Anonymous wrote:I get it op. My late-August birthday girl was called a baby and told she belonged in pre-k because she was still 5 in the late spring of her kindergarten year, by the 7 year olds in the class. Blatant red-shirting skews the dynamics.
I hate this. Redshirt a summer birthday if you feel they aren't ready, but kids with a birthday during the year should not be redshirted at parent discretion (it should be the school's call) and if you do hold a kid like this back, teachers should be proactive about shutting down this kind of teasing/bullying. It happened to my kid too (early August birthday and a full 2 months before the cutoff of September 30th) and it was really frustrating because the attitude of some parents seems to be "if you don't like it, you should redshirt." But that's nuts. You should be able to send a child who is prepared on time and not assume they will get harassed by redshirted kids for being too small.
I have a late summer birthday who was sent ahead, despite being a month younger than the cutoff date. She passed the readiness interview and the school took her early (private school). She is small for her age and was called a baby in K by some of the kids. Luckily the other kids’ parents and the teachers shut that down pretty quickly. Everyone thought she was ready, despite being very young and small for her age. Fast forward a few years - she’s a straight A student and socially well adjusted. I debated if I made the right call not to hold her with her age. Turns out the other kids come from good families that don’t put up with child antics and neither do the teachers. I am grateful for this. Redshirting should be a decision for the school and parents; it is very unique to the children involved. (I send her to a competitive private that normally recommends to redshirt - but not always).
Agree it should be a joint decision by the school and the parents. I think it should be at a parents discretion for a child near the cut off (within 2 months or so) but otherwise it should be a consultation with the school.
One element at play is that unless you have older children, I think parents don't always understand what it means to be ready for kindergarten. It can be hard to look at your 4 year old or just-turned 5 year old and imagine them in elementary school in a few months. But the vast majority of 5 yr olds are totally fine starting kindergarten on time. It's also common for children to have stuff they need to work on, and that doesn't make them unready. I had a kid who started reading on her own the summer before K, but who was very young for her grade and maybe even a little socially immature for her age. To be perfectly honest, there was no "right" answer for her, because sending on time made sense academically but was more of a challenge socially, but holding her back might have eased some of the social stuff but potentially also been a mess because her preschool classroom definitely couldn't support where she was at academically. I think situations like this are more common than we are willing to admit.
Which is why I think it's important that these decisions be made with the school in all cases except kids truly on the cusp in terms of birthday. And yes, I guess that means I don't totally trust other parents to do what's right. I don't! People make mistakes all the time with parenting and since this is a decision that will impact the overall make up of grade cohorts, I don't think it should just be at the parents discretion. There was a PP flipping out about this and the idea that you might need an assessment or consultation with the school in order to be allowed to redshirt, and I just don't understand why that would be an issue. I think it would be clarifying. My kids have taken all kind of placement screenings in life -- I find it useful because usually the school or activity is much better positioned to make sure my kid is in the appropriate level in terms of both readiness and challenge.
ITA.
I'm skeptical of anyone who balks at the idea of involving the ES in the decision to redshirt. If you are doing it because you are concerned about child's readiness -- not to confer a competitive advantage by being older and bigger -- then you should welcome school's input. I agree that so many parents really don't know what Kindergarten readiness looks like -- Kindergarten is in very large part for working on SEL.
What you're missing is that with private schools it's often at the suggestion of the school. You all need to make up your minds about who you're mad at here. The schools love kids ready to hit the ground running and learning even if that means fewer 4 year olds and more kids about to turn 6.
I can only speak for myself, but I was talking about public school...I know private school is very different on this front.
Ok. I haven't read a single legitimate complaint here about how any child was truly affected by another kid being a few months older. So far its parents don't like other parents bragging. And not getting enough play time as a starter in basketball for a kid who never had any basketball promise anyway. What am I missing? Anything else?
Then you either haven't been reading or you've just decided to define "legitimate" as only posts you agree with. A number of posters have talked about having kids who have been bullied or teased, either by redshirted kids or in general for being young, even though they were on time for the class (having a significant number of older kids in a K class is going to make the younger kids seem younger).
