A good compromise in regards to redshirting:

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Only NY has a December cutoff. They have decided to disadvantage their kids against the rest of the nation by having an earlier cutoff and younger students. Fab. Less competition for the rest of us.

I'd imagine that area has a lot of poor families who can't afford an extra year of daycare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nothing wrong with being the youngest. SOmeone has to be.

These studies beg to differ.

https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/academic-redshirting/

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15490760

The second study is from the UK, where the cut-off is September 1st; so a September birthday there is like a January birthday here, while an August birthday there is like a December birthday here.

Ok but what about PP's second statement: someone has to be the youngest. Can't argue that.

So what if instead of running around in circles playing "not it," be created education policies that just acknowledged someone has to be the youngest, instituted a hard deadline, and left it alone. Parents and schools can do things to help the youngest, but we can't avoid there being a youngest.

As a parent of a kid with an august birthday, we found the following things helped: enrolling them in extra curriculars early so they develop skills and have somewhere outside if school to make friends, working closely with them on socio-emotional skills since that's the possible deficiency that is likely to trouble them, volunteering often in early elementary classrooms so the other kids know who you are and develop relationships with you -- this helps a ton with bullying and no one ever talks about it.

Someone has to be the youngest, but it doesn't have to be a life sentence. My youngest-for-the-grade kid is academically and socially doing very well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nothing wrong with being the youngest. SOmeone has to be.

These studies beg to differ.

https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/academic-redshirting/

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15490760

The second study is from the UK, where the cut-off is September 1st; so a September birthday there is like a January birthday here, while an August birthday there is like a December birthday here.

Ok but what about PP's second statement: someone has to be the youngest. Can't argue that.

So what if instead of running around in circles playing "not it," be created education policies that just acknowledged someone has to be the youngest, instituted a hard deadline, and left it alone. Parents and schools can do things to help the youngest, but we can't avoid there being a youngest.

As a parent of a kid with an august birthday, we found the following things helped: enrolling them in extra curriculars early so they develop skills and have somewhere outside if school to make friends, working closely with them on socio-emotional skills since that's the possible deficiency that is likely to trouble them, volunteering often in early elementary classrooms so the other kids know who you are and develop relationships with you -- this helps a ton with bullying and no one ever talks about it.

Someone has to be the youngest, but it doesn't have to be a life sentence. My youngest-for-the-grade kid is academically and socially doing very well.

Yes, someone does have to be the youngest. If everyone had January birthdays, one of them would still have to be the youngest, they wouldn't be more than a few weeks younger than their oldest classmate which is a lot better than if they were nearly a year younger than their oldest classmate. If everyone followed my advice in regards to when to conceive, classes wouldn't have more than a one-month age span, and not everything would be more equal among the students, but teachers would have an easier time teaching, as they wouldn't have to cater to such a wide range.