mad - kid in kindergarten has late birthday

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This may come as a shock to people, but sports are not the primary goal of school attendance. Most kids are not going to be sports superstars and the odds that any of these posters children (redshirted or not) are recruited college athletes (much less professionals) are extremely low. What they will all certainly need, however, is a solid education and enough social skills to get along with each other and eventually integrate into their community.

Kids aren’t widgets. Just as kids grow at different rates, and have different strengths and weaknesses, they may be ready for K at different times. For a few, starting early may make sense and they should have that opportunity. For most, starting “on time” probably works best. Some may need extra time, for a variety of reasons, to be ready. It is in society’s best interest to maximize every child’s opportunity for success, and redshirting is only one tool (of many) to facilitate this process. Moreover, redshirting a child who isn’t ready for school helps their classmates. Instead of having a child who can’t sit still, interrupts the teacher, and generally is disruptive, an extra year to mature may mean they are more ready to focus and participate, allowing their classmates to do the same.

It’s not a magic wand that automatically confers an “advantage”. Because everyone has various strengths and weaknesses, redshirting will almost always have drawbacks and parents have to carefully balance the pros and cons. A child who doesn’t have a need for redshirting will probably come out worse for it, rather than being advantaged.

I had a June birthday and went to school “on time”. I never fit in with my peers and by the time I graduated my friend circles (both in and out of school) were with younger kids. In K, they were learning to read and because I couldn’t get it no matter how hard I tried while everyone else did, I was convinced I was stupid. Thankfully, my mom persevered and it finally clicked the following summer, I think because I was finally developmentally ready. After that breakthrough, I did well academically, eventually ending up in a magnet school, but if it hadn’t been for my mother, I would have probably given up on school in K. The problem I had wasn’t that there might be a few older redshirted kids who outpaced everyone. Honestly, I had no idea who was the oldest and by how much. The problem was that I was out of sync with EVERYONE. It worked out okay, but looking back, redshirting would have put me with my peers. (By the way, there was no question of athletic advantage. Even if I’d been redshirted twice, I still would have been the last one picked for teams.)

This is a very thoughtful post.

However, I think there is a fundamental disconnect here. I have no problem with redshirting where merited. But not everyone who redshirts does it because their child is truly not ready for K. I wish that was the case. Then I don't think you'd get people complaining about it. There are people who redshirt simply so their kid will not be the smallest or the youngest, and those factors are considered independent of actual readiness factors like emotional regulation, social skills, and academic preparedness. I know I will be told "that doesn't happen" or "there may have been issues you don't know about." But no -- I am talking about family members and people I know well, who will tell you point blank that the reason they redshirted their child is because they didn't want them to be the smallest or youngest. Not because of other readiness factors.

Someone upthread mentioned that Malcolm Gladwell book popularizing this notion of how age cut offs can have longterm impacts on success, and this is absolutely part of the issue. Not just with sports. Since that book came out, there are a lot more high SES, well-educated parents who view redshirting as a way to confer an advantage on their kids. This is also what has led to the creep in redshirting, from just kids on the younger end of the spectrum with maturity issues or developmental delays, to kids squarely in the middle of the age cohort with no apparent concerns.

Private schools often redshirt aggressively in order to ensure that all entering kindergarteners are at a relatively advanced reading level, which allows them to accelerate all students. I know of a number of privates that do not permit kids to start K until they are reading, for instance. It's a private, they can do what they want, but it's also an aggressive, and highly competitive stance meant to make those children more competitive throughout their academic careers.

I would LOVE if there was no debate around redshirting because it was something that only happened for kids who genuinely just needed more time. But in reality, it's not viewed this way, and many people (and schools) view it as a tool for winning a race that many of us don't even want to be in. The truth is that peer cohorts do matter for kids, and what other parents choose to do can impact your child. So you can expect to see more debates around redshirting, more complaining, more hand-wringing. And that's not because people just randomly hate redshirting as a concept. It's because of how it is being used by growing number of families in the name of competition.

"Redshirting where merited" is what it comes down to. The theme running through the anti-redshirt posts is that there should be some "merit" threshold and the perception that this is usually/typically not satisfied but rather a case of sharp elbows that should be regulated. This is a sandcastle of assumptions about what is going on with a particular kid, and what is in the heart of the parents. The sentiment seems to be that the decision should be taken out of the parents' hands and instead placed in . . . whose hands? The schools? Are they qualified, and do they have the capacity? And wouldn't they be just as inclined to hold back a disruptive kid as the parents? And, what would be enough to justify the hold-back? Not everything that is a need rises to the level of a diagnosis, and some diagnoses are only arrived at years later. The solutions seem worse than the ill being railed against. So, instead, we're addressing this with quiet seething and passive aggression that may feel justified but only if you choose to believe a narrative about the kids and parents that is unsupportable with objective evidence. None of us knows the full story about someone else's family. Why choose to believe the worst? Why not just leave the decision to the people best positioned to make decisions about their kid: the parents?

The answer to the bolded question, on a theoretical level, is that this a family-style meal, not a buffet -- a parent's choice to red shirt does in fact affect other children, so what is best for their child shouldn't really be the be all and end all, only consideration. Even if it's done for the "with merit" reasons, it affects others. Not so terrible to have someone thinking of the group as a whole weigh in...

To your other point about the "redshirting WITHOUT merit" phenomenon being over-stated...I agree. I think there are nsadly SOME nutter hyper-competitive parents who do this, but I think the hand wringers on this thread have convinced themselves it's more prevalent than it is.

We're going to have to agree to disagree. I don't think it affects ANY of the other kids. If anything, it gives them a classmate who is more mature and ready to learn, so less outbursts.

That's silly. If the age range of a grade cohort appreciably shifts from 12 months to more like 18 months then of course that affects the group as a whole, both academically and socially, in kinder itself but also down the road. I'm not particularly worked up about it myself, but yeah, our choices in these regards do affect others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This may come as a shock to people, but sports are not the primary goal of school attendance. Most kids are not going to be sports superstars and the odds that any of these posters children (redshirted or not) are recruited college athletes (much less professionals) are extremely low. What they will all certainly need, however, is a solid education and enough social skills to get along with each other and eventually integrate into their community.

Kids aren’t widgets. Just as kids grow at different rates, and have different strengths and weaknesses, they may be ready for K at different times. For a few, starting early may make sense and they should have that opportunity. For most, starting “on time” probably works best. Some may need extra time, for a variety of reasons, to be ready. It is in society’s best interest to maximize every child’s opportunity for success, and redshirting is only one tool (of many) to facilitate this process. Moreover, redshirting a child who isn’t ready for school helps their classmates. Instead of having a child who can’t sit still, interrupts the teacher, and generally is disruptive, an extra year to mature may mean they are more ready to focus and participate, allowing their classmates to do the same.

It’s not a magic wand that automatically confers an “advantage”. Because everyone has various strengths and weaknesses, redshirting will almost always have drawbacks and parents have to carefully balance the pros and cons. A child who doesn’t have a need for redshirting will probably come out worse for it, rather than being advantaged.

I had a June birthday and went to school “on time”. I never fit in with my peers and by the time I graduated my friend circles (both in and out of school) were with younger kids. In K, they were learning to read and because I couldn’t get it no matter how hard I tried while everyone else did, I was convinced I was stupid. Thankfully, my mom persevered and it finally clicked the following summer, I think because I was finally developmentally ready. After that breakthrough, I did well academically, eventually ending up in a magnet school, but if it hadn’t been for my mother, I would have probably given up on school in K. The problem I had wasn’t that there might be a few older redshirted kids who outpaced everyone. Honestly, I had no idea who was the oldest and by how much. The problem was that I was out of sync with EVERYONE. It worked out okay, but looking back, redshirting would have put me with my peers. (By the way, there was no question of athletic advantage. Even if I’d been redshirted twice, I still would have been the last one picked for teams.)

This is a very thoughtful post.