Sorry, but I don’t consider the irrational fear and low likelihood your child *might get teased for being young as a legitimate complaint for when others feel their child should start kindergarten. That is a case by case problem. Your kid could potentially be teased about anything.
It's the people redshirting for no discernible reason who are responding to irrational fears of low likelihood events. It's so funny to me that:
Concerns from a redshirting parent about their kid being marginalized or struggling due to being a few months younger than peers: Valid
Concerns of a non-redshirting parent about their kid being marginalized or struggling due to being a year-plus younger than peers: Invalid
Why does their reason need to be discernible to YOU? It is clear you feel someone else’s child is gaining an advantage over your child and that is the only gripe. They are all learning their alphabet in class and counting colored bears together. The teacher isn’t secretly teaching the 6 yr olds the Pythagorean theorem while your child is left to sort beans
It should be discernible to someone. Why are people worried about the idea of requiring school approval for redshirting decisions? Shouldn't there need to be a documented reason for this? If not, why have age cut offs at all?
Because the school and the parent often have different incentives. Only the parents are wholly motivated by the best interests of their child.
But only the school can balance the best interests of one child against the best interests of other children in the classroom, as well as factor in what makes sense in terms of classroom management. Parents of one child may not care how their choices impact other kids or the teacher, but the school has to worry about those things.
And that is exactly why the school doesn’t get a veto. Because they don’t have the best interest of the child in mind.
Thank you for making it clear that you simply do not care about how redshirting impacts other kids, instead of gaslighting people that "it has no impact."
I have no problem admitting as a parent my primary responsibility is to my child and her safety and development. No one should apologize for that. And while it’s possible to care about the impact on other kids, that doesn’t mean a parent loses responsibility to their own.
For example. There was an article in the Atlantic suggesting all boys be redshirted. My responsibility to my four year old is it to let her start kindergarten when all the boys are six, regardless of what the school believes, because no one in the school cares as much about her safety as I do.
What? That Atlantic article was just a suggestion (and one a lot of people disagree with!).
Also, you are making the point of people who are worried about redshirting. When redshirting is left up to parents, you simply do not know what the age mean of your child's cohort will look like. You may look at your kid and discuss her kindergarten readiness with her preschool teacher and believe her to be right on target for K, but if half of your child's class decides to redshirt, suddenly she doesn't look so ready. But you might not know this until several weeks or even months into kindergarten, when it becomes clear how much redshirting has occurred.
You might think "well I'll just redshirt my kid then, just in case" and argue in favor of your right to do that since only you know how to keep your child safe. But not everyone has the same ability to redshirt, or even the same knowledge of redshirting practice to anticipate this problem. It's a surprise. Which is precisely why some people get angry when their kid starts school and then they realize that there are sometimes many kids in class how are well outside the expected age cohort.
All of which argues strongly in favor of (1) adhering to cutoffs whenever possible, and (2) having schools weight in on redshirting decisions outside the case of kids on the age cusp, because the school will be aware of redshirting trends and have a better sense of whether it makes sense for that particular child.
When redshirting is common and totally at parental discretion, it becomes harder and harder to even assess kindergarten readiness, because what even is the mean anymore? It could shift from year to year, too, so even parents with older kids might not be able to accurately assess their own kid's readiness for this particular class.
No it doesn't. Kindergarten curriculum isn't determined by the kids in the class or their ages. The curriculum for public school is already determined and the teachers are required to teach those specific things, regardless of who may already know those things. It is only a problem if kids aren't ready to learn and can process through the material. But if they already come with material mastered? The admin will be giving themselves high fives for high test scores.
Anonymous wrote:I get it op. My late-August birthday girl was called a baby and told she belonged in pre-k because she was still 5 in the late spring of her kindergarten year, by the 7 year olds in the class. Blatant red-shirting skews the dynamics.
I hate this. Redshirt a summer birthday if you feel they aren't ready, but kids with a birthday during the year should not be redshirted at parent discretion (it should be the school's call) and if you do hold a kid like this back, teachers should be proactive about shutting down this kind of teasing/bullying. It happened to my kid too (early August birthday and a full 2 months before the cutoff of September 30th) and it was really frustrating because the attitude of some parents seems to be "if you don't like it, you should redshirt." But that's nuts. You should be able to send a child who is prepared on time and not assume they will get harassed by redshirted kids for being too small.
