PreK teacher recommending redshirting my son

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You say he has been a little slow to catch on to things. I would assume this pre k teacher has seen hundreds of kids in pre k. Her experience about the norms for children is valuable, given it can be a hard thing for a parent to hear.
I had this same conversation with my childs prek teacher and it wasnt particularly helpful at the time as in she didnt provide many concrete reasons to wait. However, we decided to wait and it was the right decision. My child ended up being dyslexic which is not something that is easily recognized/ diagnosed very early. Just consider her thoughts and everything may not be easily recognizable right now but may be in the future. Also, try to continue the conversation with her after you've had time to process and digest for a bit.

You say it was the right decision, but you actually don't know that, since you don't know what the difference would have been had you made a different decision. You simply want it to be right, so you say it is. In fact, a learning disability is considered a reason NOT to hold a child back, since it does nothing to help with the disability. What might have worked better was some good Orton Gillingham reading instruction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is a church affiliated preschool. They tend to lean towards holding summer unless the kid is obviously advanced or bigger.

She also said he wouldn’t be able to handle the extended day option which is a full day (an hour shorter than elementary school) and he’s doing well in it with the longer time. We just started in the spring.

Or bigger? WTH? Size of a child has nothing to do with school success. Recommending holding a summer-born child back unless they are advanced or "bigger" is evidence that they have no business giving educational advice.

[Anonymous]

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As it is, there are 13 year olds in my 6th graders class. My child is 11. Let my kid tell it, the 13 year olds are the smartest. My 8 year old was telling me about a boy turning 10 in her class in March-shes in 3rd grade. They aren't smart they are just OLD.

What?!

Exact point some PPs are making that holding kids back so much leads to scenarios where students in the same grade will be more than year older than their peers. You wind up with 4th graders going through puberty.

4th grade girls DO go through puberty. Why do you think that's not already happening?

Er. No. 9 year old girls do NOT go through puberty.

Yes, they do.

My aunt, born in 1948, got her period when she was 9 years old, while she was in fourth grade.
My cousin, on a different side of the family, got her period a few days after turning nine. She was about to start fourth grade.

Had they both been red-shirted, they would've been menstruating third graders.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I currently a preschool teacher, taught kindergarten for 20 years before making the move. I tend to err on the side of giving kids with summer birthdays the extra year of preschool.

Why?

- August birthday child who excelled academically

DP. They've changed school since we were kids, made it more stressful and less enjoyable. They also have greater EF expectations earlier and expect kids to be self-sufficient without teaching them how.

We didn't redshirt our August boy and academically he's doing fine - but am extra year of maturity would have benefitted him significantly.

Stop expecting so little of your child. If he's doing fine, he's doing fine, and no one wants your 18 year old man in school with their 17 year old daughter.

My daughter will be 18 all senior year because of her Sept birthday. It's normal to be 18 all year. Stop spewing this nonsense that it's not. If a cutoff is 9/1 or 9/30 what do you think happens to kids who happen to be the oldest? It's by design.

It's literally not normal. People like you have made it common, but common is not normal.

Yes, it is normal. The age cutoff is Sept 1 nearly everywhere. The Sept-Dec kids will be 18 most of their senior year and that is normal

It is not normal. I just had my third kid graduate high school. The large majority of kids turn 18 just before graduation.

I’ve got a current HS sophomore and large number of her friends will be 18 by the end of December senior year. There is definitely no “large majority “ turning 18 right before graduation. That wasn’t even the case with classmates of my older kid, who didn’t turn 18 herself until six weeks into freshman year of college. She was absolutely the outlier in her class.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I actually think having a child go off to college at 19 is a benefit not a negative.

It's gross to have an adult man in high school with 13 year olds.

There will always be some adult men in high school even without redshirting - not everyone stays 17 senior year.

Turning 18 second semester is WAY different than being 19, and you know it.

OP’s child would turn 18 when they are a junior and would turn 19 as a senior…

In mid May so a few weeks before school lets out. Not 19 all year long like some seem to be freaking out about. He will be 18 most of the year like many others. I don't see how "way different" 18 is than 19 at that point.

