Just another redshirting vent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don't we all just hold our kids back a year? Oh wait, then someone will want to hold their kid back another year, and then it keeps going on and on, and soon, we'll have 10 year olds in K, and 23 year college freshmens who still need their parents to talk to the professors about their grades, and negotiate their pay for their very first jobs.

Lol

My world bank and imf friends laugh so hard at this U.S. hold-back thing.

Wouldn’t it be better to hold back after middle school and get another year in or real material and a sport? Like the kids who go to boarding school and repeat year 9 or 10?

But 5 and 6 yos, jajajjaja

I'm swedish and work for the world bank. What in the world are you talking about?

As a matter of fact in Sweden it is very common to start kids in school later. Many kids graduate high school at 19. It's very common.

You are full of it. Nobody at the world bank laughs about this. You sound stupid and desperate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Sigh. No one cares.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both situations.

If you don't care don't read and don't post. The headline was very clear. And speak for yourself. I care and agree with OP.

Because I was skipped ahead and did fine.
Because my son was held back due to developmental delays then skipped ahead and is fine.
Because my cousin was skipped ahead two grades and is fine.
Because my other cousin was held back one year and is fine.

IT WILL MAKE NO DIFFERENCE WHEN THEY ARE ADULTS.

You guys need perspective so badly. No wonder it's a political cacophony as well. Everything is so dramatic and nasty nowadays. Calm down.

Exactly. THEY WILL ALL BE FINE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting is an athletic term applied to the keeping of an athlete out of college competition for a year in order to develop the athlete's skills and extend their period of playing eligibility. The term has crept into the early education field as the practice of postponing entrance into kindergarten of age-eligible children in order to allow extra time for socioemotional, intellectual, or physical growth. But there is a problem here: in athletics, yes, redshirting may be used to give an advantage to the team by keeping an older, stronger or more skilled player around longer. That concept simply DOES NOT APPLY to classes. Read the definition; the child's entry is being postponed in order to give the child a chance to grow up as needed. It will have little to no impact on your kid. Grades are not comparative or competitive in K, 1 or 2. And the research show that whatever early advantage slightly older kids might have washes out after a few years (usually by 5-6th grades.)
Don't worry about it. Your kid will be fine.

There was a study recently showing that advantages of starting school later sustain through HS and into adulthood.

citation please

http://www.nber.org/papers/w23660

This article does not study redshirting. It looks at kids who are naturally older for the grade within the cut off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like the adhd studies are making my head hurt. I think the younger kids are being over diagnosed and the older kids are being under diagnosed.
And I don’t understand the Finnish or Danish studies saying allowing liberal redshirting decreases the # of adhd diagnoses. Doesn’t someone still have to be the youngest? And won’t those kids still be at risk for adhd diagnosis? Or at least in the way the system is set up in the US without universal preschool or other school options for every single kid who is “not ready”?

There's not a lot of rationality in DCUM redshirting threads, but I'll try to answer this seriously, as somebody who has closely read these studies, and has also read many of the available studies on redshirting (such as they are). I also have graduate-level statistics training and a graduate engineering degree, so I'm reasonably well-trained in reading academic studies.

The people who are saying that the Danish ADHD study justifies redshirting are incorrect. That study does not do that, any more than the other ADHD studies are an argument for or against redshirting. However, that study is interesting in that it's one of the few large population cohort studies that did not find a relative age impact concerning ADHD diagnosis and/or medication prescription. This is interesting, because the link between relative age and ADHD diagnosis and/or medication prescription has been repeated across several other populations (Canada, US, Iceland, Portugal, etc.). These are generally studies across large cohorts and are for the most part statistically sound. The Danish study, for instance, covered nearly 1 million children for more than a decade.

The reason that the Danish study did not replicate the results across other populations is not known, but the researchers themselves, in their paper, posited two reasons: 1) That Danish schools have a high proportion of relatively young children with delayed school entry and 2) Denmark has relatively low prescribing rates of medication for ADHD to children. To quote their conclusion exactly:

In conclusion, we found that in most recent years the use of medication for ADHD in Denmark is not particularly affected by children's relative age in class. This may be related to the relatively low use of ADHD medication the country and the highly prevailing custom of delaying school entry for relatively young children.

