mad - kid in kindergarten has late birthday

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another day, another "my kid should be protected from the redshirts" thread.

Your kid is going to have to be in a classroom with older kids, younger kids, smarter kids, dumber kids, meaner kids, athletic kids, nerdy kids, disruptive kids, smelly kids, kids whose parents have different rules than you, kids whose parents provide them extra tutoring, and the list goes on. Your kid will be fine. Education is not a zero sum game. The schools aren't going to outlaw this perceived moral outrage because it's not a moral outrage. It is a parent deciding for whatever reason that this was the best choice for their kid. They aren’t making parenting decisions for you and you don’t get to make parenting decisions for them. You can judge that all you want on an anonymous forum but if you try to make your case to the schools, they will nod politely and explain the rules to you, and perhaps write a note in the file so other teachers know what to expect from you. You have no substantive grounds for being appalled by this. Plenty of educators think it is developmentally appropriate in many instances for many different reasons. The K enrollment rules are structured to allow this, and there is no evidence-based reason why this should change.

To sum up: you are ridiculous.

No, parents who hold back (“redshirt”) their non-SN kids so they’re seven freaking years old in kindergarten are ridiculous. DP

By the end of the year, when that kid is finally 7, more than half the kids will be 6. I don't see the glaring issue here.

The issue is the group of kids who will not be 6. A minority of kids but their experience matters too. Without redshirting, those kids are still the youngest but no one else is more than a year older. With redshirting, they are in a class with kids who are 13 or more months older. Redshirting impacts them the most.

The ridiculous thing is that when parents who redshirt often do so to save their child from the challenge of being 10-11 months younger than the oldest kids in class. And I'm so doing, they force non-redshirted kids to be in classrooms with kids 13+ months older. This is why redshirting parents are not credible. They claim redshirting is not a problem even though they are redshirting to solve the problem caused by redshirting (just only for their kid).

My feeling is go ahead and redshirt if you want, but know other people will never stop being annoyed by it and thinking less of you for doing it.

It should matter. The age of the students in the class doesn’t change the curriculum the teacher teachers. Whether your child is 5 or 7 in kindergarten- they are still getting taught kindergarten curriculum. Teachers don’t care or cater to the kids able to work above grade level. We all know that, especially if you have an advanced child. It isn’t as if since there is a 7 yr old in class, the teacher is going to therefore teach 2nd grade curriculum to the the whole class but still call it kindergarten. I really don’t understand the concern. It doesn’t impact your child and it is the minority of kids that are either very old or very young.

It's not about curriculum, it's about behavioral expectations.

It's developmentally normal for 5 yr olds to cry more often and be more emotionally reactive. A 5 yr old who cries because a classmate took the last green piece of paper is not immature, acting out, or hypersensitive. They are 5, and most 5 year olds will outgrow this behavior over the course of kindergarten. There is a noticeable maturing that happens over the course of the year.

But one thing that happens in a classroom with a number of redshirted kids is that crying becomes a "problem behavior." Now, a good kindergarten teacher will recognize that it's normal and use developmentally appropriate techniques with kids. But the other kids may still tease a child who cries more than others. And a bad teacher will get more irritated with the younger kids in class for crying, because she's adjusted her expectations window to include children who start the grade at 6 and behave, emotionally, more like 1st graders (where crying is significantly less common.

So a young 5 yr old who cries frequently at the beginning of K can be teased or reprimanded for crying even though it's not really something they can control at that age and is actually normal behavior for the grade level. You also see similar issues regarding attention span (5 yr olds being expected to sit still and pay attention for longer periods because the 6 yr olds set the expectation). And while accidents should not be as frequent in kindergarten as you might see in preschool, a young 5 yr old is also more likely to have them than a 6 yr old, and there can be stigma assigned to younger kids who have accidents by older kids who have outgrown it.

So yes, skewing the average age of kindergarteners via redshirting can have a negative impact on non-redshirted kids, especially those who are young for the grade. They can be treated differently by peers and teachers and can develop negative self-image because of the false perception that they are developmentally "behind." They aren't, they are right on target. Redshirting obscures this thought.

I hate to break it to you but kids are crying in 1st, 2nd, and even 3rd grade (and occasionally wetting their pants). These are pretty poor examples. And if the curriculum is inappropriate, or the expectations, you should take that up with your administration. Your issue isn't with the people who have made a different decision to hep their own child succeed, it's with bad teachers with biases or classroom management. And about the potty training stigma? I don't think it exists. Kids shrug off accidents. I think you're making up examples, to find a worst case scenario, but they don't conform to reality. Or maybe this particular school is not for you.

