holding boys back?

[Anonymous]

9: 28 poster here, with the BIL with issues.

People are making good points about the effect of this on girls, which I had not considered and which is related to my point about the effect this has on potential classmates and other children. It sounds like from the MCPS post that there are already systems in place to address this, but I guess it just depends on how much it is enforced or how strictly they evaluate "immaturity." I never think of 5 year olds of either gender as being particularly "mature"!--LOL--guess I have a lot to learn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand that everyone should do what is best for their children, but this practice does indeed affect other children. It is this attitude of doing what's "best" for you under any circumstance--without sensitivity or regard to the needs of the larger group or community--that I find disturbing. I'm hoping that for my child's success will not come at the expense of the success or comfort of others.

Thank you!

How can one possibly cater to the needs of the larger group or community when making a decision about what's best for one's individual child? Just how might one go about understanding the needs of the larger group? Do you suggest a poll of some sort? This is not realistic. The best anyone can do is to do what's best for the individual child. For crying out loud, this is not a socialist society on any level.

I wonder if those concerned about the larger community live by this concern on all levels of your lives. For example (and this is a stretch I admit), do you have regard for the needs of the larger community when you're in your warm homes filled with food and comforts while there are people homeless and starving right in your backyards. Have you discontinued use of aerosols? Have you moved to that hybrid vehicle? Better yet, do you carpool or take the bus? The list can go on and on. Let's address the needs of the community where it really matters.

[Anonymous]

The point is that the classrooms, in schools where holding back summer boys is the norm, are filled with boys who are MUCH bigger physically than the girls who are over a year younger. There is a difference in maturity between boys and girls and there are differences in physical stature as well. We know that the maturity differences will balance out over time, according to the numerous studies, but the physical differences will not. When a just turned 5 year old girl is on the playground with a 6 year old group of boys it is intimidating.

There are obvious cases where a child needs to be held back, but this practice has become way too common in my opinion. Why not send your 5 year olds to Kindergarten and then decide if it's the right choice or not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand that everyone should do what is best for their children, but this practice does indeed affect other children. It is this attitude of doing what's "best" for you under any circumstance--without sensitivity or regard to the needs of the larger group or community--that I find disturbing. I'm hoping that for my child's success will not come at the expense of the success or comfort of others.

Thank you!

How can one possibly cater to the needs of the larger group or community when making a decision about what's best for one's individual child? Just how might one go about understanding the needs of the larger group? Do you suggest a poll of some sort? This is not realistic. The best anyone can do is to do what's best for the individual child. For crying out loud, this is not a socialist society on any level.

I wonder if those concerned about the larger community live by this concern on all levels of your lives. For example (and this is a stretch I admit), do you have regard for the needs of the larger community when you're in your warm homes filled with food and comforts while there are people homeless and starving right in your backyards. Have you discontinued use of aerosols? Have you moved to that hybrid vehicle? Better yet, do you carpool or take the bus? The list can go on and on. Let's address the needs of the community where it really matters.

Actually, in most of these cases, yes. It's not as hard as you seem to assume.

[Anonymous]

Not saying impact on the community should be the only or determining consideration, but ideally it should be a consideration, especially when the prospective harm to the individual is not very large.

[Anonymous]

Let me agree with a previous poster who noted the school systems' role here. We're blaming the parents (which is reasonable), but we also need to hold the schools accountable. I'm in DC, where I'm guessing socio-economic issues make red-shirting in the public schools less prevalent, but in the suburbs -- Arlington, in particular -- I've heard tons of stories of principals and teachers by default encouraging parents of summer/fall children to hold them back. No consideration of individual factors -- it's just the default position. I'm not sure how stringent MoCo is about enforcing the policy listed above, but including "immaturity" as a reason to hold back suggests to me that it would be pretty easy to make the case for almost any child that he or she isn't "ready."

When I was growing up in Maryland, school eligibility was predicated on the calendar year (which made sense to me -- average age upon entering K was 5), and there were very, very few exceptions. I can think of one or two kids in my graduating class who had November or December birthdays in the previous year. If anything, in those days the push was to get kids ahead (no better, in my mind). The current approach -- earlier cut-offs, soft enforcement of age rules by school systems, parental obsession about giving children every perceived advantage -- is insane to me.

[Anonymous]

Agreed, 13:59.

No one is talking about "catering" to the needs of one's community, and I hardly think many of the valid redshirting concerns raised here qualify as remotely "socialist." If you are attending school with others in a community, then you are part of a community. And, then, isn't it in your self-interest ultimately to protect that community? Surely you can't believe that true community is achieved by only looking out for yourself? I worry about the shrillness of that response.

[Anonymous]

There was a NY Times article on redshirting last year - it claimed that in "affluent" areas in the NE redshirting was much more common - like more than 20% of boys were held back.

I have a late August son and will wait until the last moment to make a decision, basing it on his personality and emotional maturity. (Physically, I think he'll be fine based on his size and athletics.)

