Genuinely don't get why redshirting in K is allowed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting because the research seems to be showing that it actually doesn't help kids that much and may harm them somewhat in the long run. Yet parents continue to do it because they think their child is getting some kind of mysterious advantage. It seems like a short sighted thing to do.

What specific research? Could you please provide citations? I don't believe there is any such broadly conclusive evidence, yet, and I'm quite familiar with a lot of the academic work here.

[Anonymous]

What's really bothering me about a lot of the anti-redshirting parents is that there reasons for being against redshirting have nothing to do with how it harms the redshirted child, but rather how it harms THEIR child. My son has an August birthday, and I saw absolutely no reason to redshirt him, as I felt he was ready and that holding holding him back would just make him bored and stunt his development. I also didn't want to delay his entry into the real world for no good reason. Not wanting him to have an unfair advantage over his classmates was NOT one of my reasons. If I thought that redshirting him would have benefited him somehow, I would have done it. As parents, it's our job to do what's best for our child, not other people's children. If you're against redshirting because you think it affects the redshirted child, then I'm all ears, but many of these parents made it clear that they felt redshirting would negatively affect their child, and didn't say anything about how it would negatively affect the redshirted child. If you don't think redshirting has any negative affect on the redshirted child, then it is selfish for you to be against it. If you feel like other parents redshirting puts your child at a disadvantage, you also have the option of redshirting. To sum it up, if you're against redshirting, you have to think of ways in which it negatively affects the redshirted child, and if you don't think redshirting has any negative affects on the redshirted child, you have no reason to be against it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You know why parents do it - to skew things to their kid's advantage. School systems allow it based on the precedent that, in very rare cases especially special needs, it is needed.

See -as an educator, this really gets me. Kids with special needs benefit from early intervention and services. They do not benefit from languishing another year out of school. Let's make Kindergarten flexibile enough to be a one or two year program dependending on the individual child - but make no bones about it - 5 year old children should be in school.

[Anonymous]

I live in state that until recently had a Dec cutoff for K. I would have held my Oct bday kid back in a hot minute but luckily the laws changed after I gave birth to him and before it was time to redshirt him.
I saw fall bday kids in my ods's kinder class who were having a totally different (and stressful) kinder experience because they were 4 for half the kinder school year.

My yds is now a 7 yr old in first grade. He already knows a lot, but he doesn't belong in 2nd grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It gets hard socially to put a child in a grade on time when the rest of the parents aren't doing so. At our child's school at least 1/4 of the boys are redshirted, another fourth have late fall birthdays another fourth have winter birthdays, leaving only one fourth of the boys having birthdays between March and September.

In the situation you are describing only 1/4 of the boys are reshirted which does not mean most of the other parents are redshirting their kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It gets hard socially to put a child in a grade on time when the rest of the parents aren't doing so. At our child's school at least 1/4 of the boys are redshirted, another fourth have late fall birthdays another fourth have winter birthdays, leaving only one fourth of the boys having birthdays between March and September.

This is at our school too. DS is the youngest boy in his class with a May 5th birthday. He's doing fine socially but his immaturity in terms of listening skills are an issue. And also the advantage for the older kids in sports is clear. I really wish they would put some sort of limit in place - have late start be available for SN only, not at option of parents.

[Anonymous]

If you don't think redshirting has any negative affect on the redshirted child, then it is selfish for you to be against it. If you feel like other parents redshirting puts your child at a disadvantage, you also have the option of redshirting. To sum it up, if you're against redshirting, you have to think of ways in which it negatively affects the redshirted child, and if you don't think redshirting has any negative affects on the redshirted child, you have no reason to be against it.

Your argument makes absolutely no sense. I didn't have the "option of redshirting" my child, because I'm a single working mother and couldn't shell out for another year of preschool or full time child care. I could really care less about how it may affect "the redshirted child." That is the problem of the parents of those kids. I care about how having large numbers of redshirted kids in a class affects my child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's really bothering me about a lot of the anti-redshirting parents is that there reasons for being against redshirting have nothing to do with how it harms the redshirted child, but rather how it harms THEIR child. My son has an August birthday, and I saw absolutely no reason to redshirt him, as I felt he was ready and that holding holding him back would just make him bored and stunt his development. I also didn't want to delay his entry into the real world for no good reason. Not wanting him to have an unfair advantage over his classmates was NOT one of my reasons. If I thought that redshirting him would have benefited him somehow, I would have done it. As parents, it's our job to do what's best for our child, not other people's children. If you're against redshirting because you think it affects the redshirted child, then I'm all ears, but many of these parents made it clear that they felt redshirting would negatively affect their child, and didn't say anything about how it would negatively affect the redshirted child. If you don't think redshirting has any negative affect on the redshirted child, then it is selfish for you to be against it. If you feel like other parents redshirting puts your child at a disadvantage, you also have the option of redshirting. To sum it up, if you're against redshirting, you have to think of ways in which it negatively affects the redshirted child, and if you don't think redshirting has any negative affects on the redshirted child, you have no reason to be against it.

