What to do about a spouse who sees nothing wrong with cheating:

[Anonymous]

This truly sounds too crazy to be real. Just in case - most schools require a child to be five by Sept. 1 in order to enroll in K. If you are in the rare school that let’s a four year old enroll, you should thank your husband for his good sense in wanting your child to wait because after he leaves your current school
he will now be with other kids his age instead of always being the youngest kid in his class. Our district used to have a Dec. 31 cutoff for turning 5, so kids with fall birthdays were enrolling at 4. We didn’t know better and enrolled our 4 year old who has an October birthday. The district changed the cutoff to Sept. 1 when our kid was in 2nd grade. By 6th grade, it was very easy for us and many other families with kids young for their grade to see why the cutoff was changed, from a social and emotional perspective. Our kid was a top student and still ended up repeating for those reasons. In hindsight, it would have been much easier to just delay K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband and I have a son who will be turning 5 in the first week of October this year. He should be going to Kindergarten this year, but at my husband's insistence, he was redshirted and won't be going until next year, when he's almost 6. When the idea of redshirting came up several months ago, I was absolutely against it, because I believed it was cheating. I told my husband over and over again how unfair it would be to our son's classmates if they had to compete with someone with a year of experience on them. But since my husband is the breadwinner, he ultimately won, so our son will be in preK for another year.

It's too late to enroll him in K this year, and I've accepted it. However, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, and have come to the realization that this won't be cheating as long as our son doesn't enter competitions, such as running for class president and valedictorian, sports, applying for top colleges, etc. I have proposed to my husband that we don't let our son enter any competitions, play sports(unless he can play with kids his age instead of kids in his grade), or apply to any prestigious colleges, public or private. This way, our son's age-appropriate classmates will always have a fighting chance to win these school competitions. However, that's still not good enough for my husband. He thinks our son should be allowed to enter whatever competition he wants, even though it's going to kill many dreams for those who play fair. He just doesn't seem to understand that winning a competition against kids a year younger than you isn't anything to be proud of.

It is not cheating to red shirt. In both my boys classes, almost every boy and most girls with birthdays from August on were red shirted. It meant for an older kindergarten (and beyond), but it did not mean 5e red shirted students were so far advanced over the the rest of the class. FWIW, both my children were spring babies.

[Anonymous]

OP, you have serious issues. Why are you thinking of your child in terms of competition against others? Why do you consider waiting until a child is 5 before starting KG cheating? Something is seriously wrong with you. I feel sorry for the husband and children if this is a serious post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since when is sending a 5 year old to kindergarten considered redshirting? That’s the normal age. Am I missing something?

OP is just trying to show how woke she is. Same mindset of the idiots who think parents need to stop reading to their kids because it puts other kids at a disadvantage.

Funny. But, I do not think OP is for real.

[Anonymous]

You sound batshit

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are DCUM anti-redshirt posters so weird? Between this OP, natural law lady, and carnival ride lady, it's quite the freak show.

I actually think that this OP is Natural Law Lady. I think there are two, Natural Law Lady and Pissed Private School Mom (the one who sent her not-summer birthday daughter to a private school and then was rrrrrrripppppped to find out that her daughter wasn’t as relatively old as she “should” be and thought the school should have somehow disclosed this to her).

Both are unhinged in slightly different ways, I think. They share the quality of regarding kindergarten as a cage match rather than a place to learn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are DCUM anti-redshirt posters so weird? Between this OP, natural law lady, and carnival ride lady, it's quite the freak show.

I actually think that this OP is Natural Law Lady. I think there are two, Natural Law Lady and Pissed Private School Mom (the one who sent her not-summer birthday daughter to a private school and then was rrrrrrripppppped to find out that her daughter wasn’t as relatively old as she “should” be and thought the school should have somehow disclosed this to her).

Both are unhinged in slightly different ways, I think. They share the quality of regarding kindergarten as a cage match rather than a place to learn.

Wait, who’s natural law lady?? And carnival lady??

[Anonymous]

OP you are nuts. Starting K at age 6 is not cheating. omg. I'm on team DH. I feel sorry for kids who started K last year virtually.

And starting school 1 year late won't turn an average student into a gifted STEM geek or travel soccer star. It just doesn't work that way.

Signed,

Mom who started kid in K just before turning 6.

[Anonymous]

Maybe this was a sarcastic troll post by a bored person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe your husband didn't listen to you because you have funny notions on what constitutes 'cheating'.

So you don't anything wrong with rewarding a 6-year-old for proving that they're smarter than most 5-year-olds?

Reality is the 6 year old isn't smarter, only older.

That's the point I'm trying to make. I guess the more appropriate way to word it would be "It's wrong to reward a 6-year-old for outperforming a bunch of 5-year-olds". Our son was born in 2016, and my husband wants him to be rewarded for outperforming kids born in 2017.

New poster.