If kids are crying and wetting their pants into 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, why would anyone ever need to redshirt their kid?

Because maybe there are other issues at play. I know you don’t care about my kids fine motor delays and speech issues, but i did, so get lost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I redshirted my end of August birthday DS and it was absolutely the right decision for us. This was during covid, and as an immature kid with poor impulse control, starting online K at 4 would have been a complete disaster.

Uh, online kindergarten was a disaster for most kids. It has nothing with your kid being immature for his age or having "poor impulse control." You didn't want to participate in online school and I don't blame you-- it sucked.

But it also screwed over kids who didn't have a choice. Not you, personally, but a system where richer people who could afford to redshirt were able to do so while others could not.

Not PP, but who did PP’s son screw over exactly? He was doing online school and therefore all the classmates were doing online school as well with a parent, relative or hired help. COVID was harder for some people/kids than others. Let parents make the decision that best fits their situation/kid.

My own DD has an October birthday and had to do part of PK online and it was a disaster… we basically just gave up. She went to private in K and was in school 4 days a week… she was one of the lucky ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I redshirted my end of August birthday DS and it was absolutely the right decision for us. This was during covid, and as an immature kid with poor impulse control, starting online K at 4 would have been a complete disaster.

Uh, online kindergarten was a disaster for most kids. It has nothing with your kid being immature for his age or having "poor impulse control." You didn't want to participate in online school and I don't blame you-- it sucked.

But it also screwed over kids who didn't have a choice. Not you, personally, but a system where richer people who could afford to redshirt were able to do so while others could not.

Not PP, but who did PP’s son screw over exactly? He was doing online school and therefore all the classmates were doing online school as well with a parent, relative or hired help. COVID was harder for some people/kids than others. Let parents make the decision that best fits their situation/kid.

My own DD has an October birthday and had to do part of PK online and it was a disaster… we basically just gave up. She went to private in K and was in school 4 days a week… she was one of the lucky ones.

I am the redshirting PP and realize that we were fortunate to be able to make a choice. And TBH, we were fairly certain that we would redshirt him even before covid hit. I discussed it with his pre-k teacher and the ES school's AP and received unanimous support. Now a 2nd grader, he is very middle of the road academically and emotionally and is well-placed with his current cohort.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I redshirted my end of August birthday DS and it was absolutely the right decision for us. This was during covid, and as an immature kid with poor impulse control, starting online K at 4 would have been a complete disaster.

Uh, online kindergarten was a disaster for most kids. It has nothing with your kid being immature for his age or having "poor impulse control." You didn't want to participate in online school and I don't blame you-- it sucked.

But it also screwed over kids who didn't have a choice. Not you, personally, but a system where richer people who could afford to redshirt were able to do so while others could not.

Not PP, but who did PP’s son screw over exactly? He was doing online school and therefore all the classmates were doing online school as well with a parent, relative or hired help. COVID was harder for some people/kids than others. Let parents make the decision that best fits their situation/kid.

My own DD has an October birthday and had to do part of PK online and it was a disaster… we basically just gave up. She went to private in K and was in school 4 days a week… she was one of the lucky ones.

I am the redshirting PP and realize that we were fortunate to be able to make a choice. And TBH, we were fairly certain that we would redshirt him even before covid hit. I discussed it with his pre-k teacher and the ES school's AP and received unanimous support. Now a 2nd grader, he is very middle of the road academically and emotionally and is well-placed with his current cohort.

Good for your son. I am glad it worked out!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in an area that did half grades in the period from the 1930s-1950s or so. I’ve never seen a full explanation for it, but the concept was that everyone was grouped in 6 month cohorts instead of year-long cohorts. It was before mandatory kindergarten.

I think it would be better for kids like the ones that are not quite ready for K but would be bored by the spring of a repeated PreK year, but I’m sure redshirting would mess that up, too. But anyway: imagine some kids starting K in September and others starting in Feb/March.

In the 1950s my mom sent me to private kindergarten at age 4, my birthday was in November. The next year she kept me home because I wasn't old enough for first grade at Chesterbrook in Fairfax. When I went to first grade the next year they moved me up to second grade within a month because I could already read. I was in a split class, first and second grade, and I did math with the first graders for awhile, but ultimately moved on to third after that year. That was a different era, obviously, but they did use some unique solutions. Being among the youngest in every grade was a total non issue for me.

I think "being the youngest" as only become an issue more recently as hyper-competitive parenting has come into vogue and the idea that your child might not be able to "compete" if they are a little younger has taken hold.