However, I think there is a fundamental disconnect here. I have no problem with redshirting where merited. But not everyone who redshirts does it because their child is truly not ready for K. I wish that was the case. Then I don't think you'd get people complaining about it. There are people who redshirt simply so their kid will not be the smallest or the youngest, and those factors are considered independent of actual readiness factors like emotional regulation, social skills, and academic preparedness. I know I will be told "that doesn't happen" or "there may have been issues you don't know about." But no -- I am talking about family members and people I know well, who will tell you point blank that the reason they redshirted their child is because they didn't want them to be the smallest or youngest. Not because of other readiness factors.

Someone upthread mentioned that Malcolm Gladwell book popularizing this notion of how age cut offs can have longterm impacts on success, and this is absolutely part of the issue. Not just with sports. Since that book came out, there are a lot more high SES, well-educated parents who view redshirting as a way to confer an advantage on their kids. This is also what has led to the creep in redshirting, from just kids on the younger end of the spectrum with maturity issues or developmental delays, to kids squarely in the middle of the age cohort with no apparent concerns.

Private schools often redshirt aggressively in order to ensure that all entering kindergarteners are at a relatively advanced reading level, which allows them to accelerate all students. I know of a number of privates that do not permit kids to start K until they are reading, for instance. It's a private, they can do what they want, but it's also an aggressive, and highly competitive stance meant to make those children more competitive throughout their academic careers.

I would LOVE if there was no debate around redshirting because it was something that only happened for kids who genuinely just needed more time. But in reality, it's not viewed this way, and many people (and schools) view it as a tool for winning a race that many of us don't even want to be in. The truth is that peer cohorts do matter for kids, and what other parents choose to do can impact your child. So you can expect to see more debates around redshirting, more complaining, more hand-wringing. And that's not because people just randomly hate redshirting as a concept. It's because of how it is being used by growing number of families in the name of competition.

"Redshirting where merited" is what it comes down to. The theme running through the anti-redshirt posts is that there should be some "merit" threshold and the perception that this is usually/typically not satisfied but rather a case of sharp elbows that should be regulated. This is a sandcastle of assumptions about what is going on with a particular kid, and what is in the heart of the parents. The sentiment seems to be that the decision should be taken out of the parents' hands and instead placed in . . . whose hands? The schools? Are they qualified, and do they have the capacity? And wouldn't they be just as inclined to hold back a disruptive kid as the parents? And, what would be enough to justify the hold-back? Not everything that is a need rises to the level of a diagnosis, and some diagnoses are only arrived at years later. The solutions seem worse than the ill being railed against. So, instead, we're addressing this with quiet seething and passive aggression that may feel justified but only if you choose to believe a narrative about the kids and parents that is unsupportable with objective evidence. None of us knows the full story about someone else's family. Why choose to believe the worst? Why not just leave the decision to the people best positioned to make decisions about their kid: the parents?

I'm the PP. Did you read the rest of my post?

I do actually give most people the benefit of the doubt on this and other decisions. But I have first hand knowledge of families that have redshirted where it was not merited and there was no reason to do so -- it was not recommended by a preschool teacher or a doctor, it was not done out of concern for a child who struggled socially or academically. It was done, intentionally, to ensure their child would be among the oldest in their grade. There are many parents who will state that this was their goal, plainly, and will actually turn around and wonder why you didn't do the same.

THIS is the phenomenon some of us are complaining about. I am not guessing at the motivations of random parents I barely know regarding their kid's kindergarten age. I am talking about a real trend towards starting kids later and later in kindergarten, specifically in an effort to give them a leg up in life. I didn't just make it up, I'm not make assumptions about anyone. I know that this is something people are doing, my observation is that it's happening more frequently now than it did when I was a kid, and there are even documented reasons it's occurring, like the popularity of that Gladwell book.

Look, those of you who are convinced that redshirting only happens when there are good, private reasons for it and it never happens just to give a kid an edge, do you really not see the ways that parenting and education have become increasingly competitive and in some cases cut-throat? Do you not see the proliferation of after school academic enrichment and programs intended to accelerate kids above grade level so they can access gifted programs? the shift from rec sports that lead to school-based programs to a focus on year round and club sports that can make it all but impossible to play sports in HS without that background? The increasingly common use of education consultants to not only assist with entry into college, but even entry into elementary schools?

If you live in a world where people only ever redshirt because their kid is too immature for K, please tell us where, because I would like to raise my kids there. But I live in the DMV where redshirting is just one of many trends designed to turn parenting into full-contact competitive sport.

If redshirting makes you this upset, wait until you hear how much we spend on private tutors.

Why so much on tutoring for a young child? Is he struggling?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This may come as a shock to people, but sports are not the primary goal of school attendance. Most kids are not going to be sports superstars and the odds that any of these posters children (redshirted or not) are recruited college athletes (much less professionals) are extremely low. What they will all certainly need, however, is a solid education and enough social skills to get along with each other and eventually integrate into their community.

Kids aren’t widgets. Just as kids grow at different rates, and have different strengths and weaknesses, they may be ready for K at different times. For a few, starting early may make sense and they should have that opportunity. For most, starting “on time” probably works best. Some may need extra time, for a variety of reasons, to be ready. It is in society’s best interest to maximize every child’s opportunity for success, and redshirting is only one tool (of many) to facilitate this process. Moreover, redshirting a child who isn’t ready for school helps their classmates. Instead of having a child who can’t sit still, interrupts the teacher, and generally is disruptive, an extra year to mature may mean they are more ready to focus and participate, allowing their classmates to do the same.

It’s not a magic wand that automatically confers an “advantage”. Because everyone has various strengths and weaknesses, redshirting will almost always have drawbacks and parents have to carefully balance the pros and cons. A child who doesn’t have a need for redshirting will probably come out worse for it, rather than being advantaged.

I had a June birthday and went to school “on time”. I never fit in with my peers and by the time I graduated my friend circles (both in and out of school) were with younger kids. In K, they were learning to read and because I couldn’t get it no matter how hard I tried while everyone else did, I was convinced I was stupid. Thankfully, my mom persevered and it finally clicked the following summer, I think because I was finally developmentally ready. After that breakthrough, I did well academically, eventually ending up in a magnet school, but if it hadn’t been for my mother, I would have probably given up on school in K. The problem I had wasn’t that there might be a few older redshirted kids who outpaced everyone. Honestly, I had no idea who was the oldest and by how much. The problem was that I was out of sync with EVERYONE. It worked out okay, but looking back, redshirting would have put me with my peers. (By the way, there was no question of athletic advantage. Even if I’d been redshirted twice, I still would have been the last one picked for teams.)

This is a very thoughtful post.

However, I think there is a fundamental disconnect here. I have no problem with redshirting where merited. But not everyone who redshirts does it because their child is truly not ready for K. I wish that was the case. Then I don't think you'd get people complaining about it. There are people who redshirt simply so their kid will not be the smallest or the youngest, and those factors are considered independent of actual readiness factors like emotional regulation, social skills, and academic preparedness. I know I will be told "that doesn't happen" or "there may have been issues you don't know about." But no -- I am talking about family members and people I know well, who will tell you point blank that the reason they redshirted their child is because they didn't want them to be the smallest or youngest. Not because of other readiness factors.

Someone upthread mentioned that Malcolm Gladwell book popularizing this notion of how age cut offs can have longterm impacts on success, and this is absolutely part of the issue. Not just with sports. Since that book came out, there are a lot more high SES, well-educated parents who view redshirting as a way to confer an advantage on their kids. This is also what has led to the creep in redshirting, from just kids on the younger end of the spectrum with maturity issues or developmental delays, to kids squarely in the middle of the age cohort with no apparent concerns.

Private schools often redshirt aggressively in order to ensure that all entering kindergarteners are at a relatively advanced reading level, which allows them to accelerate all students. I know of a number of privates that do not permit kids to start K until they are reading, for instance. It's a private, they can do what they want, but it's also an aggressive, and highly competitive stance meant to make those children more competitive throughout their academic careers.

I would LOVE if there was no debate around redshirting because it was something that only happened for kids who genuinely just needed more time. But in reality, it's not viewed this way, and many people (and schools) view it as a tool for winning a race that many of us don't even want to be in. The truth is that peer cohorts do matter for kids, and what other parents choose to do can impact your child. So you can expect to see more debates around redshirting, more complaining, more hand-wringing. And that's not because people just randomly hate redshirting as a concept. It's because of how it is being used by growing number of families in the name of competition.