You're right that somebody has to be the youngest, but what the researchers are positing here isn't about whether somebody is the youngest, it's whether allowing a high proportion of delayed entry has an ameliorating effect on later ADHD diagnosis. By implication, Danish schools tend to have broader age ranges in classrooms, and don't have rigid cutoff dates for entry.

The actual study is here if you want to read it, and some of the other studies are linked from this one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4277337/

FWIW, I have never read any statistically valid studies that show documented significant harm or long-term significant benefit from redshirting, but it's possible they're out there. I have read a lot of these studies and my conclusion is that the effect from redshirting largely seems to be neutral overall, and is also statistically fairly rare. In general I see nothing (no academic research, at least) to remotely validate the enormous amount of frothing and angst about the topic on DCUM. There is nothing that I've seen that solidly links redshirting to all of the outcomes DCUM posters claim will result one way or the other (positive or negative). Personally I have concluded that worry about redshirting is a stand-in for significant social anxiety, but I have no study to back that up, of course! I don't expect any amount of rational discussion will actually change minds because this isn't a discussion based in reason, for the most part.

Your comments here remind me of the French kids don’t have ADHD article from a while back. I have a relative who works with kids & mental health and spent a lot of time in France as well. at the time of that article she commented that in France they’re prescribing benzos to kids at a much higher rate than here and are under prescribing kids with adhd - particularly girls. Now that I think about it that could be what’s up in Denmark too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like the adhd studies are making my head hurt. I think the younger kids are being over diagnosed and the older kids are being under diagnosed.
And I don’t understand the Finnish or Danish studies saying allowing liberal redshirting decreases the # of adhd diagnoses. Doesn’t someone still have to be the youngest? And won’t those kids still be at risk for adhd diagnosis? Or at least in the way the system is set up in the US without universal preschool or other school options for every single kid who is “not ready”?

There's not a lot of rationality in DCUM redshirting threads, but I'll try to answer this seriously, as somebody who has closely read these studies, and has also read many of the available studies on redshirting (such as they are). I also have graduate-level statistics training and a graduate engineering degree, so I'm reasonably well-trained in reading academic studies.

The people who are saying that the Danish ADHD study justifies redshirting are incorrect. That study does not do that, any more than the other ADHD studies are an argument for or against redshirting. However, that study is interesting in that it's one of the few large population cohort studies that did not find a relative age impact concerning ADHD diagnosis and/or medication prescription. This is interesting, because the link between relative age and ADHD diagnosis and/or medication prescription has been repeated across several other populations (Canada, US, Iceland, Portugal, etc.). These are generally studies across large cohorts and are for the most part statistically sound. The Danish study, for instance, covered nearly 1 million children for more than a decade.

The reason that the Danish study did not replicate the results across other populations is not known, but the researchers themselves, in their paper, posited two reasons: 1) That Danish schools have a high proportion of relatively young children with delayed school entry and 2) Denmark has relatively low prescribing rates of medication for ADHD to children. To quote their conclusion exactly:

In conclusion, we found that in most recent years the use of medication for ADHD in Denmark is not particularly affected by children's relative age in class. This may be related to the relatively low use of ADHD medication the country and the highly prevailing custom of delaying school entry for relatively young children.

You're right that somebody has to be the youngest, but what the researchers are positing here isn't about whether somebody is the youngest, it's whether allowing a high proportion of delayed entry has an ameliorating effect on later ADHD diagnosis. By implication, Danish schools tend to have broader age ranges in classrooms, and don't have rigid cutoff dates for entry.

The actual study is here if you want to read it, and some of the other studies are linked from this one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4277337/

FWIW, I have never read any statistically valid studies that show documented significant harm or long-term significant benefit from redshirting, but it's possible they're out there. I have read a lot of these studies and my conclusion is that the effect from redshirting largely seems to be neutral overall, and is also statistically fairly rare. In general I see nothing (no academic research, at least) to remotely validate the enormous amount of frothing and angst about the topic on DCUM. There is nothing that I've seen that solidly links redshirting to all of the outcomes DCUM posters claim will result one way or the other (positive or negative). Personally I have concluded that worry about redshirting is a stand-in for significant social anxiety, but I have no study to back that up, of course! I don't expect any amount of rational discussion will actually change minds because this isn't a discussion based in reason, for the most part.