I remember I graduated high school with several people who turned 18 the summer or fall after graduation, and that group included top students and athletes who went on to impressive colleges and had great careers. I just don't remember there being an attitude that a summer birthday, and starting school on the younger side for the grade, was a liability.

I also can't think of a single person I graduated with who was already 18 when we started senior year. There might have been one in the grade above me? I do not think it was common. People started kindergarten at 5 and graduated high school at 17 or 18 and while of course there were kids who needed help with certain things (I do recall SpEd pullouts for things and I had a close friend who went to OT every week for years to help deal with ADD and other challenges) but the assumption was that there was a mean and then variations on the mean, and that was normal and fine. There wasn't this attitude like you better do whatever you can to make sure your kid comes out on top. It just wasn't conceptualized that way.

[Anonymous]

This isn’t a MYOB situation. OP’s kid will be competing with the redshirt or other redshirts all the way through high school. Yes, there are legit reasons to redshirt a kid. Vast majority are redshirts to give their kids an advantage. At this point, if so many kids really aren’t ready for kinder at 5, then just make the default 6 for kinder and allow parents to opt into early enrollment.

[Anonymous]

When did doing the best thing for your own child become disadvantaging everyone else?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When did doing the best thing for your own child become disadvantaging everyone else?

Please disadvantage your kid so mine can win. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

For apPs saying why should we care when there is a 7 year old in our DC’s kindergarten class…. Grades are taught by age. A wildly older kid makes it hard for group learning. Unless there are real issues holding that kid back, he/she belongs in first grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another day, another "my kid should be protected from the redshirts" thread.

Your kid is going to have to be in a classroom with older kids, younger kids, smarter kids, dumber kids, meaner kids, athletic kids, nerdy kids, disruptive kids, smelly kids, kids whose parents have different rules than you, kids whose parents provide them extra tutoring, and the list goes on. Your kid will be fine. Education is not a zero sum game. The schools aren't going to outlaw this perceived moral outrage because it's not a moral outrage. It is a parent deciding for whatever reason that this was the best choice for their kid. They aren’t making parenting decisions for you and you don’t get to make parenting decisions for them. You can judge that all you want on an anonymous forum but if you try to make your case to the schools, they will nod politely and explain the rules to you, and perhaps write a note in the file so other teachers know what to expect from you. You have no substantive grounds for being appalled by this. Plenty of educators think it is developmentally appropriate in many instances for many different reasons. The K enrollment rules are structured to allow this, and there is no evidence-based reason why this should change.

To sum up: you are ridiculous.

No, parents who hold back (“redshirt”) their non-SN kids so they’re seven freaking years old in kindergarten are ridiculous. DP

By the end of the year, when that kid is finally 7, more than half the kids will be 6. I don't see the glaring issue here.

The issue is the group of kids who will not be 6. A minority of kids but their experience matters too. Without redshirting, those kids are still the youngest but no one else is more than a year older. With redshirting, they are in a class with kids who are 13 or more months older. Redshirting impacts them the most.

The ridiculous thing is that when parents who redshirt often do so to save their child from the challenge of being 10-11 months younger than the oldest kids in class. And I'm so doing, they force non-redshirted kids to be in classrooms with kids 13+ months older. This is why redshirting parents are not credible. They claim redshirting is not a problem even though they are redshirting to solve the problem caused by redshirting (just only for their kid).

My feeling is go ahead and redshirt if you want, but know other people will never stop being annoyed by it and thinking less of you for doing it.

It should matter. The age of the students in the class doesn’t change the curriculum the teacher teachers. Whether your child is 5 or 7 in kindergarten- they are still getting taught kindergarten curriculum. Teachers don’t care or cater to the kids able to work above grade level. We all know that, especially if you have an advanced child. It isn’t as if since there is a 7 yr old in class, the teacher is going to therefore teach 2nd grade curriculum to the the whole class but still call it kindergarten. I really don’t understand the concern. It doesn’t impact your child and it is the minority of kids that are either very old or very young.

It's not about curriculum, it's about behavioral expectations.

It's developmentally normal for 5 yr olds to cry more often and be more emotionally reactive. A 5 yr old who cries because a classmate took the last green piece of paper is not immature, acting out, or hypersensitive. They are 5, and most 5 year olds will outgrow this behavior over the course of kindergarten. There is a noticeable maturing that happens over the course of the year.

But one thing that happens in a classroom with a number of redshirted kids is that crying becomes a "problem behavior." Now, a good kindergarten teacher will recognize that it's normal and use developmentally appropriate techniques with kids. But the other kids may still tease a child who cries more than others. And a bad teacher will get more irritated with the younger kids in class for crying, because she's adjusted her expectations window to include children who start the grade at 6 and behave, emotionally, more like 1st graders (where crying is significantly less common.