"Redshirting where merited" is what it comes down to. The theme running through the anti-redshirt posts is that there should be some "merit" threshold and the perception that this is usually/typically not satisfied but rather a case of sharp elbows that should be regulated. This is a sandcastle of assumptions about what is going on with a particular kid, and what is in the heart of the parents. The sentiment seems to be that the decision should be taken out of the parents' hands and instead placed in . . . whose hands? The schools? Are they qualified, and do they have the capacity? And wouldn't they be just as inclined to hold back a disruptive kid as the parents? And, what would be enough to justify the hold-back? Not everything that is a need rises to the level of a diagnosis, and some diagnoses are only arrived at years later. The solutions seem worse than the ill being railed against. So, instead, we're addressing this with quiet seething and passive aggression that may feel justified but only if you choose to believe a narrative about the kids and parents that is unsupportable with objective evidence. None of us knows the full story about someone else's family. Why choose to believe the worst? Why not just leave the decision to the people best positioned to make decisions about their kid: the parents?

I'm the PP. Did you read the rest of my post?

I do actually give most people the benefit of the doubt on this and other decisions. But I have first hand knowledge of families that have redshirted where it was not merited and there was no reason to do so -- it was not recommended by a preschool teacher or a doctor, it was not done out of concern for a child who struggled socially or academically. It was done, intentionally, to ensure their child would be among the oldest in their grade. There are many parents who will state that this was their goal, plainly, and will actually turn around and wonder why you didn't do the same.

THIS is the phenomenon some of us are complaining about. I am not guessing at the motivations of random parents I barely know regarding their kid's kindergarten age. I am talking about a real trend towards starting kids later and later in kindergarten, specifically in an effort to give them a leg up in life. I didn't just make it up, I'm not make assumptions about anyone. I know that this is something people are doing, my observation is that it's happening more frequently now than it did when I was a kid, and there are even documented reasons it's occurring, like the popularity of that Gladwell book.

Look, those of you who are convinced that redshirting only happens when there are good, private reasons for it and it never happens just to give a kid an edge, do you really not see the ways that parenting and education have become increasingly competitive and in some cases cut-throat? Do you not see the proliferation of after school academic enrichment and programs intended to accelerate kids above grade level so they can access gifted programs? the shift from rec sports that lead to school-based programs to a focus on year round and club sports that can make it all but impossible to play sports in HS without that background? The increasingly common use of education consultants to not only assist with entry into college, but even entry into elementary schools?

If you live in a world where people only ever redshirt because their kid is too immature for K, please tell us where, because I would like to raise my kids there. But I live in the DMV where redshirting is just one of many trends designed to turn parenting into full-contact competitive sport.

If redshirting makes you this upset, wait until you hear how much we spend on private tutors.

Why so much on tutoring for a young child? Is he struggling?

Tutoring is only for the college coursework child is completing outside of high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This may come as a shock to people, but sports are not the primary goal of school attendance. Most kids are not going to be sports superstars and the odds that any of these posters children (redshirted or not) are recruited college athletes (much less professionals) are extremely low. What they will all certainly need, however, is a solid education and enough social skills to get along with each other and eventually integrate into their community.

Kids aren’t widgets. Just as kids grow at different rates, and have different strengths and weaknesses, they may be ready for K at different times. For a few, starting early may make sense and they should have that opportunity. For most, starting “on time” probably works best. Some may need extra time, for a variety of reasons, to be ready. It is in society’s best interest to maximize every child’s opportunity for success, and redshirting is only one tool (of many) to facilitate this process. Moreover, redshirting a child who isn’t ready for school helps their classmates. Instead of having a child who can’t sit still, interrupts the teacher, and generally is disruptive, an extra year to mature may mean they are more ready to focus and participate, allowing their classmates to do the same.

It’s not a magic wand that automatically confers an “advantage”. Because everyone has various strengths and weaknesses, redshirting will almost always have drawbacks and parents have to carefully balance the pros and cons. A child who doesn’t have a need for redshirting will probably come out worse for it, rather than being advantaged.

I had a June birthday and went to school “on time”. I never fit in with my peers and by the time I graduated my friend circles (both in and out of school) were with younger kids. In K, they were learning to read and because I couldn’t get it no matter how hard I tried while everyone else did, I was convinced I was stupid. Thankfully, my mom persevered and it finally clicked the following summer, I think because I was finally developmentally ready. After that breakthrough, I did well academically, eventually ending up in a magnet school, but if it hadn’t been for my mother, I would have probably given up on school in K. The problem I had wasn’t that there might be a few older redshirted kids who outpaced everyone. Honestly, I had no idea who was the oldest and by how much. The problem was that I was out of sync with EVERYONE. It worked out okay, but looking back, redshirting would have put me with my peers. (By the way, there was no question of athletic advantage. Even if I’d been redshirted twice, I still would have been the last one picked for teams.)

This is a very thoughtful post.

However, I think there is a fundamental disconnect here. I have no problem with redshirting where merited. But not everyone who redshirts does it because their child is truly not ready for K. I wish that was the case. Then I don't think you'd get people complaining about it. There are people who redshirt simply so their kid will not be the smallest or the youngest, and those factors are considered independent of actual readiness factors like emotional regulation, social skills, and academic preparedness. I know I will be told "that doesn't happen" or "there may have been issues you don't know about." But no -- I am talking about family members and people I know well, who will tell you point blank that the reason they redshirted their child is because they didn't want them to be the smallest or youngest. Not because of other readiness factors.

Someone upthread mentioned that Malcolm Gladwell book popularizing this notion of how age cut offs can have longterm impacts on success, and this is absolutely part of the issue. Not just with sports. Since that book came out, there are a lot more high SES, well-educated parents who view redshirting as a way to confer an advantage on their kids. This is also what has led to the creep in redshirting, from just kids on the younger end of the spectrum with maturity issues or developmental delays, to kids squarely in the middle of the age cohort with no apparent concerns.

Private schools often redshirt aggressively in order to ensure that all entering kindergarteners are at a relatively advanced reading level, which allows them to accelerate all students. I know of a number of privates that do not permit kids to start K until they are reading, for instance. It's a private, they can do what they want, but it's also an aggressive, and highly competitive stance meant to make those children more competitive throughout their academic careers.

I would LOVE if there was no debate around redshirting because it was something that only happened for kids who genuinely just needed more time. But in reality, it's not viewed this way, and many people (and schools) view it as a tool for winning a race that many of us don't even want to be in. The truth is that peer cohorts do matter for kids, and what other parents choose to do can impact your child. So you can expect to see more debates around redshirting, more complaining, more hand-wringing. And that's not because people just randomly hate redshirting as a concept. It's because of how it is being used by growing number of families in the name of competition.

"Redshirting where merited" is what it comes down to. The theme running through the anti-redshirt posts is that there should be some "merit" threshold and the perception that this is usually/typically not satisfied but rather a case of sharp elbows that should be regulated. This is a sandcastle of assumptions about what is going on with a particular kid, and what is in the heart of the parents. The sentiment seems to be that the decision should be taken out of the parents' hands and instead placed in . . . whose hands? The schools? Are they qualified, and do they have the capacity? And wouldn't they be just as inclined to hold back a disruptive kid as the parents? And, what would be enough to justify the hold-back? Not everything that is a need rises to the level of a diagnosis, and some diagnoses are only arrived at years later. The solutions seem worse than the ill being railed against. So, instead, we're addressing this with quiet seething and passive aggression that may feel justified but only if you choose to believe a narrative about the kids and parents that is unsupportable with objective evidence. None of us knows the full story about someone else's family. Why choose to believe the worst? Why not just leave the decision to the people best positioned to make decisions about their kid: the parents?

I'm the PP. Did you read the rest of my post?