I have a late summer birthday who was sent ahead, despite being a month younger than the cutoff date. She passed the readiness interview and the school took her early (private school). She is small for her age and was called a baby in K by some of the kids. Luckily the other kids’ parents and the teachers shut that down pretty quickly. Everyone thought she was ready, despite being very young and small for her age. Fast forward a few years - she’s a straight A student and socially well adjusted. I debated if I made the right call not to hold her with her age. Turns out the other kids come from good families that don’t put up with child antics and neither do the teachers. I am grateful for this. Redshirting should be a decision for the school and parents; it is very unique to the children involved. (I send her to a competitive private that normally recommends to redshirt - but not always).
Agree it should be a joint decision by the school and the parents. I think it should be at a parents discretion for a child near the cut off (within 2 months or so) but otherwise it should be a consultation with the school.
One element at play is that unless you have older children, I think parents don't always understand what it means to be ready for kindergarten. It can be hard to look at your 4 year old or just-turned 5 year old and imagine them in elementary school in a few months. But the vast majority of 5 yr olds are totally fine starting kindergarten on time. It's also common for children to have stuff they need to work on, and that doesn't make them unready. I had a kid who started reading on her own the summer before K, but who was very young for her grade and maybe even a little socially immature for her age. To be perfectly honest, there was no "right" answer for her, because sending on time made sense academically but was more of a challenge socially, but holding her back might have eased some of the social stuff but potentially also been a mess because her preschool classroom definitely couldn't support where she was at academically. I think situations like this are more common than we are willing to admit.
Which is why I think it's important that these decisions be made with the school in all cases except kids truly on the cusp in terms of birthday. And yes, I guess that means I don't totally trust other parents to do what's right. I don't! People make mistakes all the time with parenting and since this is a decision that will impact the overall make up of grade cohorts, I don't think it should just be at the parents discretion. There was a PP flipping out about this and the idea that you might need an assessment or consultation with the school in order to be allowed to redshirt, and I just don't understand why that would be an issue. I think it would be clarifying. My kids have taken all kind of placement screenings in life -- I find it useful because usually the school or activity is much better positioned to make sure my kid is in the appropriate level in terms of both readiness and challenge.
ITA.
I'm skeptical of anyone who balks at the idea of involving the ES in the decision to redshirt. If you are doing it because you are concerned about child's readiness -- not to confer a competitive advantage by being older and bigger -- then you should welcome school's input. I agree that so many parents really don't know what Kindergarten readiness looks like -- Kindergarten is in very large part for working on SEL.
What you're missing is that with private schools it's often at the suggestion of the school. You all need to make up your minds about who you're mad at here. The schools love kids ready to hit the ground running and learning even if that means fewer 4 year olds and more kids about to turn 6.
I can only speak for myself, but I was talking about public school...I know private school is very different on this front.
Ok. I haven't read a single legitimate complaint here about how any child was truly affected by another kid being a few months older. So far its parents don't like other parents bragging. And not getting enough play time as a starter in basketball for a kid who never had any basketball promise anyway. What am I missing? Anything else?
Then you either haven't been reading or you've just decided to define "legitimate" as only posts you agree with. A number of posters have talked about having kids who have been bullied or teased, either by redshirted kids or in general for being young, even though they were on time for the class (having a significant number of older kids in a K class is going to make the younger kids seem younger).
Please bump those because I haven't seen any.
Do you think there should be grades at all? Should I be able to send my child to school at 2 if I think they're ready? Should I be able to hold them back 4 years because I want to travel first and can't be bothered? If you agree that there are some limits, then the question is what the limits should be. You may think there's no negative effect to sending a kid a few years early, but you obviously draw the line somewhere and are therefore making some kind of judgment that it matters if kids in a single class are about the same age.
