TO THE MOM WHO RED SHIRTED HER SON AND COMPLAINS HE'S NOT CHALLENGED

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Schools are competitive between students in higher grades. Red-shirting is cheating at the game, plain and simple. Schools should enforce classroom age limites -- i.e., the rules of the game.

I agree completely. There should absolutely be stricter standards for redshirting. Not essentially because the parents feel like it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools are competitive between students in higher grades. Red-shirting is cheating at the game, plain and simple. Schools should enforce classroom age limites -- i.e., the rules of the game.

I agree completely. There should absolutely be stricter standards for redshirting. Not essentially because the parents feel like it.

some districts now require a doctor's note to redshirt. That should be the standard.

[Anonymous]

Hey, OP, the fact that your daughter is challenging in K and has to work hard to keep up with her older peers is going to be to her advantage later in school. It's not like in sports, where being younger is almost always a hindrance. She can get ahead of them! My daughter is super-competitive by nature, and although I try to remind her not to compare herself to any of her peers, it has been a personal triumph for her to notice that she can surpass them in many things (math, reading) when she works harder/practices more than them. So when she comes complaining to me about something, I ask "Do you want me to help you become better at that?" And then we do math drills, or practice cartwheels, or whatever it is that is making her feel bad.

But is it your daughter feeling bad here and comparing herself to others, or is it you?

I really don't worry about red-shirting except in terms of my own kids-- I went through puberty a few two years before most of my peers, very early, and that really affected two years of my school experience negatively, and I think that's where kids have the most trouble (and this will be different for boys vs. girls). I hope that other people consider this when thinking about whether to red shirt (or, as the case may be, skip a grade).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[So send your kid to private K and then to first grade. That way they would have Kindergarten in a smaller setting with more play and recess. To redshirt you would need to pay for another year of pre K or private K anyway. Give your child that year in a smaller or possibly more nurturing environment and then send them on time with their age to first grade.

This is what we did with our DS, who is now about to turn 6 as Kindergarten ends. Last year at this time, at the end of preK 4, his teachers were advocating redshirting, sending him to the private's Junior Kindergarten rather than Kindergarten. He wasn't clicking academically and he was having some social issues, but we weighed all the factors very carefully and chose to have him enter Kindergarten. A big factor in the decision was who his teacher would be. Each of DH and I did an observation in the JK and in the K classes. The Kindergarten teacher impressed us with her attitude, demeanor, sense of humor and communication style. The JK teacher was a good teacher but we sensed very strongly that the Kindergarten teacher's personality and approach would "click" with him, and we were right. The small size of the Kindergarten class also has really fostered his growth academically and socially, with a lot of play and recess as the PP noted. Some of the class did Junior Kindergarten before coming into Kindergarten with him, and they are ahead of him academically (especially the girls) but so what?

Never heard of Junior Kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

I really don't worry about red-shirting except in terms of my own kids-- I went through puberty a few two years before most of my peers, very early, and that really affected two years of my school experience negatively, and I think that's where kids have the most trouble (and this will be different for boys vs. girls). I hope that other people consider this when thinking about whether to red shirt (or, as the case may be, skip a grade).

This is a really good point. Even if every kid in a class was born in the correct 12 months for that class, they will still all develop and mature at vastly different rates. Some will be taller, some will be shorter, some will develop social skills quickly, some will not, some will be better at math, some at reading, and some will be better athletes.

Kids will have to learn to deal with other kids who are different than they are no matter what. Parents should just do what they believe is best for their own children and not worry about other people's kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So send your kid to private K and then to first grade. That way they would have Kindergarten in a smaller setting with more play and recess. To redshirt you would need to pay for another year of pre K or private K anyway. Give your child that year in a smaller or possibly more nurturing environment and then send them on time with their age to first grade.

This is what we did with our DS, who is now about to turn 6 as Kindergarten ends. Last year at this time, at the end of preK 4, his teachers were advocating redshirting, sending him to the private's Junior Kindergarten rather than Kindergarten. He wasn't clicking academically and he was having some social issues, but we weighed all the factors very carefully and chose to have him enter Kindergarten. A big factor in the decision was who his teacher would be. Each of DH and I did an observation in the JK and in the K classes. The Kindergarten teacher impressed us with her attitude, demeanor, sense of humor and communication style. The JK teacher was a good teacher but we sensed very strongly that the Kindergarten teacher's personality and approach would "click" with him, and we were right. The small size of the Kindergarten class also has really fostered his growth academically and socially, with a lot of play and recess as the PP noted. Some of the class did Junior Kindergarten before coming into Kindergarten with him, and they are ahead of him academically (especially the girls) but so what?

Never heard of Junior Kindergarten.

Junior K and Transitional K (TK) are offered both publicly and privately. They've been around for a while.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I really don't worry about red-shirting except in terms of my own kids-- I went through puberty a few two years before most of my peers, very early, and that really affected two years of my school experience negatively, and I think that's where kids have the most trouble (and this will be different for boys vs. girls). I hope that other people consider this when thinking about whether to red shirt (or, as the case may be, skip a grade).

This is a really good point. Even if every kid in a class was born in the correct 12 months for that class, they will still all develop and mature at vastly different rates. Some will be taller, some will be shorter, some will develop social skills quickly, some will not, some will be better at math, some at reading, and some will be better athletes.