I do actually give most people the benefit of the doubt on this and other decisions. But I have first hand knowledge of families that have redshirted where it was not merited and there was no reason to do so -- it was not recommended by a preschool teacher or a doctor, it was not done out of concern for a child who struggled socially or academically. It was done, intentionally, to ensure their child would be among the oldest in their grade. There are many parents who will state that this was their goal, plainly, and will actually turn around and wonder why you didn't do the same.

THIS is the phenomenon some of us are complaining about. I am not guessing at the motivations of random parents I barely know regarding their kid's kindergarten age. I am talking about a real trend towards starting kids later and later in kindergarten, specifically in an effort to give them a leg up in life. I didn't just make it up, I'm not make assumptions about anyone. I know that this is something people are doing, my observation is that it's happening more frequently now than it did when I was a kid, and there are even documented reasons it's occurring, like the popularity of that Gladwell book.

Look, those of you who are convinced that redshirting only happens when there are good, private reasons for it and it never happens just to give a kid an edge, do you really not see the ways that parenting and education have become increasingly competitive and in some cases cut-throat? Do you not see the proliferation of after school academic enrichment and programs intended to accelerate kids above grade level so they can access gifted programs? the shift from rec sports that lead to school-based programs to a focus on year round and club sports that can make it all but impossible to play sports in HS without that background? The increasingly common use of education consultants to not only assist with entry into college, but even entry into elementary schools?

If you live in a world where people only ever redshirt because their kid is too immature for K, please tell us where, because I would like to raise my kids there. But I live in the DMV where redshirting is just one of many trends designed to turn parenting into full-contact competitive sport.

If redshirting makes you this upset, wait until you hear how much we spend on private tutors.

You are toxic.

(and we already know, because you can't resist bragging about it)

Aren't you the one sniping, gossiping and teaching your kids to make fun of other kids because of their birthday at school?

I'm posting on a message board about redshirting. I don't "snipe" and gossip, and I've certainly never endorsed my kids making fun of anyone for any reason, of course including their birthday.

Actually I have an August birthday who went to school on time who has experienced being made fun of for her birthday, because every year she's always the last or among the last to turn a grade older. I've never heard of a child being made fun of for turning a year older than everyone else -- kids always think being older is cooler.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This may come as a shock to people, but sports are not the primary goal of school attendance. Most kids are not going to be sports superstars and the odds that any of these posters children (redshirted or not) are recruited college athletes (much less professionals) are extremely low. What they will all certainly need, however, is a solid education and enough social skills to get along with each other and eventually integrate into their community.

Kids aren’t widgets. Just as kids grow at different rates, and have different strengths and weaknesses, they may be ready for K at different times. For a few, starting early may make sense and they should have that opportunity. For most, starting “on time” probably works best. Some may need extra time, for a variety of reasons, to be ready. It is in society’s best interest to maximize every child’s opportunity for success, and redshirting is only one tool (of many) to facilitate this process. Moreover, redshirting a child who isn’t ready for school helps their classmates. Instead of having a child who can’t sit still, interrupts the teacher, and generally is disruptive, an extra year to mature may mean they are more ready to focus and participate, allowing their classmates to do the same.

It’s not a magic wand that automatically confers an “advantage”. Because everyone has various strengths and weaknesses, redshirting will almost always have drawbacks and parents have to carefully balance the pros and cons. A child who doesn’t have a need for redshirting will probably come out worse for it, rather than being advantaged.

I had a June birthday and went to school “on time”. I never fit in with my peers and by the time I graduated my friend circles (both in and out of school) were with younger kids. In K, they were learning to read and because I couldn’t get it no matter how hard I tried while everyone else did, I was convinced I was stupid. Thankfully, my mom persevered and it finally clicked the following summer, I think because I was finally developmentally ready. After that breakthrough, I did well academically, eventually ending up in a magnet school, but if it hadn’t been for my mother, I would have probably given up on school in K. The problem I had wasn’t that there might be a few older redshirted kids who outpaced everyone. Honestly, I had no idea who was the oldest and by how much. The problem was that I was out of sync with EVERYONE. It worked out okay, but looking back, redshirting would have put me with my peers. (By the way, there was no question of athletic advantage. Even if I’d been redshirted twice, I still would have been the last one picked for teams.)

This is a very thoughtful post.

However, I think there is a fundamental disconnect here. I have no problem with redshirting where merited. But not everyone who redshirts does it because their child is truly not ready for K. I wish that was the case. Then I don't think you'd get people complaining about it. There are people who redshirt simply so their kid will not be the smallest or the youngest, and those factors are considered independent of actual readiness factors like emotional regulation, social skills, and academic preparedness. I know I will be told "that doesn't happen" or "there may have been issues you don't know about." But no -- I am talking about family members and people I know well, who will tell you point blank that the reason they redshirted their child is because they didn't want them to be the smallest or youngest. Not because of other readiness factors.

Someone upthread mentioned that Malcolm Gladwell book popularizing this notion of how age cut offs can have longterm impacts on success, and this is absolutely part of the issue. Not just with sports. Since that book came out, there are a lot more high SES, well-educated parents who view redshirting as a way to confer an advantage on their kids. This is also what has led to the creep in redshirting, from just kids on the younger end of the spectrum with maturity issues or developmental delays, to kids squarely in the middle of the age cohort with no apparent concerns.

Private schools often redshirt aggressively in order to ensure that all entering kindergarteners are at a relatively advanced reading level, which allows them to accelerate all students. I know of a number of privates that do not permit kids to start K until they are reading, for instance. It's a private, they can do what they want, but it's also an aggressive, and highly competitive stance meant to make those children more competitive throughout their academic careers.

I would LOVE if there was no debate around redshirting because it was something that only happened for kids who genuinely just needed more time. But in reality, it's not viewed this way, and many people (and schools) view it as a tool for winning a race that many of us don't even want to be in. The truth is that peer cohorts do matter for kids, and what other parents choose to do can impact your child. So you can expect to see more debates around redshirting, more complaining, more hand-wringing. And that's not because people just randomly hate redshirting as a concept. It's because of how it is being used by growing number of families in the name of competition.

"Redshirting where merited" is what it comes down to. The theme running through the anti-redshirt posts is that there should be some "merit" threshold and the perception that this is usually/typically not satisfied but rather a case of sharp elbows that should be regulated. This is a sandcastle of assumptions about what is going on with a particular kid, and what is in the heart of the parents. The sentiment seems to be that the decision should be taken out of the parents' hands and instead placed in . . . whose hands? The schools? Are they qualified, and do they have the capacity? And wouldn't they be just as inclined to hold back a disruptive kid as the parents? And, what would be enough to justify the hold-back? Not everything that is a need rises to the level of a diagnosis, and some diagnoses are only arrived at years later. The solutions seem worse than the ill being railed against. So, instead, we're addressing this with quiet seething and passive aggression that may feel justified but only if you choose to believe a narrative about the kids and parents that is unsupportable with objective evidence. None of us knows the full story about someone else's family. Why choose to believe the worst? Why not just leave the decision to the people best positioned to make decisions about their kid: the parents?

The answer to the bolded question, on a theoretical level, is that this a family-style meal, not a buffet -- a parent's choice to red shirt does in fact affect other children, so what is best for their child shouldn't really be the be all and end all, only consideration. Even if it's done for the "with merit" reasons, it affects others. Not so terrible to have someone thinking of the group as a whole weigh in...

To your other point about the "redshirting WITHOUT merit" phenomenon being over-stated...I agree. I think there are nsadly SOME nutter hyper-competitive parents who do this, but I think the hand wringers on this thread have convinced themselves it's more prevalent than it is.

We're going to have to agree to disagree. I don't think it affects ANY of the other kids. If anything, it gives them a classmate who is more mature and ready to learn, so less outbursts.

That's silly. If the age range of a grade cohort appreciably shifts from 12 months to more like 18 months then of course that affects the group as a whole, both academically and socially, in kinder itself but also down the road. I'm not particularly worked up about it myself, but yeah, our choices in these regards do affect others.

It also doesn't make sense to argue that some kids must be held back because they are not ready for kindergarten, and then to immediately turn around and argue that having a significant number of older kids in a kindergarten classroom will impact the younger kids. You can't have it both ways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This may come as a shock to people, but sports are not the primary goal of school attendance. Most kids are not going to be sports superstars and the odds that any of these posters children (redshirted or not) are recruited college athletes (much less professionals) are extremely low. What they will all certainly need, however, is a solid education and enough social skills to get along with each other and eventually integrate into their community.