In any case, having much older kids in a class can absolutely make it harder for the teacher to teach because it makes kids more dissimilar and it is easier to teach more similar kids. The teacher's job being harder makes it more likely that my kid's classroom experience won't be as good. There's also the bullying, boredom, sports domination, etc aspects. I don't begrudge parents who redshirted their kid because they and the school decided it was the appropriate decision in light of all facts (including the effects on the class s/he would go into) nor deny that it is an appropriate decision for some kids (and I have no trouble with a +/- 1 month judgment zone where we leave it entirely to parents). But given the number of parents I know who redshirted their boy so that he would have a competitive advantage particularly at sports (not actually so that they would be a superstar, but more for the social cache/confidence boosting reason), I absolutely do not trust that most parents are only doing this because their kid is legitimately behind in some way. There's a reason that non-school-based sports leagues use age cutoffs; it absolutely does matter and parents absolutely try to game the system. Why is it that for baseball we're like of course it's a problem have a kid play down even if they weren't great at baseball as a kid so started late... but in school it's super controversial to say that kids shouldn't typically redshirt?
All of this. No one is saying that redshirting should be banned or that there aren't legitimate reasons to do it, but of course there should be limits and some of us feel the trend towards more redshirting, including redshirting of kids born in the spring, is really widening the window on what is acceptable to a degree that ultimately does a disservice to other children and the classroom environment as a whole.
I find the argument that I'm supposed to just trust other parents to do the right thing so weird. While I know plenty of parents who I feel reasonably confident wouldn't abuse redshirting in order to get their kid an advantage, I also know plenty who would. Not everyone is interested in "playing socially" and lots of people are just out for their own or their kid's interest and could not care at all who else it impacts. Which is why I start giving side eye when I see it normalized for a not-insignificant number of March or April birthdays to be redshirted. I'm sorry, but when a cohort has 10 spring birthdays and 5 of them are redshirted kids, we are not longer in the realm of people redshirting out of necessity. In no world are half of these kids unready for kindergarten.
I do think one thing that happens a lot is that one family will redshirt for totally legitimate reasons that might not be obvious to others, and this freaks out other competitive parents who then redshirt out of fear of being left behind. Literally for no other reason than because they heard some other kid with a May birthday is delaying kindergarten. Parents can be huge lemmings. Which is why having stricter cut offs and requiring some kind of justification that is approved by the school makes sense.
So why don't schools do this (stricter cut offs)? It seems as if they may have a better sense about what's going on than all the hand wringing over hypothetical and baseless fears other parents have. Where is the data to back up your concerns as legitimate? If you don't trust your school, or the teachers who might get confused over what is appropriate kindergarten behavior, you also don't trust the other parents who might be out to screw you over, I'm not sure what to tell you other than you sound extremely paranoid and anxious. It's not the other parents job to manage your issues around this.
Some schools are strict about cut-offs, and then you encounter parents trying to make an endrun around it. We're in DCPS and I've known a number of parents who have tried to finagle their way into redshirting, and generally failed because there was no compelling reason why their kids needed to be held back.
You're still talking in hypotheticals and what ifs. I don't think you have any skin in this game whatsoever.
I have a child in elementary school with a summer birthday who started on time, and I think the classroom dynamics in a classroom with about 10 kids who are 15-18 months older than she is are highly problematic. Already I see a lot of "mature" behaviors that I think are inappropriate in a K or 1st grade classroom (she's in 1st now), and I am very concerned about how puberty is going to impact this situation in a few years. Academically, she's on grade level in math and reading several grades ahead, so it's not about academics.
What is your "skin in the game?"
Is this actually true? I find people on DCUM frequently exaggerate how much older redshirted kids really are. Your kid has a summer bday and is now in 1st grade so let’s do a little math. If your kid’s bday is June-August 2017, you’re saying there are kids in her class who were born in December 2015-February 2016 and will turn 8 half way through 1st grade? That’s an 18 month difference. Sorry but I don’t believe that. I’m a teacher and have never heard of a kid (barring profound disabilities) who turned 8 in winter of 1st grade. Never. Have seen a few kids who are redshirted with spring (March-May) bdays but even that’s quite rare.
It’s only common in more wealthy schools. I have a September kid who went at 5 so if a child was held back in May it could be that big of an age spread. Then the big problem comes when kids are younger and advanced and put into higher grade classes in ms and high school and you get a huge range. My child is the youngest in several classes that range from freshman to seniors. So, beginning of the school year 13 to 18 year olds.