Kids will have to learn to deal with other kids who are different than they are no matter what. Parents should just do what they believe is best for their own children and not worry about other people's kids.

That's fine, just don't be *that* parent who complains that your child is not challenged in school if you redshirted.

[Anonymous]

For sports, redshirting only works at school. Most sports are out of school until about middle school, and the leagues are all by birthdate. My kids are one grade apart in school and all the redshirters in my younger DC's class were on my older DC's soccer team. I wonder how those kids feel when they can't play sports with their friends from school because their parents held them back. Do the redshirters even realize this happens?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think if I had to listen to that, I would not be able to help saying something. So over these people. No, I don't want my daughter dating a 19-20 year old man in high school. Your 5 year old is going to be just fine!

So your purely imaginary and somewhat sexist concerns about your 17 year old daughter's dates -- 12 years from now -- are going to somehow weigh in with the careful, long-considered decision we make about my child's kindergarten schooling after extensive discussions with my child's teacher, the school administration, and my child's therapists. Ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Red shirting needs to end. The age range in classrooms is ridiculous. Few kids behave perfectly all day in K. Your gems will survive. No one red shirted when we were kids and we all were ready. You just want your kid to be bigger and better in sports. Just admit it. Its ridiculous. In our K class, the age gap is 19 months. What a ridiculous system. I can't wait for DCPS finally to stand up to parents on this one. Oh wait. Kaya is too busy traveling to Cuba and tweeting about politics to give a crap about what's happening in our classrooms.

Simply not true that no one was red shirted. 30 years ago my parents held both me and my brother with summer birthdays out from school. So we were both 6 when we started. It was definitely not for sports, I am the least athletically inclined person and that was obvious even as a very young child. And, FWIW, I hated that my parents held me out. Cut off was Dec. where I grew up, so I was significantly older than the youngest kids in my class. I was bored. Though I didn't coast and become lazy like some people are postulating upthread.

Isn't red shirting less common in DCPS anyway since most families want to use the PK3/PK4 if possible? There isn't a single red-shirted kid in my child's PK4 class this year.

[Anonymous]

Timely: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/upshot/are-you-successful-if-so-youve-already-won-the-lottery.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Red shirting needs to end. The age range in classrooms is ridiculous. Few kids behave perfectly all day in K. Your gems will survive. No one red shirted when we were kids and we all were ready. You just want your kid to be bigger and better in sports. Just admit it. Its ridiculous. In our K class, the age gap is 19 months. What a ridiculous system. I can't wait for DCPS finally to stand up to parents on this one. Oh wait. Kaya is too busy traveling to Cuba and tweeting about politics to give a crap about what's happening in our classrooms.

Back in the 70s my August-birthday brother was sent on time to kindergarten and by the end of the year everyone (parents, teacher, counselor) agreed he should have been held back and so he repeated K. My parents agreed it was the best decision they ever made for him.

Some kids really aren't ready, even if in your limited experience you've never encountered one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think if I had to listen to that, I would not be able to help saying something. So over these people. No, I don't want my daughter dating a 19-20 year old man in high school. Your 5 year old is going to be just fine!

+1. Just glad the CogAT shows results by age so you don't get a bump for trying to game the system in school districts that use it to assess for AAP.

+2 same for HGC. I know more than one redshirter who is upset their DC isn't going.

[Anonymous]

Sigh. I am this mom. My DD's birthday is the very end of July (turned 6 two weeks before K started) and I never considered redshirting until we switched to a new school which strongly recommended that we do it for social immaturity, an idea that was also supported by her therapist. She has considerable anxiety and maturity issues and fits in well in the K environment with her peers. But she's also very smart, academically advanced, and bored to tears with the curriculum. She comes home and asks if I can do "real math" with her. Several of her classmates are also very advanced academically, probably on the same level as DD, but the classroom curriculum has been slow and too easy for K, in my opinion.

I've talked to the school and her teachers about her academic level and whether redshirting was the right decision, and they insist that the school is very rigorous and that first grade will be dramatically more advanced academically, and that DD will be better able to handle the pressure since we gave her this extra year. So, yes. we redshirted and complain (at home, not in public) that DD is not challenged. I'm really torn about this decision and worry we made the wrong one, even though it was made at the recommendation of her school, pediatrician, and therapist. I do wonder if they would have made the same recommendation if redshirting wasn't so prevalent. There are very few summer birthdays in her class, and some of those are also redshirted. Had we pushed her to first grade, she would have been more than a year younger than many of her classmates, which seemed like a poor fit for a socially immature, anxious child. I'm hoping that things improve in 1st or 2nd grade when the curriculum gets more advanced and the variation between the kids in the class evens out. If it doesn't get better, I'm not sure what the solution is. Skip a grade? I really wish there were hard cut-offs and parents weren't given the option to redshirt unless there is a really strong case for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with you, OP. On the flip side, my DD is ready for kindergarten but misses the cut-off by a few days. A. few. days. For that I have to make her wait another year?

You wait or you go private for two years and transfer at 2nd, like others of us do. It sucks. I figured if I had to pay for another year of private preschool, might as well pay for private K.

You could have transferred in at 1st grade. My neighbor's kid took private K, then went to school for an evaluation and was able to start 1st the following year. Early October birthday.