Kids aren’t widgets. Just as kids grow at different rates, and have different strengths and weaknesses, they may be ready for K at different times. For a few, starting early may make sense and they should have that opportunity. For most, starting “on time” probably works best. Some may need extra time, for a variety of reasons, to be ready. It is in society’s best interest to maximize every child’s opportunity for success, and redshirting is only one tool (of many) to facilitate this process. Moreover, redshirting a child who isn’t ready for school helps their classmates. Instead of having a child who can’t sit still, interrupts the teacher, and generally is disruptive, an extra year to mature may mean they are more ready to focus and participate, allowing their classmates to do the same.

It’s not a magic wand that automatically confers an “advantage”. Because everyone has various strengths and weaknesses, redshirting will almost always have drawbacks and parents have to carefully balance the pros and cons. A child who doesn’t have a need for redshirting will probably come out worse for it, rather than being advantaged.

I had a June birthday and went to school “on time”. I never fit in with my peers and by the time I graduated my friend circles (both in and out of school) were with younger kids. In K, they were learning to read and because I couldn’t get it no matter how hard I tried while everyone else did, I was convinced I was stupid. Thankfully, my mom persevered and it finally clicked the following summer, I think because I was finally developmentally ready. After that breakthrough, I did well academically, eventually ending up in a magnet school, but if it hadn’t been for my mother, I would have probably given up on school in K. The problem I had wasn’t that there might be a few older redshirted kids who outpaced everyone. Honestly, I had no idea who was the oldest and by how much. The problem was that I was out of sync with EVERYONE. It worked out okay, but looking back, redshirting would have put me with my peers. (By the way, there was no question of athletic advantage. Even if I’d been redshirted twice, I still would have been the last one picked for teams.)

This is a very thoughtful post.

However, I think there is a fundamental disconnect here. I have no problem with redshirting where merited. But not everyone who redshirts does it because their child is truly not ready for K. I wish that was the case. Then I don't think you'd get people complaining about it. There are people who redshirt simply so their kid will not be the smallest or the youngest, and those factors are considered independent of actual readiness factors like emotional regulation, social skills, and academic preparedness. I know I will be told "that doesn't happen" or "there may have been issues you don't know about." But no -- I am talking about family members and people I know well, who will tell you point blank that the reason they redshirted their child is because they didn't want them to be the smallest or youngest. Not because of other readiness factors.

Someone upthread mentioned that Malcolm Gladwell book popularizing this notion of how age cut offs can have longterm impacts on success, and this is absolutely part of the issue. Not just with sports. Since that book came out, there are a lot more high SES, well-educated parents who view redshirting as a way to confer an advantage on their kids. This is also what has led to the creep in redshirting, from just kids on the younger end of the spectrum with maturity issues or developmental delays, to kids squarely in the middle of the age cohort with no apparent concerns.

Private schools often redshirt aggressively in order to ensure that all entering kindergarteners are at a relatively advanced reading level, which allows them to accelerate all students. I know of a number of privates that do not permit kids to start K until they are reading, for instance. It's a private, they can do what they want, but it's also an aggressive, and highly competitive stance meant to make those children more competitive throughout their academic careers.

I would LOVE if there was no debate around redshirting because it was something that only happened for kids who genuinely just needed more time. But in reality, it's not viewed this way, and many people (and schools) view it as a tool for winning a race that many of us don't even want to be in. The truth is that peer cohorts do matter for kids, and what other parents choose to do can impact your child. So you can expect to see more debates around redshirting, more complaining, more hand-wringing. And that's not because people just randomly hate redshirting as a concept. It's because of how it is being used by growing number of families in the name of competition.

"Redshirting where merited" is what it comes down to. The theme running through the anti-redshirt posts is that there should be some "merit" threshold and the perception that this is usually/typically not satisfied but rather a case of sharp elbows that should be regulated. This is a sandcastle of assumptions about what is going on with a particular kid, and what is in the heart of the parents. The sentiment seems to be that the decision should be taken out of the parents' hands and instead placed in . . . whose hands? The schools? Are they qualified, and do they have the capacity? And wouldn't they be just as inclined to hold back a disruptive kid as the parents? And, what would be enough to justify the hold-back? Not everything that is a need rises to the level of a diagnosis, and some diagnoses are only arrived at years later. The solutions seem worse than the ill being railed against. So, instead, we're addressing this with quiet seething and passive aggression that may feel justified but only if you choose to believe a narrative about the kids and parents that is unsupportable with objective evidence. None of us knows the full story about someone else's family. Why choose to believe the worst? Why not just leave the decision to the people best positioned to make decisions about their kid: the parents?

The answer to the bolded question, on a theoretical level, is that this a family-style meal, not a buffet -- a parent's choice to red shirt does in fact affect other children, so what is best for their child shouldn't really be the be all and end all, only consideration. Even if it's done for the "with merit" reasons, it affects others. Not so terrible to have someone thinking of the group as a whole weigh in...

To your other point about the "redshirting WITHOUT merit" phenomenon being over-stated...I agree. I think there are nsadly SOME nutter hyper-competitive parents who do this, but I think the hand wringers on this thread have convinced themselves it's more prevalent than it is.

We're going to have to agree to disagree. I don't think it affects ANY of the other kids. If anything, it gives them a classmate who is more mature and ready to learn, so less outbursts.

That's silly. If the age range of a grade cohort appreciably shifts from 12 months to more like 18 months then of course that affects the group as a whole, both academically and socially, in kinder itself but also down the road. I'm not particularly worked up about it myself, but yeah, our choices in these regards do affect others.

Appreciably shifts? Why don't you wake us all up to this when that happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Its not normal to have a 7 year old April birthday in first grade, but its even less normal to be mad at it.

Lol, this. I have an April kid and several people asked me if we were going to redshirt. And we are in FCPS where the cut off is September 30. I was like, "uhh, no, he is almost smack dead in the middle ...???" But people have their reasons and it doesnt bother me a bit. I wouldn't care if the kid was turning 8. Now, if they are bullying your kid, that is a different story. But just being old? So what.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This may come as a shock to people, but sports are not the primary goal of school attendance. Most kids are not going to be sports superstars and the odds that any of these posters children (redshirted or not) are recruited college athletes (much less professionals) are extremely low. What they will all certainly need, however, is a solid education and enough social skills to get along with each other and eventually integrate into their community.

Kids aren’t widgets. Just as kids grow at different rates, and have different strengths and weaknesses, they may be ready for K at different times. For a few, starting early may make sense and they should have that opportunity. For most, starting “on time” probably works best. Some may need extra time, for a variety of reasons, to be ready. It is in society’s best interest to maximize every child’s opportunity for success, and redshirting is only one tool (of many) to facilitate this process. Moreover, redshirting a child who isn’t ready for school helps their classmates. Instead of having a child who can’t sit still, interrupts the teacher, and generally is disruptive, an extra year to mature may mean they are more ready to focus and participate, allowing their classmates to do the same.

It’s not a magic wand that automatically confers an “advantage”. Because everyone has various strengths and weaknesses, redshirting will almost always have drawbacks and parents have to carefully balance the pros and cons. A child who doesn’t have a need for redshirting will probably come out worse for it, rather than being advantaged.

I had a June birthday and went to school “on time”. I never fit in with my peers and by the time I graduated my friend circles (both in and out of school) were with younger kids. In K, they were learning to read and because I couldn’t get it no matter how hard I tried while everyone else did, I was convinced I was stupid. Thankfully, my mom persevered and it finally clicked the following summer, I think because I was finally developmentally ready. After that breakthrough, I did well academically, eventually ending up in a magnet school, but if it hadn’t been for my mother, I would have probably given up on school in K. The problem I had wasn’t that there might be a few older redshirted kids who outpaced everyone. Honestly, I had no idea who was the oldest and by how much. The problem was that I was out of sync with EVERYONE. It worked out okay, but looking back, redshirting would have put me with my peers. (By the way, there was no question of athletic advantage. Even if I’d been redshirted twice, I still would have been the last one picked for teams.)