September-May would be 16 month age gap, not 18. 18 month age gap in a class is unheard of, and particularly don’t believe PP’s assertion there are 10 kids in her daughter’s class who are 15-18 months older. She is definitely exaggerating.
I’m in NY. The cutoff in my area is 12/31 as is one private we’re considering. Most privates are 9/1. Many people redshirt fall and some august birthdays here. So it’s actually fully possible that when my mid-September birthday child goes to kindergarten next fall (he’ll be 5 turning 6) that there will be some kids in his class only turning 5 in December. My other child has a late fall birthday but is only a toddler and idk what I’ll do.
Honestly I blame NY at this point. They’re the only state remaining with late cutoffs, which is done so more disadvantaged kids have access to higher quality “childcare” sooner, and that age it’s no longer consistent with what’s expected of kids academically in kindergarten. Kindergarten used to be mostly play based and now it’s not. Many other western countries don’t have kids beginning formal education until 6 or 7.
Bottom line is that there should be a standardized age to begin kindergarten (ie 5 when K starts). Parents should be able to choose what works best for their child. Nobody redshirts spring birthdays up here, but in general people doing that probably have a reason.
This. And there’s very little suggestion American children do better globally because they start so early.
This is misleading though because countries that don't start "formal education" until 6 or 7 generally have extensive, state-sponsored daycare that is very high quality and has a lot of enrichment-- tons of SEL, lots of arts and physical ed, plus pre-literacy and early math. And while this isn't compulsory, in practice everyone utilizes it, so kids show up at 6/7 extremely prepared for "formal learning."
In the US we have crap childcare and very little of it is universal or accessible to most families. There's no consistency as to what is offered in daycares or preschools. Kindergarten is meant to be a transitional year to help get all kids on the same page after having very different background prior, so it is historically very normal for there to be a broad range of kids and abilities.
If we adopted the idea of waiting to begin formal education until 6/7, but did nothing to make our daycare/preschool system more robust and universal, we'd just be having these same conversations about readiness for 6/7 year olds.
I think one reason DCPS can have strict rules about redshirting that get enforced even in the high-SES schools is the universal PK which is actually really high quality pretty much across the board and does a remarkably good job of getting kids ready for K. I have two kids, one who has 2 years of PK and one who only had 1 due to Covid, and it's remarkable how much more prepared the older one was for K. My younger struggled more, especially with social-emotion stuff, and I don't think the issue was that she was too young, I think it's that shd has less time in a preschool classroom.
Anonymous wrote:I get it op. My late-August birthday girl was called a baby and told she belonged in pre-k because she was still 5 in the late spring of her kindergarten year, by the 7 year olds in the class. Blatant red-shirting skews the dynamics.
I hate this. Redshirt a summer birthday if you feel they aren't ready, but kids with a birthday during the year should not be redshirted at parent discretion (it should be the school's call) and if you do hold a kid like this back, teachers should be proactive about shutting down this kind of teasing/bullying. It happened to my kid too (early August birthday and a full 2 months before the cutoff of September 30th) and it was really frustrating because the attitude of some parents seems to be "if you don't like it, you should redshirt." But that's nuts. You should be able to send a child who is prepared on time and not assume they will get harassed by redshirted kids for being too small.
I have a late summer birthday who was sent ahead, despite being a month younger than the cutoff date. She passed the readiness interview and the school took her early (private school). She is small for her age and was called a baby in K by some of the kids. Luckily the other kids’ parents and the teachers shut that down pretty quickly. Everyone thought she was ready, despite being very young and small for her age. Fast forward a few years - she’s a straight A student and socially well adjusted. I debated if I made the right call not to hold her with her age. Turns out the other kids come from good families that don’t put up with child antics and neither do the teachers. I am grateful for this. Redshirting should be a decision for the school and parents; it is very unique to the children involved. (I send her to a competitive private that normally recommends to redshirt - but not always).
Agree it should be a joint decision by the school and the parents. I think it should be at a parents discretion for a child near the cut off (within 2 months or so) but otherwise it should be a consultation with the school.