Your comments here remind me of the French kids don’t have ADHD article from a while back. I have a relative who works with kids & mental health and spent a lot of time in France as well. at the time of that article she commented that in France they’re prescribing benzos to kids at a much higher rate than here and are under prescribing kids with adhd - particularly girls. Now that I think about it that could be what’s up in Denmark too.

Possibly. However, while I don't have the studies at my fingertips so may be misremembering, I believe the relative age/ADHD studies have been replicated as showing an effect across populations where there are overall low rates of ADHD diagnosis/medication prescription. That is in part why people find the Danish longitudinal study interesting, because of the correlation with flexible age admission as opposed to stricter cutoffs is fairly unique.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting is an athletic term applied to the keeping of an athlete out of college competition for a year in order to develop the athlete's skills and extend their period of playing eligibility. The term has crept into the early education field as the practice of postponing entrance into kindergarten of age-eligible children in order to allow extra time for socioemotional, intellectual, or physical growth. But there is a problem here: in athletics, yes, redshirting may be used to give an advantage to the team by keeping an older, stronger or more skilled player around longer. That concept simply DOES NOT APPLY to classes. Read the definition; the child's entry is being postponed in order to give the child a chance to grow up as needed. It will have little to no impact on your kid. Grades are not comparative or competitive in K, 1 or 2. And the research show that whatever early advantage slightly older kids might have washes out after a few years (usually by 5-6th grades.)
Don't worry about it. Your kid will be fine.

There was a study recently showing that advantages of starting school later sustain through HS and into adulthood.

citation please

http://www.nber.org/papers/w23660

This article does not study redshirting. It looks at kids who are naturally older for the grade within the cut off.

+1. Redshirting is different because there's a selection bias, meaning that families who redshirt may differ in systematic ways from those who choose not to. Being naturally older for grades is a larger, different population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting is an athletic term applied to the keeping of an athlete out of college competition for a year in order to develop the athlete's skills and extend their period of playing eligibility. The term has crept into the early education field as the practice of postponing entrance into kindergarten of age-eligible children in order to allow extra time for socioemotional, intellectual, or physical growth. But there is a problem here: in athletics, yes, redshirting may be used to give an advantage to the team by keeping an older, stronger or more skilled player around longer. That concept simply DOES NOT APPLY to classes. Read the definition; the child's entry is being postponed in order to give the child a chance to grow up as needed. It will have little to no impact on your kid. Grades are not comparative or competitive in K, 1 or 2. And the research show that whatever early advantage slightly older kids might have washes out after a few years (usually by 5-6th grades.)
Don't worry about it. Your kid will be fine.

There was a study recently showing that advantages of starting school later sustain through HS and into adulthood.

citation please

http://www.nber.org/papers/w23660

This article does not study redshirting. It looks at kids who are naturally older for the grade within the cut off.

+1. Redshirting is different because there's a selection bias, meaning that families who redshirt may differ in systematic ways from those who choose not to. Being naturally older for grades is a larger, different population.

Redshirting is also statistically fairly rare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting is an athletic term applied to the keeping of an athlete out of college competition for a year in order to develop the athlete's skills and extend their period of playing eligibility. The term has crept into the early education field as the practice of postponing entrance into kindergarten of age-eligible children in order to allow extra time for socioemotional, intellectual, or physical growth. But there is a problem here: in athletics, yes, redshirting may be used to give an advantage to the team by keeping an older, stronger or more skilled player around longer. That concept simply DOES NOT APPLY to classes. Read the definition; the child's entry is being postponed in order to give the child a chance to grow up as needed. It will have little to no impact on your kid. Grades are not comparative or competitive in K, 1 or 2. And the research show that whatever early advantage slightly older kids might have washes out after a few years (usually by 5-6th grades.)
Don't worry about it. Your kid will be fine.

There was a study recently showing that advantages of starting school later sustain through HS and into adulthood.

citation please

http://www.nber.org/papers/w23660

This article does not study redshirting. It looks at kids who are naturally older for the grade within the cut off.