This is a very thoughtful post.

However, I think there is a fundamental disconnect here. I have no problem with redshirting where merited. But not everyone who redshirts does it because their child is truly not ready for K. I wish that was the case. Then I don't think you'd get people complaining about it. There are people who redshirt simply so their kid will not be the smallest or the youngest, and those factors are considered independent of actual readiness factors like emotional regulation, social skills, and academic preparedness. I know I will be told "that doesn't happen" or "there may have been issues you don't know about." But no -- I am talking about family members and people I know well, who will tell you point blank that the reason they redshirted their child is because they didn't want them to be the smallest or youngest. Not because of other readiness factors.

Someone upthread mentioned that Malcolm Gladwell book popularizing this notion of how age cut offs can have longterm impacts on success, and this is absolutely part of the issue. Not just with sports. Since that book came out, there are a lot more high SES, well-educated parents who view redshirting as a way to confer an advantage on their kids. This is also what has led to the creep in redshirting, from just kids on the younger end of the spectrum with maturity issues or developmental delays, to kids squarely in the middle of the age cohort with no apparent concerns.

Private schools often redshirt aggressively in order to ensure that all entering kindergarteners are at a relatively advanced reading level, which allows them to accelerate all students. I know of a number of privates that do not permit kids to start K until they are reading, for instance. It's a private, they can do what they want, but it's also an aggressive, and highly competitive stance meant to make those children more competitive throughout their academic careers.

I would LOVE if there was no debate around redshirting because it was something that only happened for kids who genuinely just needed more time. But in reality, it's not viewed this way, and many people (and schools) view it as a tool for winning a race that many of us don't even want to be in. The truth is that peer cohorts do matter for kids, and what other parents choose to do can impact your child. So you can expect to see more debates around redshirting, more complaining, more hand-wringing. And that's not because people just randomly hate redshirting as a concept. It's because of how it is being used by growing number of families in the name of competition.

"Redshirting where merited" is what it comes down to. The theme running through the anti-redshirt posts is that there should be some "merit" threshold and the perception that this is usually/typically not satisfied but rather a case of sharp elbows that should be regulated. This is a sandcastle of assumptions about what is going on with a particular kid, and what is in the heart of the parents. The sentiment seems to be that the decision should be taken out of the parents' hands and instead placed in . . . whose hands? The schools? Are they qualified, and do they have the capacity? And wouldn't they be just as inclined to hold back a disruptive kid as the parents? And, what would be enough to justify the hold-back? Not everything that is a need rises to the level of a diagnosis, and some diagnoses are only arrived at years later. The solutions seem worse than the ill being railed against. So, instead, we're addressing this with quiet seething and passive aggression that may feel justified but only if you choose to believe a narrative about the kids and parents that is unsupportable with objective evidence. None of us knows the full story about someone else's family. Why choose to believe the worst? Why not just leave the decision to the people best positioned to make decisions about their kid: the parents?

I'm the PP. Did you read the rest of my post?

I do actually give most people the benefit of the doubt on this and other decisions. But I have first hand knowledge of families that have redshirted where it was not merited and there was no reason to do so -- it was not recommended by a preschool teacher or a doctor, it was not done out of concern for a child who struggled socially or academically. It was done, intentionally, to ensure their child would be among the oldest in their grade. There are many parents who will state that this was their goal, plainly, and will actually turn around and wonder why you didn't do the same.

THIS is the phenomenon some of us are complaining about. I am not guessing at the motivations of random parents I barely know regarding their kid's kindergarten age. I am talking about a real trend towards starting kids later and later in kindergarten, specifically in an effort to give them a leg up in life. I didn't just make it up, I'm not make assumptions about anyone. I know that this is something people are doing, my observation is that it's happening more frequently now than it did when I was a kid, and there are even documented reasons it's occurring, like the popularity of that Gladwell book.

Look, those of you who are convinced that redshirting only happens when there are good, private reasons for it and it never happens just to give a kid an edge, do you really not see the ways that parenting and education have become increasingly competitive and in some cases cut-throat? Do you not see the proliferation of after school academic enrichment and programs intended to accelerate kids above grade level so they can access gifted programs? the shift from rec sports that lead to school-based programs to a focus on year round and club sports that can make it all but impossible to play sports in HS without that background? The increasingly common use of education consultants to not only assist with entry into college, but even entry into elementary schools?

If you live in a world where people only ever redshirt because their kid is too immature for K, please tell us where, because I would like to raise my kids there. But I live in the DMV where redshirting is just one of many trends designed to turn parenting into full-contact competitive sport.

If redshirting makes you this upset, wait until you hear how much we spend on private tutors.

You are toxic.

(and we already know, because you can't resist bragging about it)

Aren't you the one sniping, gossiping and teaching your kids to make fun of other kids because of their birthday at school?

I'm posting on a message board about redshirting. I don't "snipe" and gossip, and I've certainly never endorsed my kids making fun of anyone for any reason, of course including their birthday.

Actually I have an August birthday who went to school on time who has experienced being made fun of for her birthday, because every year she's always the last or among the last to turn a grade older. I've never heard of a child being made fun of for turning a year older than everyone else -- kids always think being older is cooler.

Oh then you're missing out on the poster who insists everyone is gossiping and talking about redshirted families behind their backs. It's a thing for some people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When did doing the best thing for your own child become disadvantaging everyone else?

When doing the right thing for your kid has reverberations through high school. What do you think happens in high school senior year when the 17 year old and 18.25 year old are competing for same spot or playing time on the varsity team? If you don’t think this is a big deal, I encourage you to have your child go permanently compete against kids that are 1.25 years older in whatever EC your kid cares about. Please report back.

Again, there are legit reasons to redshirt. But when your redshirted kid shows up dominating in ECs because he’s competing down, well, that’s crappy.

By the time they’re 16+ the star athlete kids are gonna be star athlete kids. If your kid is not a star athlete by that age just accept it, rather than blaming the parents of Billy for waiting until Billy was six years old to start kindergarten. And you know that kids come in all shapes and sizes regardless of age, don’t you? I know a kid who has always been off the charts tall, even when looking at charts for kids two years older than him. I wonder if people assume he’s always the oldest on the team, when in reality he is often one of the youngest.

It’s not just about the star athlete kids. Indeed, I think the star athlete kids aren’t really impacted by the age thing. They are outliers to begin with. But it does make a difference for the marginal players. I have a friend with a son who was on a good varsity basketball team. His senior year he split the starting position with another player and split playing time (getting about 1/3 of the starts and playing time). Great story, right? Until you find out the other kid was 16 months older and was held back. By any reasonable metric, the younger kid was better on an age-adjusted basis but he missed out because his competitor wasn’t ready for kinder 13 years ago. Tough pill to swallow.

I will bet neither made it to the NBA. So what? Was he banking on a full ride basketball scholarship? They should have seen this coming a mile away.

Funny you say that. The older kid went on to play four years of low level college basketball. Perhaps if the younger kid spent his age 18 year in that solid high school program he gets the same thing? But that’s beside the point. Fairness isn’t just reserved for star athletes destined for the NBA. Literally tens of thousands of kids each year find meaning and development from high school sports. It should be as fair as possible for ALL kids.

Life isn’t fair. But we use things like age categories to try to level the playing field. But what is meant to be a shield protecting fairness has been gamed as a sword by much of the holdback crowd.

Again, if you people really don’t believe this is a big deal, go sign your kid up to compete against kids that are a year older and report back the results.

But you don’t believe that. That’s why you’re not mentioning the kid who didn’t get to play at all because everyone else on the team was at least six months older than him. One of those super late summer birthdays, got into kindergarten just before the cutoff. It’s not fair for kid A to be older than kid B (unfair advantage!) but it’s perfectly fine for kid B to be older than kid C. Because you are mom B and you don’t care about “fairness” you care about your own kid and what is best for him. Obviously.