One element at play is that unless you have older children, I think parents don't always understand what it means to be ready for kindergarten. It can be hard to look at your 4 year old or just-turned 5 year old and imagine them in elementary school in a few months. But the vast majority of 5 yr olds are totally fine starting kindergarten on time. It's also common for children to have stuff they need to work on, and that doesn't make them unready. I had a kid who started reading on her own the summer before K, but who was very young for her grade and maybe even a little socially immature for her age. To be perfectly honest, there was no "right" answer for her, because sending on time made sense academically but was more of a challenge socially, but holding her back might have eased some of the social stuff but potentially also been a mess because her preschool classroom definitely couldn't support where she was at academically. I think situations like this are more common than we are willing to admit.
Which is why I think it's important that these decisions be made with the school in all cases except kids truly on the cusp in terms of birthday. And yes, I guess that means I don't totally trust other parents to do what's right. I don't! People make mistakes all the time with parenting and since this is a decision that will impact the overall make up of grade cohorts, I don't think it should just be at the parents discretion. There was a PP flipping out about this and the idea that you might need an assessment or consultation with the school in order to be allowed to redshirt, and I just don't understand why that would be an issue. I think it would be clarifying. My kids have taken all kind of placement screenings in life -- I find it useful because usually the school or activity is much better positioned to make sure my kid is in the appropriate level in terms of both readiness and challenge.
ITA.
I'm skeptical of anyone who balks at the idea of involving the ES in the decision to redshirt. If you are doing it because you are concerned about child's readiness -- not to confer a competitive advantage by being older and bigger -- then you should welcome school's input. I agree that so many parents really don't know what Kindergarten readiness looks like -- Kindergarten is in very large part for working on SEL.
What you're missing is that with private schools it's often at the suggestion of the school. You all need to make up your minds about who you're mad at here. The schools love kids ready to hit the ground running and learning even if that means fewer 4 year olds and more kids about to turn 6.
I can only speak for myself, but I was talking about public school...I know private school is very different on this front.
Ok. I haven't read a single legitimate complaint here about how any child was truly affected by another kid being a few months older. So far its parents don't like other parents bragging. And not getting enough play time as a starter in basketball for a kid who never had any basketball promise anyway. What am I missing? Anything else?
Then you either haven't been reading or you've just decided to define "legitimate" as only posts you agree with. A number of posters have talked about having kids who have been bullied or teased, either by redshirted kids or in general for being young, even though they were on time for the class (having a significant number of older kids in a K class is going to make the younger kids seem younger).
Please bump those because I haven't seen any.
Do you think there should be grades at all? Should I be able to send my child to school at 2 if I think they're ready? Should I be able to hold them back 4 years because I want to travel first and can't be bothered? If you agree that there are some limits, then the question is what the limits should be. You may think there's no negative effect to sending a kid a few years early, but you obviously draw the line somewhere and are therefore making some kind of judgment that it matters if kids in a single class are about the same age.
In any case, having much older kids in a class can absolutely make it harder for the teacher to teach because it makes kids more dissimilar and it is easier to teach more similar kids. The teacher's job being harder makes it more likely that my kid's classroom experience won't be as good. There's also the bullying, boredom, sports domination, etc aspects. I don't begrudge parents who redshirted their kid because they and the school decided it was the appropriate decision in light of all facts (including the effects on the class s/he would go into) nor deny that it is an appropriate decision for some kids (and I have no trouble with a +/- 1 month judgment zone where we leave it entirely to parents). But given the number of parents I know who redshirted their boy so that he would have a competitive advantage particularly at sports (not actually so that they would be a superstar, but more for the social cache/confidence boosting reason), I absolutely do not trust that most parents are only doing this because their kid is legitimately behind in some way. There's a reason that non-school-based sports leagues use age cutoffs; it absolutely does matter and parents absolutely try to game the system. Why is it that for baseball we're like of course it's a problem have a kid play down even if they weren't great at baseball as a kid so started late... but in school it's super controversial to say that kids shouldn't typically redshirt?