OP, your second paragraph in the original post is so far outside reality -- I am not bashing you by saying that, I'm actuallly trying to get to you do some research.

Do you really think it would be right to hold back your child from doing anything remotely competitive for his ENTIRE school career because he was redshirted for kindergarten?

Are you exaggerating in your post and with your DH, to make a point? For your child's sake, I certainly hope that's the case.

I can't truly credit your post is meant seriously, regarding examples as ridiculous as turning down an earned valedictorian honor at age 18 just because your child was redshirted at age five.

Your original post claimed your son should never, ever run for class president, be valedictorian, or apply to "prestigious" colleges because he began kindergarten a year late. If you're remotely serious, please, for your child's sake, do even a tiny bit of reading about child development.

A one-year difference might seem vast and insurmountable to you when your son is six in K, but by the time he and ALL his classmates are another year or two down the road, one year of age difference will not matter. Absolutely it will not matter once kids are out of elementary school. If you are actually serious, you really do not understand child development or even the nature of "competitions" other than sports.

You also are making a gigantic assumption, though you don't seem to see it, that your son will automatically be better/smarter/faster/stronger/the winner, versus kids a year younger, throughout all 12 years of school. You do realize that there will be kids a year younger than he is who are the ones who will surpass him in academics or sports or elections or whatever--right?

I'm just hoping this is all being exaggerated for effect and is some kind of anti-redshirting tale and not a real proposal for parenting a real child.

And I say that as an anti-redshirt parent myself. My DC is much older than yours--in college now. Age differences of a year just cease to matter except in a few cases, intellectually. Physically, redshirting so a kid will be bigger and more physically mature for sports later on is sick. But you seem to be focused on your son's being class president and valedictorian etc. Again -- IF this is for real.

[Anonymous]

PP from above clarifying -- I'm anti-redshirt for sports or "my kid will be the top dog if redshirted" reasons. Of course redshirting can be essential where a child is genuinely not ready for K due to real reasons of maturity or developmental needs. I know one kid who at five was just extremely "young" and immature, lacking the ability to follow instruction well, and who needed the additional socialization of more pre-K time. That's fine. I don't like redshirting when it's about simply wanting to give a kid who IS ready for K an additional year to gain some imagined "advantage."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP you are nuts. Starting K at age 6 is not cheating. omg. I'm on team DH. I feel sorry for kids who started K last year virtually.

And starting school 1 year late won't turn an average student into a gifted STEM geek or travel soccer star. It just doesn't work that way.

Signed,

Mom who started kid in K just before turning 6.

And sounds like OP’s kid won’t even BE 6 when he starts kindergarten if he has an October birthday (he’ll be 5 and turning 6 1-2 months after school starts). Most districts have an age cut off in august-September so he wouldn’t even be able to start K until he was almost 6 most places. Even if OP’s district has a December age cut off I’m sure lots of parents keep their fall birthday kids back so they’ll be 5 going on 6 starting k rather than 4 going on 5

[Anonymous]

OP, your kid would not be going to K this year. Kids don't start at 4 years old. DS has a mid October bday. He turned 6 in K and started right when he was supposed to. This hasn't put him at any type of major advantage lol. There are many kids with bdays around his. Some things he's better at than other kids. Some things kids are better at than him. It has nothing to do with the fact that he turned 6 early into K. It has to do with who he is as a person.

You are nuts and I hope this is a troll. Your views are so unhealthy and dangerous.

[Anonymous]

Lol. This is crazy. I have a kid born in November who is always one of the older kids in class. It never mattered. If anything, because he’s not naturally tall, it was a good thing. You don’t know that your kid is going to be better at things or even bigger because he’s older. I’ve read the thing about elite athletes being older kids in class, but this isn’t a big deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband and I have a son who will be turning 5 in the first week of October this year. He should be going to Kindergarten this year, but at my husband's insistence, he was redshirted and won't be going until next year, when he's almost 6. When the idea of redshirting came up several months ago, I was absolutely against it, because I believed it was cheating. I told my husband over and over again how unfair it would be to our son's classmates if they had to compete with someone with a year of experience on them. But since my husband is the breadwinner, he ultimately won, so our son will be in preK for another year.

It's too late to enroll him in K this year, and I've accepted it. However, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, and have come to the realization that this won't be cheating as long as our son doesn't enter competitions, such as running for class president and valedictorian, sports, applying for top colleges, etc. I have proposed to my husband that we don't let our son enter any competitions, play sports(unless he can play with kids his age instead of kids in his grade), or apply to any prestigious colleges, public or private. This way, our son's age-appropriate classmates will always have a fighting chance to win these school competitions. However, that's still not good enough for my husband. He thinks our son should be allowed to enter whatever competition he wants, even though it's going to kill many dreams for those who play fair. He just doesn't seem to understand that winning a competition against kids a year younger than you isn't anything to be proud of.

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