You’re misreading this. My kid is kid C with the late summer birthday. I’m not mentioning kid B in my posts because you have to have cutoffs somewhere in an educational system organized around age. But when parents intentionally start moving a kid from one cohort to another, that’s where the issue of fairness down the road comes up.

Are you at a public school or private? Let's talk about fairness after you answer that question. Then we can talk about household income, height, private tutors, expensive basketball camps and clubs, stable household, food security, height and all the other ways your kid is already winning at life. Then we can talk about basketball. Basketball?!

The level of tone deafness of some of the posters on thread is almost painful. If the worst thing that ever happens to their kid is that he doesn't get on the basketball team at his private school, they should count their lucky stars.

We did what was best for our kid. And our choice made no difference to anyone else's lives.

[Anonymous]

I really don’t get the anger, at all. Or the back and forth about parents having to justify redshirting. It has been well established, time and again, teachers are teaching set curriculum aimed to the lowest denominator in class. Age is not at all a factor in what is taught. Honestly, the more kids in class that are well behaved and proficient at what is being taught, the better off the entire class is

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When did doing the best thing for your own child become disadvantaging everyone else?

When doing the right thing for your kid has reverberations through high school. What do you think happens in high school senior year when the 17 year old and 18.25 year old are competing for same spot or playing time on the varsity team? If you don’t think this is a big deal, I encourage you to have your child go permanently compete against kids that are 1.25 years older in whatever EC your kid cares about. Please report back.

Again, there are legit reasons to redshirt. But when your redshirted kid shows up dominating in ECs because he’s competing down, well, that’s crappy.

By the time they’re 16+ the star athlete kids are gonna be star athlete kids. If your kid is not a star athlete by that age just accept it, rather than blaming the parents of Billy for waiting until Billy was six years old to start kindergarten. And you know that kids come in all shapes and sizes regardless of age, don’t you? I know a kid who has always been off the charts tall, even when looking at charts for kids two years older than him. I wonder if people assume he’s always the oldest on the team, when in reality he is often one of the youngest.

It’s not just about the star athlete kids. Indeed, I think the star athlete kids aren’t really impacted by the age thing. They are outliers to begin with. But it does make a difference for the marginal players. I have a friend with a son who was on a good varsity basketball team. His senior year he split the starting position with another player and split playing time (getting about 1/3 of the starts and playing time). Great story, right? Until you find out the other kid was 16 months older and was held back. By any reasonable metric, the younger kid was better on an age-adjusted basis but he missed out because his competitor wasn’t ready for kinder 13 years ago. Tough pill to swallow.

I will bet neither made it to the NBA. So what? Was he banking on a full ride basketball scholarship? They should have seen this coming a mile away.

Funny you say that. The older kid went on to play four years of low level college basketball. Perhaps if the younger kid spent his age 18 year in that solid high school program he gets the same thing? But that’s beside the point. Fairness isn’t just reserved for star athletes destined for the NBA. Literally tens of thousands of kids each year find meaning and development from high school sports. It should be as fair as possible for ALL kids.

Life isn’t fair. But we use things like age categories to try to level the playing field. But what is meant to be a shield protecting fairness has been gamed as a sword by much of the holdback crowd.

Again, if you people really don’t believe this is a big deal, go sign your kid up to compete against kids that are a year older and report back the results.

But you don’t believe that. That’s why you’re not mentioning the kid who didn’t get to play at all because everyone else on the team was at least six months older than him. One of those super late summer birthdays, got into kindergarten just before the cutoff. It’s not fair for kid A to be older than kid B (unfair advantage!) but it’s perfectly fine for kid B to be older than kid C. Because you are mom B and you don’t care about “fairness” you care about your own kid and what is best for him. Obviously.

You’re misreading this. My kid is kid C with the late summer birthday. I’m not mentioning kid B in my posts because you have to have cutoffs somewhere in an educational system organized around age. But when parents intentionally start moving a kid from one cohort to another, that’s where the issue of fairness down the road comes up.

Are you at a public school or private? Let's talk about fairness after you answer that question. Then we can talk about household income, height, private tutors, expensive basketball camps and clubs, stable household, food security, height and all the other ways your kid is already winning at life. Then we can talk about basketball. Basketball?!

The level of tone deafness of some of the posters on thread is almost painful. If the worst thing that ever happens to their kid is that he doesn't get on the basketball team at his private school, they should count their lucky stars.

We did what was best for our kid. And our choice made no difference to anyone else's lives.

The kid made the basketball team. But didn't get as much play time as mommy wanted. That's the real tragedy here, apparently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This may come as a shock to people, but sports are not the primary goal of school attendance. Most kids are not going to be sports superstars and the odds that any of these posters children (redshirted or not) are recruited college athletes (much less professionals) are extremely low. What they will all certainly need, however, is a solid education and enough social skills to get along with each other and eventually integrate into their community.

Kids aren’t widgets. Just as kids grow at different rates, and have different strengths and weaknesses, they may be ready for K at different times. For a few, starting early may make sense and they should have that opportunity. For most, starting “on time” probably works best. Some may need extra time, for a variety of reasons, to be ready. It is in society’s best interest to maximize every child’s opportunity for success, and redshirting is only one tool (of many) to facilitate this process. Moreover, redshirting a child who isn’t ready for school helps their classmates. Instead of having a child who can’t sit still, interrupts the teacher, and generally is disruptive, an extra year to mature may mean they are more ready to focus and participate, allowing their classmates to do the same.

It’s not a magic wand that automatically confers an “advantage”. Because everyone has various strengths and weaknesses, redshirting will almost always have drawbacks and parents have to carefully balance the pros and cons. A child who doesn’t have a need for redshirting will probably come out worse for it, rather than being advantaged.

I had a June birthday and went to school “on time”. I never fit in with my peers and by the time I graduated my friend circles (both in and out of school) were with younger kids. In K, they were learning to read and because I couldn’t get it no matter how hard I tried while everyone else did, I was convinced I was stupid. Thankfully, my mom persevered and it finally clicked the following summer, I think because I was finally developmentally ready. After that breakthrough, I did well academically, eventually ending up in a magnet school, but if it hadn’t been for my mother, I would have probably given up on school in K. The problem I had wasn’t that there might be a few older redshirted kids who outpaced everyone. Honestly, I had no idea who was the oldest and by how much. The problem was that I was out of sync with EVERYONE. It worked out okay, but looking back, redshirting would have put me with my peers. (By the way, there was no question of athletic advantage. Even if I’d been redshirted twice, I still would have been the last one picked for teams.)

This is a very thoughtful post.

However, I think there is a fundamental disconnect here. I have no problem with redshirting where merited. But not everyone who redshirts does it because their child is truly not ready for K. I wish that was the case. Then I don't think you'd get people complaining about it. There are people who redshirt simply so their kid will not be the smallest or the youngest, and those factors are considered independent of actual readiness factors like emotional regulation, social skills, and academic preparedness. I know I will be told "that doesn't happen" or "there may have been issues you don't know about." But no -- I am talking about family members and people I know well, who will tell you point blank that the reason they redshirted their child is because they didn't want them to be the smallest or youngest. Not because of other readiness factors.

Someone upthread mentioned that Malcolm Gladwell book popularizing this notion of how age cut offs can have longterm impacts on success, and this is absolutely part of the issue. Not just with sports. Since that book came out, there are a lot more high SES, well-educated parents who view redshirting as a way to confer an advantage on their kids. This is also what has led to the creep in redshirting, from just kids on the younger end of the spectrum with maturity issues or developmental delays, to kids squarely in the middle of the age cohort with no apparent concerns.

Private schools often redshirt aggressively in order to ensure that all entering kindergarteners are at a relatively advanced reading level, which allows them to accelerate all students. I know of a number of privates that do not permit kids to start K until they are reading, for instance. It's a private, they can do what they want, but it's also an aggressive, and highly competitive stance meant to make those children more competitive throughout their academic careers.

I would LOVE if there was no debate around redshirting because it was something that only happened for kids who genuinely just needed more time. But in reality, it's not viewed this way, and many people (and schools) view it as a tool for winning a race that many of us don't even want to be in. The truth is that peer cohorts do matter for kids, and what other parents choose to do can impact your child. So you can expect to see more debates around redshirting, more complaining, more hand-wringing. And that's not because people just randomly hate redshirting as a concept. It's because of how it is being used by growing number of families in the name of competition.