+1. Redshirting is different because there's a selection bias, meaning that families who redshirt may differ in systematic ways from those who choose not to. Being naturally older for grades is a larger, different population.

Redshirting is also statistically fairly rare.

Between 5 and 20% of a class. I suppose that counts as statistically fairly rare...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting is an athletic term applied to the keeping of an athlete out of college competition for a year in order to develop the athlete's skills and extend their period of playing eligibility. The term has crept into the early education field as the practice of postponing entrance into kindergarten of age-eligible children in order to allow extra time for socioemotional, intellectual, or physical growth. But there is a problem here: in athletics, yes, redshirting may be used to give an advantage to the team by keeping an older, stronger or more skilled player around longer. That concept simply DOES NOT APPLY to classes. Read the definition; the child's entry is being postponed in order to give the child a chance to grow up as needed. It will have little to no impact on your kid. Grades are not comparative or competitive in K, 1 or 2. And the research show that whatever early advantage slightly older kids might have washes out after a few years (usually by 5-6th grades.)
Don't worry about it. Your kid will be fine.

There was a study recently showing that advantages of starting school later sustain through HS and into adulthood.

citation please

http://www.nber.org/papers/w23660

This article does not study redshirting. It looks at kids who are naturally older for the grade within the cut off.

+1. Redshirting is different because there's a selection bias, meaning that families who redshirt may differ in systematic ways from those who choose not to. Being naturally older for grades is a larger, different population.

Redshirting is also statistically fairly rare.

Between 5 and 20% of a class. I suppose that counts as statistically fairly rare...

It depends on the school. I have experience with two schools--a DCPS and a private. In our small DCPS, I only know of one kid who was technically redshirted, but bday was within a few days of cutoff--kid is doing really well. Another kid (who I think may have had some special needs/communication issues, but not sure) was redshirted only when switching to private.

At the private my child currently attends, I don't know of any redshirted kids, although one of my kid's friends was skipped ahead. Kid is tiny but I suspect super bright, and hasn't had any issues being young that I'm aware of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting is an athletic term applied to the keeping of an athlete out of college competition for a year in order to develop the athlete's skills and extend their period of playing eligibility. The term has crept into the early education field as the practice of postponing entrance into kindergarten of age-eligible children in order to allow extra time for socioemotional, intellectual, or physical growth. But there is a problem here: in athletics, yes, redshirting may be used to give an advantage to the team by keeping an older, stronger or more skilled player around longer. That concept simply DOES NOT APPLY to classes. Read the definition; the child's entry is being postponed in order to give the child a chance to grow up as needed. It will have little to no impact on your kid. Grades are not comparative or competitive in K, 1 or 2. And the research show that whatever early advantage slightly older kids might have washes out after a few years (usually by 5-6th grades.)
Don't worry about it. Your kid will be fine.

There was a study recently showing that advantages of starting school later sustain through HS and into adulthood.

citation please

http://www.nber.org/papers/w23660

This article does not study redshirting. It looks at kids who are naturally older for the grade within the cut off.

+1. Redshirting is different because there's a selection bias, meaning that families who redshirt may differ in systematic ways from those who choose not to. Being naturally older for grades is a larger, different population.

Redshirting is also statistically fairly rare.

Between 5 and 20% of a class. I suppose that counts as statistically fairly rare...

Your child's class is not a statistically valid sample size. Across statistically valid samples, it is rare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting is an athletic term applied to the keeping of an athlete out of college competition for a year in order to develop the athlete's skills and extend their period of playing eligibility. The term has crept into the early education field as the practice of postponing entrance into kindergarten of age-eligible children in order to allow extra time for socioemotional, intellectual, or physical growth. But there is a problem here: in athletics, yes, redshirting may be used to give an advantage to the team by keeping an older, stronger or more skilled player around longer. That concept simply DOES NOT APPLY to classes. Read the definition; the child's entry is being postponed in order to give the child a chance to grow up as needed. It will have little to no impact on your kid. Grades are not comparative or competitive in K, 1 or 2. And the research show that whatever early advantage slightly older kids might have washes out after a few years (usually by 5-6th grades.)
Don't worry about it. Your kid will be fine.