Huge difference when you are legally an adult and the age span for HS is 13-19 years old. So, you have 13/14-year-olds taking classes with 17-19 yer olds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You say he has been a little slow to catch on to things. I would assume this pre k teacher has seen hundreds of kids in pre k. Her experience about the norms for children is valuable, given it can be a hard thing for a parent to hear.
I had this same conversation with my childs prek teacher and it wasnt particularly helpful at the time as in she didnt provide many concrete reasons to wait. However, we decided to wait and it was the right decision. My child ended up being dyslexic which is not something that is easily recognized/ diagnosed very early. Just consider her thoughts and everything may not be easily recognizable right now but may be in the future. Also, try to continue the conversation with her after you've had time to process and digest for a bit.

You could recognize your child struggling to read, especially at age 5 and get them a tutor or work with them.

You're so right, I should have recognized my pre k ( 4 yr old0 was going to struggle to read because obv thats a real expectation for pre k. I should have set her up with 3 day a week tutoring right. Or wait, your next comment is that I didn't read to her enough. I've heard all this nonsense before.

Many parents work with their kids at age 4 on reading skills. But, since you choose not to nor put them in a preschool that teaches literacy, yes, a tutor would have been a good idea.

[Anonymous]

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As it is, there are 13 year olds in my 6th graders class. My child is 11. Let my kid tell it, the 13 year olds are the smartest. My 8 year old was telling me about a boy turning 10 in her class in March-shes in 3rd grade. They aren't smart they are just OLD.

What?!

Exact point some PPs are making that holding kids back so much leads to scenarios where students in the same grade will be more than year older than their peers. You wind up with 4th graders going through puberty.

4th grade girls DO go through puberty. Why do you think that's not already happening?

Er. No. 9 year old girls do NOT go through puberty.

Um, yes they do. I was born in June and went to school on time. When I was in 4th-5th grade (I was age 9-10), some of my classmates were going through puberty.

My daughter is in dance and I can absolutely assure you puberty is starting by 9 for some.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

As it is, there are 13 year olds in my 6th graders class. My child is 11. Let my kid tell it, the 13 year olds are the smartest. My 8 year old was telling me about a boy turning 10 in her class in March-shes in 3rd grade. They aren't smart they are just OLD.

What?!

I believe it. There were 8 year olds in my DD’s 1st grade class last year and she was 6 all year, didn’t turn 7 till the summer. Its ridiculous.

However, I can’t speak to their grades, but volunteering in her class, the couple I knew that were 8 by like March/April were the worst behaved by far.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I actually think having a child go off to college at 19 is a benefit not a negative.

It's gross to have an adult man in high school with 13 year olds.

There will always be some adult men in high school even without redshirting - not everyone stays 17 senior year.

Turning 18 second semester is WAY different than being 19, and you know it.

OP’s child would turn 18 when they are a junior and would turn 19 as a senior…

In mid May so a few weeks before school lets out. Not 19 all year long like some seem to be freaking out about. He will be 18 most of the year like many others. I don't see how "way different" 18 is than 19 at that point.

Huge difference when you are legally an adult and the age span for HS is 13-19 years old. So, you have 13/14-year-olds taking classes with 17-19 yer olds.

Maybe 13 year olds don't belong in high school. Good thing appropriate cut offs prevent that in most high schools. Perhaps the 13 year old should have been redshirted if the parents were so concerned about this age gap. Surely they would have known that its common and normal for seniors to be 18 in high school. If they didn't know that, why not? And why should appropriately aged 18 year olds in HS be concerned with this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You say he has been a little slow to catch on to things. I would assume this pre k teacher has seen hundreds of kids in pre k. Her experience about the norms for children is valuable, given it can be a hard thing for a parent to hear.
I had this same conversation with my childs prek teacher and it wasnt particularly helpful at the time as in she didnt provide many concrete reasons to wait. However, we decided to wait and it was the right decision. My child ended up being dyslexic which is not something that is easily recognized/ diagnosed very early. Just consider her thoughts and everything may not be easily recognizable right now but may be in the future. Also, try to continue the conversation with her after you've had time to process and digest for a bit.

You say it was the right decision, but you actually don't know that, since you don't know what the difference would have been had you made a different decision. You simply want it to be right, so you say it is. In fact, a learning disability is considered a reason NOT to hold a child back, since it does nothing to help with the disability. What might have worked better was some good Orton Gillingham reading instruction.

Since you seem annoying to me, I will respond. It was 100 percent the right decision by anyones measure. I completely understand learning disabilities and OG instruction and we’ve done it all. The OP was asking for thoughts, I gave them to her. Don’t assume you know peoples individual situations better than they do.

[Anonymous]

If his teacher recommends it? Def redshirt!