See, but see so many redshirting has a negative impact on my child's education. For me it is not about disadvantage vs. advantage it is that so many redshirts shifts the dynamics of the kindergarten classroom enough that your average 5 yo will struggle. With large class sizes and only one teacher there can only be so much differentiation. Plus it can shift teacher expections because they get use to having more mature children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's really bothering me about a lot of the anti-redshirting parents is that there reasons for being against redshirting have nothing to do with how it harms the redshirted child, but rather how it harms THEIR child. My son has an August birthday, and I saw absolutely no reason to redshirt him, as I felt he was ready and that holding holding him back would just make him bored and stunt his development. I also didn't want to delay his entry into the real world for no good reason. Not wanting him to have an unfair advantage over his classmates was NOT one of my reasons. If I thought that redshirting him would have benefited him somehow, I would have done it. As parents, it's our job to do what's best for our child, not other people's children. If you're against redshirting because you think it affects the redshirted child, then I'm all ears, but many of these parents made it clear that they felt redshirting would negatively affect their child, and didn't say anything about how it would negatively affect the redshirted child. If you don't think redshirting has any negative affect on the redshirted child, then it is selfish for you to be against it. If you feel like other parents redshirting puts your child at a disadvantage, you also have the option of redshirting. To sum it up, if you're against redshirting, you have to think of ways in which it negatively affects the redshirted child, and if you don't think redshirting has any negative affects on the redshirted child, you have no reason to be against it.

See, but see so many redshirting has a negative impact on my child's education. For me it is not about disadvantage vs. advantage it is that so many redshirts shifts the dynamics of the kindergarten classroom enough that your average 5 yo will struggle. With large class sizes and only one teacher there can only be so much differentiation. Plus it can shift teacher expections because they get use to having more mature children.

No good teacher is going to change the standards just because of how other students are performing. If your child, personally, is doing well and meeting all the standards, that should be all that matters. The teacher wouldn't say, "Well, I know that you meet all the standards for your grade lever, but because everyone else did even better, I'm going to give you low marks anyway." But if your child does have a teacher like that, that teacher should be fired. The curriculum should be the curriculum and it's very unprofessional to change it just the students do better or worse than expected.

[Anonymous]

I shun all redshirters, parents and children alike. The situation has gotten COMPLETELY out of hand, and nothing will change until these people are made to feel like social pariahs. In my experience almost ALL normal parents feel this way, but they'll only say it when the redshirt family isn't around. So congrats on your gigantic 7 year old kindergartner.

[Anonymous]

Is it possible to redshirt in 1st grade? We don't have public full day K here and we can't afford to pay 2 years of private K to redshirt then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I shun all redshirters, parents and children alike. The situation has gotten COMPLETELY out of hand, and nothing will change until these people are made to feel like social pariahs. In my experience almost ALL normal parents feel this way, but they'll only say it when the redshirt family isn't around. So congrats on your gigantic 7 year old kindergartner.

I guess this explains the nasty looks for my 99th percentile DS who went to school on time. And the utter shock when his b-day party invitations go out in March.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I shun all redshirters, parents and children alike. The situation has gotten COMPLETELY out of hand, and nothing will change until these people are made to feel like social pariahs. In my experience almost ALL normal parents feel this way, but they'll only say it when the redshirt family isn't around. So congrats on your gigantic 7 year old kindergartner.

I guess this explains the nasty looks for my 99th percentile DS who went to school on time. And the utter shock when his b-day party invitations go out in March.

No, doesn't explain them. Kids know birthdays and ages, and tell their parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It gets hard socially to put a child in a grade on time when the rest of the parents aren't doing so. At our child's school at least 1/4 of the boys are redshirted, another fourth have late fall birthdays another fourth have winter birthdays, leaving only one fourth of the boys having birthdays between March and September.

This is at our school too. DS is the youngest boy in his class with a May 5th birthday. He's doing fine socially but his immaturity in terms of listening skills are an issue. And also the advantage for the older kids in sports is clear. I really wish they would put some sort of limit in place - have late start be available for SN only, not at option of parents.

I think that's exactly what the OP was saying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I shun all redshirters, parents and children alike. The situation has gotten COMPLETELY out of hand, and nothing will change until these people are made to feel like social pariahs. In my experience almost ALL normal parents feel this way, but they'll only say it when the redshirt family isn't around. So congrats on your gigantic 7 year old kindergartner.

I guess this explains the nasty looks for my 99th percentile DS who went to school on time. And the utter shock when his b-day party invitations go out in March.

Ummm, not really. People know how old kids in their classes are. Do you not? If so I'm sorry that your 99 percenter is stuck in an overcrowded class with no sense of community so you don't even know the ages of the other kids. How unfortunate.

Anyway, he must be getting nasty looks for some other reason...