There was a study recently showing that advantages of starting school later sustain through HS and into adulthood.

citation please

http://www.nber.org/papers/w23660

This article does not study redshirting. It looks at kids who are naturally older for the grade within the cut off.

+1. Redshirting is different because there's a selection bias, meaning that families who redshirt may differ in systematic ways from those who choose not to. Being naturally older for grades is a larger, different population.

Redshirting is also statistically fairly rare.

Between 5 and 20% of a class. I suppose that counts as statistically fairly rare...

Your child's class is not a statistically valid sample size. Across statistically valid samples, it is rare.

That's what the studies say. You agree that 5-20% is rare, then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting is an athletic term applied to the keeping of an athlete out of college competition for a year in order to develop the athlete's skills and extend their period of playing eligibility. The term has crept into the early education field as the practice of postponing entrance into kindergarten of age-eligible children in order to allow extra time for socioemotional, intellectual, or physical growth. But there is a problem here: in athletics, yes, redshirting may be used to give an advantage to the team by keeping an older, stronger or more skilled player around longer. That concept simply DOES NOT APPLY to classes. Read the definition; the child's entry is being postponed in order to give the child a chance to grow up as needed. It will have little to no impact on your kid. Grades are not comparative or competitive in K, 1 or 2. And the research show that whatever early advantage slightly older kids might have washes out after a few years (usually by 5-6th grades.)
Don't worry about it. Your kid will be fine.

There was a study recently showing that advantages of starting school later sustain through HS and into adulthood.

citation please

http://www.nber.org/papers/w23660

This article does not study redshirting. It looks at kids who are naturally older for the grade within the cut off.

+1. Redshirting is different because there's a selection bias, meaning that families who redshirt may differ in systematic ways from those who choose not to. Being naturally older for grades is a larger, different population.

Redshirting is also statistically fairly rare.

Between 5 and 20% of a class. I suppose that counts as statistically fairly rare...

Your child's class is not a statistically valid sample size. Across statistically valid samples, it is rare.

That's what the studies say. You agree that 5-20% is rare, then.

Where did you see 20%? This study using data from two nationally representative samples found rates of 4-5.5%. It also found that redshirted kids were more likely to be white, male, and/or high SES.

Sure, there may be schools where it approaches 20% or higher, but it seems in the aggregate it's more like 5%.

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/0162373713482764?journalCode=epaa

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting is an athletic term applied to the keeping of an athlete out of college competition for a year in order to develop the athlete's skills and extend their period of playing eligibility. The term has crept into the early education field as the practice of postponing entrance into kindergarten of age-eligible children in order to allow extra time for socioemotional, intellectual, or physical growth. But there is a problem here: in athletics, yes, redshirting may be used to give an advantage to the team by keeping an older, stronger or more skilled player around longer. That concept simply DOES NOT APPLY to classes. Read the definition; the child's entry is being postponed in order to give the child a chance to grow up as needed. It will have little to no impact on your kid. Grades are not comparative or competitive in K, 1 or 2. And the research show that whatever early advantage slightly older kids might have washes out after a few years (usually by 5-6th grades.)
Don't worry about it. Your kid will be fine.

There was a study recently showing that advantages of starting school later sustain through HS and into adulthood.

citation please

http://www.nber.org/papers/w23660

This article does not study redshirting. It looks at kids who are naturally older for the grade within the cut off.

+1. Redshirting is different because there's a selection bias, meaning that families who redshirt may differ in systematic ways from those who choose not to. Being naturally older for grades is a larger, different population.

Redshirting is also statistically fairly rare.

Between 5 and 20% of a class. I suppose that counts as statistically fairly rare...

Your child's class is not a statistically valid sample size. Across statistically valid samples, it is rare.

That's what the studies say. You agree that 5-20% is rare, then.

Which studies, exactly?

[Anonymous]

Threads of people complaining about things that don't affect them, won't change, can't change. Do you complain like this to your husbands? I bet they shove Advil in their ears every time you open your mouths about this bullshit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Threads of people complaining about things that don't affect them, won't change, can't change. Do you complain like this to your husbands? I bet they shove Advil in their ears every time you open your mouths about this bullshit.

What's interesting is they don't engage in the posts that talk about actual studies and data. It's almost as if their reactions are entirely irrational and anxiety-driven.