I have a distaste for the idea of doing it to provide one's kids with an academic advantage. On the other hand, I have a July birthday and my best friend in grade school had a January birthday. My self-esteem took a hit seeing her do better academically and socially, and being her placed in advanced classes. I've only realized in recent years that her being considered "advanced" was due to her 1/2 year age advantage rather than her I.Q. Flash forward 20 years, and I'm the one who did much better academically in H.S. and college, and now in the workforce. So if I do not hold my son back, I will have to figure out a way to make sure his self-esteem doesn't suffer in the same way.

[Anonymous]

As a mother of boys, I would also like to say that I am tired of the gender stereotyping that boys are less mature than girls. I understand that the observation started as a generalization with root in fact -- there may be, say, 5 boys out of a hundred that would benefit from being held back, and only 2 girls. That still means that the vast majority of boys are ready on time, as are even more of the girls.

But somehow the fact that boys are more likely than girls to need to be held back has gotten twisted in people's minds into "most boys should be held back." That is not the case.

(And yes, I realize that people are not thinking of my kids in particular when they say this crap and that there are plenty of offensive gender stereotypes about girls.)

[Anonymous]

Bravo and well-said, PP. I was just having this conservation with a colleague, about how we are getting a little tired of hearing about how boys are "less mature" than girls. I know it's a generalization, but it still annoys me. And, in my limited experience, incorrect.

[Anonymous]

PP here--just to be clear--when I say "incorrect," it is not to imply the opposite stereotype: that boys are more mature than girls. My point was that I know as many immature boys as girls, and vice versa. In my limited experience, I could not MAKE a generalization based on gender. Sorry to be confusing.

[Anonymous]

Why are you all assuming that the reason parents are holding their children back is to gain some sort of competitive advantage? There are valid reasons that a child perhaps should be given a bit more time before entering kindergarten. As you are not a participant in the discussions of parents who have opted to wait, you don't know what their rationale is.

There are parents who make the decision to wait before kindergarten. There are parents who make the decision to repeat kindergarten after giving it a try. There are pros and cons to both of these approaches. In either case, I don't think the parent should make a decision that benefits the community and discounts the needs of the child. I don't think any of us are that selfess.

[Anonymous]

"Why not send your 5 year olds to Kindergarten and then decide if it's the right choice or not?"

According to the professionals I discussed this with when making the decisions as to whether to place my kids in school on time based on their age, this is not a realistic consideration. The teachers and principals with whom I discussed this informed me that once kids start school, it is more harmful to hold children back than to push them on even if they are not ready. So, as a parent with this kind of information, what I took away from the many discussions was this. You have to make the decision before kindergarten.

As I say this, I do recognize that this is the position of MCPS. I have siblings whose children were held back to repeat kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

I am one of the PPs. I actually do think that parents largely want to give their kids an advantage that necessarily hurts other kids, though they may not be thinking of it in terms of a competitive advantage. And absent an extraordinary circumstance, I think it's both unfair and largely a bad way to teach children to cope with challenges (the lesson seems to be that if you're not athletic/mature/social enough to play in your age group, let's just have you play with the younger kids so you'll feel better about yourself). I do think, however, that in the end things shake out and there's nothing that will stop a young, small boy from maturing into a competent, mature and confident adult, regardless of how much he has to deal with boys who are a year and a half older than he is. I feel that I'm generally part of a group of over-analyzing, over-protective and over-anxious parents, but when I take a step back I believe what my mom keeps reminding me with regard to school and athletic skills, that creme rises.

[Anonymous]

Hey, I'll wade into the muck .... I have a late-July son, and we have recently made the decision that he won't go to kindergarten next year with many of the kids in his preschool/pre-K class. He'll turn 5, then go to "junior kindergarten," then K at 6 yrs, 2 mos.

We have our child-specific reasons, at the forefront is that DS is socially a little slow AND has some slight physical developmental delays. You wouldn't be able to pick these traits out unless you spent considerable time with him, but they're very real.

So, not only is he not quite there with his peers who are *exactly* his age, he's pretty far back from the kids who would actually be in his class if he went to K next year, kids who are 4, 8, 10 mos. older.

Is this gaming the system? Maybe. He'll be starting K with more kids who are closer to him in abilities I think, rather than being behind (like he is now in his preschool class).

And, in our zip code, in the schools where we'll be applying, the boys are indeed a bit older. Admissions directors will tell you that forthrightly. So February boys will still be February boys, but the summer b-day boys wait a year.

Here's what I don't get tho, PPs who expressed dismay at choices like ours: why does the fact that my son will be 6 yrs, 2 mos. when he starts K affect you and your family (based on what I've told you about his abilities)?? He's not going to sit on your average-sized daughter and break her ribs, you know? He probably won't be able to read as well as she does, either.

When they're all 14, DS probably WILL have caught up with your daughter in math acumen, but since they've had the same teachers in the same classes in the same order for all those years, it's not like he's going to surge ahead of her in trigonometry one day, because he's 14 months older.