3's came. I don't keep track of the other birthdays but it was helpful to figure out who was in the class and to figure out siblings to make sure the invitation included everyone. I'm sure people assumed they were not invited last year when we didn't have one but we choose to do the birthday at Disney instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I'm guessing that the people who know the birthday of every kid in the class have their kid in private school.

Or our children talk to other children.

With birthday parties, recreational activities that have associated ages, my child talking to his friends, me being friendly with some parents, it's not difficult to know every child's month and year of birth (and how many siblings they have, and what their favorite color is...). Age is a big topic of discussion among young children, particularly whenever one of them has a birthday. They then need to sort out who's older and younger and so on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are you concerned exactly?

Yeah, OP. Does the presence of this kid some how tarnish the sheen on your shiny snowflake?

Because the redshirted kids seem to be the ones behaving badly - and constantly taking the teachers' attention away from the kids who are the right age.

That's interesting, because we had the opposite experience. In my child's class, it was always the kids who were on the younger side who were causing trouble, particularly one kid whose birthday was on September 30 so was four when K started. Apparently, the school had told the mom that they didn't think he was ready, but she sent him anyway. That one very young child took up a lot of the teacher's time because he was so immature. He needed more time before starting school, but his family wanted him in school even though he wasn't ready so the whole class was lost time almost every day.

The two oldest are the worst behaved. They are over a year+ older than the other kids who are all within six months of each other. They are physically bigger and both are hitting and pushing the other kids, they are verbally being nasty to the other kids. My kid says they go into time out a lot. The September child is not immature. He is being held to an unreasonable standard because he is with kids 12-18 months older than him. He is 5 basically when starting K. A month does not make a huge difference. I have a September kid. He's 6 and in 1st. He would have been miserable in K. this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I care too. Because it's a "trend" -- it's not a one off thing. It's not good for the kids who are held back or for the kids who are the regular age.

Maybe let's let the parents of the kids decide what's good for them.

Then let's do this with starting K early. Or skipping grades. To only do it with holding children back makes no sense. Parents are only the best judge when it comes to retaining children, but when it comes to acceleration schools are the best judge?

There is a child in my child's middle school who is 2 years old for grade due to some unusual circumstances. In lower elementary school, that child was fairly reasonably placed but gradually growing into their own. By later elementary school, the child was top of the class and socially ahead of their peers, the parents would have been interested in doing a grade skip had it been something they could do. Now in middle school, the child is obviously bored, should clearly be at least the grade ahead if not in their correct-grade-for-age, and the parents hands are tied by a decision they made when their child was considerably younger. Back then, the school was supportive and it was no problem, they fully understood the situation and the parents choices. Now? Oh no, the child's doing fine, don't rock the boat. It's nonsense.

Parents are the best judge (in public school) when it comes to retaining children in one, very specific, very limited circumstance: they can send the child to kindergarten on time, or they can send the child to kindergarten one year later. That is it. I don't think it's grounds for overturning the entire age-grade structure of the public school system, but if you do, then I urge you (sincerely) to start working on that.

Why aren't parents the best judge (in public school) when it comes to accelerating children in that same, very specific, very limited circumstance? If they can choose to hold out a year, why not allow them to accelerate a year? What makes parents the best judge at delay but not the best judge at acceleration?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I'm guessing that the people who know the birthday of every kid in the class have their kid in private school.

Or our children talk to other children.

With birthday parties, recreational activities that have associated ages, my child talking to his friends, me being friendly with some parents, it's not difficult to know every child's month and year of birth (and how many siblings they have, and what their favorite color is...). Age is a big topic of discussion among young children, particularly whenever one of them has a birthday. They then need to sort out who's older and younger and so on.

How many children in your child's class? Are you saying that you're in public school, and you know the month and year of birth of every child in your child's kindergarten class?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Why aren't parents the best judge (in public school) when it comes to accelerating children in that same, very specific, very limited circumstance? If they can choose to hold out a year, why not allow them to accelerate a year? What makes parents the best judge at delay but not the best judge at acceleration?

Take it up with your state board of education -- or the board of trustees of your private school, if you're in private school.