"Redshirting where merited" is what it comes down to. The theme running through the anti-redshirt posts is that there should be some "merit" threshold and the perception that this is usually/typically not satisfied but rather a case of sharp elbows that should be regulated. This is a sandcastle of assumptions about what is going on with a particular kid, and what is in the heart of the parents. The sentiment seems to be that the decision should be taken out of the parents' hands and instead placed in . . . whose hands? The schools? Are they qualified, and do they have the capacity? And wouldn't they be just as inclined to hold back a disruptive kid as the parents? And, what would be enough to justify the hold-back? Not everything that is a need rises to the level of a diagnosis, and some diagnoses are only arrived at years later. The solutions seem worse than the ill being railed against. So, instead, we're addressing this with quiet seething and passive aggression that may feel justified but only if you choose to believe a narrative about the kids and parents that is unsupportable with objective evidence. None of us knows the full story about someone else's family. Why choose to believe the worst? Why not just leave the decision to the people best positioned to make decisions about their kid: the parents?

I'm the PP. Did you read the rest of my post?

I do actually give most people the benefit of the doubt on this and other decisions. But I have first hand knowledge of families that have redshirted where it was not merited and there was no reason to do so -- it was not recommended by a preschool teacher or a doctor, it was not done out of concern for a child who struggled socially or academically. It was done, intentionally, to ensure their child would be among the oldest in their grade. There are many parents who will state that this was their goal, plainly, and will actually turn around and wonder why you didn't do the same.

THIS is the phenomenon some of us are complaining about. I am not guessing at the motivations of random parents I barely know regarding their kid's kindergarten age. I am talking about a real trend towards starting kids later and later in kindergarten, specifically in an effort to give them a leg up in life. I didn't just make it up, I'm not make assumptions about anyone. I know that this is something people are doing, my observation is that it's happening more frequently now than it did when I was a kid, and there are even documented reasons it's occurring, like the popularity of that Gladwell book.

Look, those of you who are convinced that redshirting only happens when there are good, private reasons for it and it never happens just to give a kid an edge, do you really not see the ways that parenting and education have become increasingly competitive and in some cases cut-throat? Do you not see the proliferation of after school academic enrichment and programs intended to accelerate kids above grade level so they can access gifted programs? the shift from rec sports that lead to school-based programs to a focus on year round and club sports that can make it all but impossible to play sports in HS without that background? The increasingly common use of education consultants to not only assist with entry into college, but even entry into elementary schools?

If you live in a world where people only ever redshirt because their kid is too immature for K, please tell us where, because I would like to raise my kids there. But I live in the DMV where redshirting is just one of many trends designed to turn parenting into full-contact competitive sport.

If redshirting makes you this upset, wait until you hear how much we spend on private tutors.

You are toxic.

(and we already know, because you can't resist bragging about it)

Aren't you the one sniping, gossiping and teaching your kids to make fun of other kids because of their birthday at school?

I'm posting on a message board about redshirting. I don't "snipe" and gossip, and I've certainly never endorsed my kids making fun of anyone for any reason, of course including their birthday.

Actually I have an August birthday who went to school on time who has experienced being made fun of for her birthday, because every year she's always the last or among the last to turn a grade older. I've never heard of a child being made fun of for turning a year older than everyone else -- kids always think being older is cooler.

I have an older kid and they've never been made fun of for their birthday. The only comments they get are because they are in advanced classes and only a handful of kids in their grade are in their math class so those kids stand out not because of age but grade. And, that would happen either way. No one is mean, nasty or anything else, just comment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When did doing the best thing for your own child become disadvantaging everyone else?

When doing the right thing for your kid has reverberations through high school. What do you think happens in high school senior year when the 17 year old and 18.25 year old are competing for same spot or playing time on the varsity team? If you don’t think this is a big deal, I encourage you to have your child go permanently compete against kids that are 1.25 years older in whatever EC your kid cares about. Please report back.

Again, there are legit reasons to redshirt. But when your redshirted kid shows up dominating in ECs because he’s competing down, well, that’s crappy.

By the time they’re 16+ the star athlete kids are gonna be star athlete kids. If your kid is not a star athlete by that age just accept it, rather than blaming the parents of Billy for waiting until Billy was six years old to start kindergarten. And you know that kids come in all shapes and sizes regardless of age, don’t you? I know a kid who has always been off the charts tall, even when looking at charts for kids two years older than him. I wonder if people assume he’s always the oldest on the team, when in reality he is often one of the youngest.

It’s not just about the star athlete kids. Indeed, I think the star athlete kids aren’t really impacted by the age thing. They are outliers to begin with. But it does make a difference for the marginal players. I have a friend with a son who was on a good varsity basketball team. His senior year he split the starting position with another player and split playing time (getting about 1/3 of the starts and playing time). Great story, right? Until you find out the other kid was 16 months older and was held back. By any reasonable metric, the younger kid was better on an age-adjusted basis but he missed out because his competitor wasn’t ready for kinder 13 years ago. Tough pill to swallow.

I will bet neither made it to the NBA. So what? Was he banking on a full ride basketball scholarship? They should have seen this coming a mile away.

Funny you say that. The older kid went on to play four years of low level college basketball. Perhaps if the younger kid spent his age 18 year in that solid high school program he gets the same thing? But that’s beside the point. Fairness isn’t just reserved for star athletes destined for the NBA. Literally tens of thousands of kids each year find meaning and development from high school sports. It should be as fair as possible for ALL kids.

Life isn’t fair. But we use things like age categories to try to level the playing field. But what is meant to be a shield protecting fairness has been gamed as a sword by much of the holdback crowd.

Again, if you people really don’t believe this is a big deal, go sign your kid up to compete against kids that are a year older and report back the results.

But you don’t believe that. That’s why you’re not mentioning the kid who didn’t get to play at all because everyone else on the team was at least six months older than him. One of those super late summer birthdays, got into kindergarten just before the cutoff. It’s not fair for kid A to be older than kid B (unfair advantage!) but it’s perfectly fine for kid B to be older than kid C. Because you are mom B and you don’t care about “fairness” you care about your own kid and what is best for him. Obviously.

You’re misreading this. My kid is kid C with the late summer birthday. I’m not mentioning kid B in my posts because you have to have cutoffs somewhere in an educational system organized around age. But when parents intentionally start moving a kid from one cohort to another, that’s where the issue of fairness down the road comes up.

Are you at a public school or private? Let's talk about fairness after you answer that question. Then we can talk about household income, height, private tutors, expensive basketball camps and clubs, stable household, food security, height and all the other ways your kid is already winning at life. Then we can talk about basketball. Basketball?!

The level of tone deafness of some of the posters on thread is almost painful. If the worst thing that ever happens to their kid is that he doesn't get on the basketball team at his private school, they should count their lucky stars.

We did what was best for our kid. And our choice made no difference to anyone else's lives.

If you kid isn't good enough to get on the school basketball team, you can do rec or travel. Really no big deal but putting that kind of pressure on your child to be an athletic superstar when they aren't speaks volumes of the parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really don’t get the anger, at all. Or the back and forth about parents having to justify redshirting. It has been well established, time and again, teachers are teaching set curriculum aimed to the lowest denominator in class. Age is not at all a factor in what is taught. Honestly, the more kids in class that are well behaved and proficient at what is being taught, the better off the entire class is

Often the lowest denominator is that held back kid who is 6+ and no reading. And, often they aren't better behaved as they act out to hide what's going on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really don’t get the anger, at all. Or the back and forth about parents having to justify redshirting. It has been well established, time and again, teachers are teaching set curriculum aimed to the lowest denominator in class. Age is not at all a factor in what is taught. Honestly, the more kids in class that are well behaved and proficient at what is being taught, the better off the entire class is

Often the lowest denominator is that held back kid who is 6+ and no reading. And, often they aren't better behaved as they act out to hide what's going on.

Then what’s the problem with them being in kindergarten? Why would OP be “mad” about this?