So a young 5 yr old who cries frequently at the beginning of K can be teased or reprimanded for crying even though it's not really something they can control at that age and is actually normal behavior for the grade level. You also see similar issues regarding attention span (5 yr olds being expected to sit still and pay attention for longer periods because the 6 yr olds set the expectation). And while accidents should not be as frequent in kindergarten as you might see in preschool, a young 5 yr old is also more likely to have them than a 6 yr old, and there can be stigma assigned to younger kids who have accidents by older kids who have outgrown it.

So yes, skewing the average age of kindergarteners via redshirting can have a negative impact on non-redshirted kids, especially those who are young for the grade. They can be treated differently by peers and teachers and can develop negative self-image because of the false perception that they are developmentally "behind." They aren't, they are right on target. Redshirting obscures this thought.

I hate to break it to you but kids are crying in 1st, 2nd, and even 3rd grade (and occasionally wetting their pants). These are pretty poor examples. And if the curriculum is inappropriate, or the expectations, you should take that up with your administration. Your issue isn't with the people who have made a different decision to hep their own child succeed, it's with bad teachers with biases or classroom management. And about the potty training stigma? I don't think it exists. Kids shrug off accidents. I think you're making up examples, to find a worst case scenario, but they don't conform to reality. Or maybe this particular school is not for you.

If kids are crying and wetting their pants into 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, why would anyone ever need to redshirt their kid?

Because maybe there are other issues at play. I know you don’t care about my kids fine motor delays and speech issues, but i did, so get lost.

Most kindergartners, whether 5 or 7, aren’t wetting their pants or acting it regularly. If they are, the teacher will be in touch, regardless of their age. If your specific child has these struggles, that has nothing to do with the age of the classmates

[Anonymous]

My 7 year old is in Montessori, so she is in a class with mostly 6-8 years olds and possibly a handful of 5 and 9 year olds! She loves it.

Stop worrying about other people’s kids so much. Unless this is a Billy Madison situation this will not affect your child at all, and is therefore not your business.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When did doing the best thing for your own child become disadvantaging everyone else?

When doing the right thing for your kid has reverberations through high school. What do you think happens in high school senior year when the 17 year old and 18.25 year old are competing for same spot or playing time on the varsity team? If you don’t think this is a big deal, I encourage you to have your child go permanently compete against kids that are 1.25 years older in whatever EC your kid cares about. Please report back.

Again, there are legit reasons to redshirt. But when your redshirted kid shows up dominating in ECs because he’s competing down, well, that’s crappy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When did doing the best thing for your own child become disadvantaging everyone else?

When doing the right thing for your kid has reverberations through high school. What do you think happens in high school senior year when the 17 year old and 18.25 year old are competing for same spot or playing time on the varsity team? If you don’t think this is a big deal, I encourage you to have your child go permanently compete against kids that are 1.25 years older in whatever EC your kid cares about. Please report back.

Again, there are legit reasons to redshirt. But when your redshirted kid shows up dominating in ECs because he’s competing down, well, that’s crappy.

If you think extending what is normally a 12 month age range by a few months, for a handful of kids who would otherwise be the youngest in their grade, is that much of a disadvantage to your own kid, then I truly feel sorry for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I redshirted my end of August birthday DS and it was absolutely the right decision for us. This was during covid, and as an immature kid with poor impulse control, starting online K at 4 would have been a complete disaster.

Uh, online kindergarten was a disaster for most kids. It has nothing with your kid being immature for his age or having "poor impulse control." You didn't want to participate in online school and I don't blame you-- it sucked.

But it also screwed over kids who didn't have a choice. Not you, personally, but a system where richer people who could afford to redshirt were able to do so while others could not.

Online K was actually great for our kid. We had much better visibility into what was taught, could support or supplement as needed, and the kid got computer skills into the bargain. Far from a universal experience but the idea that every kid was “screwed over” by it isn’t correct either.

He is in 3rd now with a kid who was redshirted and is clearly not only more physically adept but also extremely socially bored by the kids he spends all day with. I feel for him, honestly—if I were in his shoes I’d be bored too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Current kindergarteners were toddlers during COVID, school COVID closures have nothing to do with those redshirting choices.

That said, it's even odds that he got held back for developmental/behavioral/medical reasons, and not just parent choice. No way to know unless the parents have told you, so seems premature to be angry over it.

Exactly, and all schools have been fully in person for over two years.