Almost 7 year old in kindergarten!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I didn't redshirt my late summer birthday kid, and he is now disrupting the hell out of your kids' K class (seriously, emails home every single week)

Being the youngest in the class doesn't necessarily cause inappropriate and disruptive behavior. My son's birthday is at the very beginning of September and he was not redshirted because we couldn't afford to pay for more preschool. We have gotten zero emails home, zero complaints from the teacher, and she has expressed that he is generally well behaved. I'm not saying that there aren't any disadvantages to being the youngest in a class, because there absolutely are, but "disrupting the hell" out of a class is not inherently one of them.

Being the oldest in the class doesn't necessarily cause inappropriate and disruptive behavior.

Is it possible that perhaps it depends on the individual child?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I didn't redshirt my late summer birthday kid, and he is now disrupting the hell out of your kids' K class (seriously, emails home every single week)

Being the youngest in the class doesn't necessarily cause inappropriate and disruptive behavior. My son's birthday is at the very beginning of September and he was not redshirted because we couldn't afford to pay for more preschool. We have gotten zero emails home, zero complaints from the teacher, and she has expressed that he is generally well behaved. I'm not saying that there aren't any disadvantages to being the youngest in a class, because there absolutely are, but "disrupting the hell" out of a class is not inherently one of them.

I find it concerning that wealthier families can afford holding back a child.
Private schools will often not accept summer boys.
I hope this isn't a way to buy advantages. Sad really.

I also think this is partly why there is such a wide achievement gap. No one is willing to address it though.

[Anonymous]

Being the youngest in the class doesn't necessarily cause inappropriate and disruptive behavior. My son's birthday is at the very beginning of September and he was not redshirted because we couldn't afford to pay for more preschool. We have gotten zero emails home, zero complaints from the teacher, and she has expressed that he is generally well behaved. I'm not saying that there aren't any disadvantages to being the youngest in a class, because there absolutely are, but "disrupting the hell" out of a class is not inherently one of them.

I find it concerning that wealthier families can afford holding back a child.
Private schools will often not accept summer boys.
I hope this isn't a way to buy advantages. Sad really.



I also think this is partly why there is such a wide achievement gap. No one is willing to address it though.

I am the parent of the September birthday son who just posted, and I don't know if that is necessarily the case. My son is doing really, really well academically - they actually moved him up to work with the grade above in math. But socially it has been rough. He is about 3 inches shorter than the next shortest boy in his class, cries very easily when frustrated, and is teased a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Being the youngest in the class doesn't necessarily cause inappropriate and disruptive behavior. My son's birthday is at the very beginning of September and he was not redshirted because we couldn't afford to pay for more preschool. We have gotten zero emails home, zero complaints from the teacher, and she has expressed that he is generally well behaved. I'm not saying that there aren't any disadvantages to being the youngest in a class, because there absolutely are, but "disrupting the hell" out of a class is not inherently one of them.

I find it concerning that wealthier families can afford holding back a child.
Private schools will often not accept summer boys.
I hope this isn't a way to buy advantages. Sad really.



I also think this is partly why there is such a wide achievement gap. No one is willing to address it though.

I am the parent of the September birthday son who just posted, and I don't know if that is necessarily the case. My son is doing really, really well academically - they actually moved him up to work with the grade above in math. But socially it has been rough. He is about 3 inches shorter than the next shortest boy in his class, cries very easily when frustrated, and is teased a lot.

I meant a wide achievement gap between poorer families and wealthier families. Overall wealthier families will do even better if many kids are held back. Poorer families have to send their children at an earlier age regardless of whether they meet benchmarks or not. This creates a greater achievement gap than if almost everyone just sent their children on-time.

[Anonymous]

I meant a wide achievement gap between poorer families and wealthier families. Overall wealthier families will do even better if many kids are held back. Poorer families have to send their children at an earlier age regardless of whether they meet benchmarks or not. This creates a greater achievement gap than if almost everyone just sent their children on-time.

I suspect not. I teach 1st grade and my class is mixed socioeconomically. The children who are having difficulties in my class have problems with attendance, parental involvement, and home life, not being younger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I meant a wide achievement gap between poorer families and wealthier families. Overall wealthier families will do even better if many kids are held back. Poorer families have to send their children at an earlier age regardless of whether they meet benchmarks or not. This creates a greater achievement gap than if almost everyone just sent their children on-time.

I suspect not. I teach 1st grade and my class is mixed socioeconomically. The children who are having difficulties in my class have problems with attendance, parental involvement, and home life, not being younger.

