Has anyone “redshirted” a January kid?

[Anonymous]

Do I have this right? He will turn five in January 2020, but you want him to start kindergarten in fall 2021 instead, when he will be 6 going on 7? Absolutely not.

[Anonymous]

My son is a December birthday, and just started Kindergarten this year. I wonder every day if I should have held him back. He is not transitioning well, talks about how much better Pre-K was, isn't doing well with the structure and lack of playtime, and overall doesn't seem that happy. The only friends he wants to have are his old Pre-K friends. He's made one friend in Kindergarten but that's it. He tells me every day that he doesn't want to go to school and wants to stay home. He's in a really good public school Kindergarten. I think he might have done better if we had done a second year of Pre-K.

On the other hand, he's extremely focused on age, and always annoyed that he's not one of the oldest kids in the class (like those with October-November birthdays).

[Anonymous]

Why don’t you wait to decide. A lot can happen language-wise in a year, especially with speech therapy. Put a deposit down on your preschool whenever that happens and pre-register for kindergarten as well so you can do the spring walk through. You can decide as late as August what to do. No need to make this decision now.

[Anonymous]

It’s bothers me that schools even allow this. Why not just let 10 year olds in K?? I mean wouldn’t they perform better then? /s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s bothers me that schools even allow this. Why not just let 10 year olds in K?? I mean wouldn’t they perform better then? /s.

I don’t understand why this bothers you. If he’s not successful in K he’s going to have to repeat at the expense of the school district and will still be older than everyone plus he’ll have to deal with the emotions fall out of repeating while his classmates advance. It’s the same outcome.

[Anonymous]

Our cut off date was Sept 1 and we had a mid-August baby who started K on time and she was the youngest in her class. She struggled and when we relocated after first grade we had her repeat the year and it really helped her a great deal and she never knew until years later that she had repeated a grade. The relo was fortuitous as I’m not sure what we would have done if we were at the same school. Some kids are ready, some are not and I think it really depends on physical maturity and the quality of the pre-school the child attended.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s bothers me that schools even allow this. Why not just let 10 year olds in K?? I mean wouldn’t they perform better then? /s.

I don’t understand why this bothers you. If he’s not successful in K he’s going to have to repeat at the expense of the school district and will still be older than everyone plus he’ll have to deal with the emotions fall out of repeating while his classmates advance. It’s the same outcome.

It is a slippery slope. This lady thinks it’s fine to send a 6y8m old kid to K. If that’s fine, why not 7? 7.5? At some point the answer just has to be NO.

[Anonymous]

Turning 7 halfway through kindergarten is just too old. There are certain states that still use a December cut-off. If you move to one of those states your kid will be almost 2 years older than the youngest in the class.

[Anonymous]

If you are going to public school, you have one shot at figuring g out what your child needs. It is incredibly difficult to hold a child back and is almost never done. So you need to take that off the plate as an option.

It’s also tough to get services if your child isn’t successful on grade level work. I’ve had good luck but it’s a time consuming process where you spend months watching your child fail at school.

I held my April birthday boy back. I’d do it again and I would have done it if his birthday had been in January. Do what’s right for your kid and don’t listen to anyone who tells you otherwise.

[Anonymous]

I would rely on your current teacher too. She sees/works with this age group everyday and understands the norm. I agree that it is too early to make a decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our cut off date was Sept 1 and we had a mid-August baby who started K on time and she was the youngest in her class. She struggled and when we relocated after first grade we had her repeat the year and it really helped her a great deal and she never knew until years later that she had repeated a grade. The relo was fortuitous as I’m not sure what we would have done if we were at the same school. Some kids are ready, some are not and I think it really depends on physical maturity and the quality of the pre-school the child attended.

Mid-August is very different than January.

My DS has a September 1 birthday and went on time (9/30) cutoff and has thrived socially and academically.
Neither one of our anecdotes has any bearing on OP’s post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why don’t you wait to decide. A lot can happen language-wise in a year, especially with speech therapy. Put a deposit down on your preschool whenever that happens and pre-register for kindergarten as well so you can do the spring walk through. You can decide as late as August what to do. No need to make this decision now.

+1 This is anecdotal, but my son was by far the youngest in his PK class (birthday right before cutoff). He also had motor skill issues so we started OT in the Fall of PK, and his teacher supplemented those activities during class. We seriously discussed having him repeat PK with teacher, to the extent that we reregistered him for PK. However in March and April, everything started clicking and he was on fire. In May his teacher met with us and said, "If you want him to repeat that would be fine, but I think he's ready for K." So we went with K and everything worked out fine. He's in second now, doing great.

We really depended on input from his teacher and OT therapist in order to make the decision, but I agree with PP that a lot can change in a short time at that age, so you may want to wait and see. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would not.

Why? That is going to be a huge age discrepancy. For every parent who sends their fall birthday kid on time, your son will be 21 months older than than them!

The kids do eventually wise up to these things and they consider the "old" kids to be the dumb ones. I've heard them talking about it amongst themselves.

To be clear, this is because these are your kids. Apple doesn't fall far. My kids and their peers are friends with kids across the age spectrum and would not do this (and if they did, I would discipline them for bullying behavior, of course, rather than brag about it online).

[Anonymous]

What I would do is find a small, private kindergarten run by a church preschool program. The preschool where my DS goes has a full day K class and it has the benefit of a nice, small class size with lots of individual attention. Then you can decide for yourself if your DS is ready to go to public 1st or if he needs to repeat K in the public schools. My gut says with a year of small, private K, plus, hopefully, good speech therapy, that he’ll be able to go to public 1st and stay on grade level. A year is a long time at this age. Good luck OP!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s bothers me that schools even allow this. Why not just let 10 year olds in K?? I mean wouldn’t they perform better then? /s.

I don’t understand why this bothers you. If he’s not successful in K he’s going to have to repeat at the expense of the school district and will still be older than everyone plus he’ll have to deal with the emotions fall out of repeating while his classmates advance. It’s the same outcome.

It is a slippery slope. This lady thinks it’s fine to send a 6y8m old kid to K. If that’s fine, why not 7? 7.5? At some point the answer just has to be NO.

Maybe the schools shouldn’t have made kindergarten so developmentally inappropriate; then fewer people would have reservations about all-day desk work, 20” lunch and no recess for 5 year olds.