I agree there would still be an achievement gap. I just mean that I think the achievement gap would be smaller without the amount of redshirting at the wealthier schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I meant a wide achievement gap between poorer families and wealthier families. Overall wealthier families will do even better if many kids are held back. Poorer families have to send their children at an earlier age regardless of whether they meet benchmarks or not. This creates a greater achievement gap than if almost everyone just sent their children on-time.

I suspect not. I teach 1st grade and my class is mixed socioeconomically. The children who are having difficulties in my class have problems with attendance, parental involvement, and home life, not being younger.

Agreed. Wealthier parents are also more likely to supplement at home and get services if their child needs them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I meant a wide achievement gap between poorer families and wealthier families. Overall wealthier families will do even better if many kids are held back. Poorer families have to send their children at an earlier age regardless of whether they meet benchmarks or not. This creates a greater achievement gap than if almost everyone just sent their children on-time.

I suspect not. I teach 1st grade and my class is mixed socioeconomically. The children who are having difficulties in my class have problems with attendance, parental involvement, and home life, not being younger.

I agree there would still be an achievement gap. I just mean that I think the achievement gap would be smaller without the amount of redshirting at the wealthier schools.

You're assuming that redshirting is academically beneficial as a general proposition. It's not. Though obviously it may be beneficial in specific circumstances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MYOB.

This.

Our friend's child had her perfectly normal looking, social 7 year old in kindergarten. The child spend the prior 18 months undergoing cancer treatments.

This is a different situation but why not have the school provide a tutor is she cannot go or homeschool and then she could be in 1st with kids her age.

Maybe because she was too sick to be able to learn anything that year? Maybe because her parents wanted her to have a typical kindergarten experience? What's it to you?

This. She was extremely ill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There was a boy like this in my DS's second grade class. He was more than a head taller than my DS, and most of the other kids. From what I can tell, he didn't have any SN. I don't know why the parents redshirted that far back. I *think* it was sports related as the dad is big on athletics.

Makes no sense. You don't hold back athletes in K. People are more strategic than that. and that's a southern thing anyway.

[Anonymous]

We will look back at this time period and laugh that they will be robbed of parenthood because of ending colleges much older

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We will look back at this time period and laugh that they will be robbed of parenthood because of ending colleges much older

No we will look back and wonder why we worried so much about this whole discussion because ultimately it didn't really matter if our kid was youngest or oldest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't redshirt my late summer birthday kid, and he is now disrupting the hell out of your kids' K class (seriously, emails home every single week) If we hold him back, people will complain about the K who is red shirted and making their kids look and feel dumb when he has no obvious special needs.

Maybe the 7 year old K has no obvious special needs BECAUSE he has been red shirted and thus given more time to mature.

I have two summer bday kids who were not reshirted. I used to get notes sent home, too, though not every week. My DS got more notes sent home than my DD. Pretty stereotypical, but it's true, boys do seem to have less self control and are less mature.

It will pass. I talked to DS's 2nd grade teacher about his seemingly lack of ability to sit still for more than 10sec. She said, "Don't worry. It's normal". DS is now 10 and can sit still for much longer now. BTW, DS is in a gifted program, and if we had redshirted, he'd have been bored half to death. He's already somewhat bored at times in school. He is smaller and less mature than most of the kids, but he will catch up in a couple of years. We've had talks about him being one of the youngest in class and what that means.

Hang in there.

Thank you two for giving me hope. MY DS is in 2nd this year (youngest in class) and was diagnosed with innatentive add-- so glad to see it gets better. Us moms of youngest boys need to stick together.

I also have a younger boy and I'll never forget the relief when I went in for his 4th grade teacher conference and she started out by saying, "he's doing great, a little chatty, but great." After years of complaints about impulsive behavior, talking out in class, etc. I had a hard time not crying from relief in that moment. It does get better. (although he's now in 7th grade and still talks in class too much -- but that's personality not immaturity)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a boy like this in my DS's second grade class. He was more than a head taller than my DS, and most of the other kids. From what I can tell, he didn't have any SN. I don't know why the parents redshirted that far back. I *think* it was sports related as the dad is big on athletics.

Makes no sense. You don't hold back athletes in K. People are more strategic than that. and that's a southern thing anyway.

You are crazy. It happens in the south for football. It happens here for lacrosse

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a boy like this in my DS's second grade class. He was more than a head taller than my DS, and most of the other kids. From what I can tell, he didn't have any SN. I don't know why the parents redshirted that far back. I *think* it was sports related as the dad is big on athletics.

Makes no sense. You don't hold back athletes in K. People are more strategic than that. and that's a southern thing anyway.

You are crazy. It happens in the south for football. It happens here for lacrosse

Happens on the West Coast, too, for sports. Worked with a guy who did this with his sons.