All of this. No one is saying that redshirting should be banned or that there aren't legitimate reasons to do it, but of course there should be limits and some of us feel the trend towards more redshirting, including redshirting of kids born in the spring, is really widening the window on what is acceptable to a degree that ultimately does a disservice to other children and the classroom environment as a whole.
I find the argument that I'm supposed to just trust other parents to do the right thing so weird. While I know plenty of parents who I feel reasonably confident wouldn't abuse redshirting in order to get their kid an advantage, I also know plenty who would. Not everyone is interested in "playing socially" and lots of people are just out for their own or their kid's interest and could not care at all who else it impacts. Which is why I start giving side eye when I see it normalized for a not-insignificant number of March or April birthdays to be redshirted. I'm sorry, but when a cohort has 10 spring birthdays and 5 of them are redshirted kids, we are not longer in the realm of people redshirting out of necessity. In no world are half of these kids unready for kindergarten.
I do think one thing that happens a lot is that one family will redshirt for totally legitimate reasons that might not be obvious to others, and this freaks out other competitive parents who then redshirt out of fear of being left behind. Literally for no other reason than because they heard some other kid with a May birthday is delaying kindergarten. Parents can be huge lemmings. Which is why having stricter cut offs and requiring some kind of justification that is approved by the school makes sense.
So why don't schools do this (stricter cut offs)? It seems as if they may have a better sense about what's going on than all the hand wringing over hypothetical and baseless fears other parents have. Where is the data to back up your concerns as legitimate? If you don't trust your school, or the teachers who might get confused over what is appropriate kindergarten behavior, you also don't trust the other parents who might be out to screw you over, I'm not sure what to tell you other than you sound extremely paranoid and anxious. It's not the other parents job to manage your issues around this.
Some schools are strict about cut-offs, and then you encounter parents trying to make an endrun around it. We're in DCPS and I've known a number of parents who have tried to finagle their way into redshirting, and generally failed because there was no compelling reason why their kids needed to be held back.
You're still talking in hypotheticals and what ifs. I don't think you have any skin in this game whatsoever.
I have a child in elementary school with a summer birthday who started on time, and I think the classroom dynamics in a classroom with about 10 kids who are 15-18 months older than she is are highly problematic. Already I see a lot of "mature" behaviors that I think are inappropriate in a K or 1st grade classroom (she's in 1st now), and I am very concerned about how puberty is going to impact this situation in a few years. Academically, she's on grade level in math and reading several grades ahead, so it's not about academics.
What is your "skin in the game?"
Is this actually true? I find people on DCUM frequently exaggerate how much older redshirted kids really are. Your kid has a summer bday and is now in 1st grade so let’s do a little math. If your kid’s bday is June-August 2017, you’re saying there are kids in her class who were born in December 2015-February 2016 and will turn 8 half way through 1st grade? That’s an 18 month difference. Sorry but I don’t believe that. I’m a teacher and have never heard of a kid (barring profound disabilities) who turned 8 in winter of 1st grade. Never. Have seen a few kids who are redshirted with spring (March-May) bdays but even that’s quite rare.
It’s only common in more wealthy schools. I have a September kid who went at 5 so if a child was held back in May it could be that big of an age spread. Then the big problem comes when kids are younger and advanced and put into higher grade classes in ms and high school and you get a huge range. My child is the youngest in several classes that range from freshman to seniors. So, beginning of the school year 13 to 18 year olds.
September-May would be 16 month age gap, not 18. 18 month age gap in a class is unheard of, and particularly don’t believe PP’s assertion there are 10 kids in her daughter’s class who are 15-18 months older. She is definitely exaggerating.
I’m in NY. The cutoff in my area is 12/31 as is one private we’re considering. Most privates are 9/1. Many people redshirt fall and some august birthdays here. So it’s actually fully possible that when my mid-September birthday child goes to kindergarten next fall (he’ll be 5 turning 6) that there will be some kids in his class only turning 5 in December. My other child has a late fall birthday but is only a toddler and idk what I’ll do.
Honestly I blame NY at this point. They’re the only state remaining with late cutoffs, which is done so more disadvantaged kids have access to higher quality “childcare” sooner, and that age it’s no longer consistent with what’s expected of kids academically in kindergarten. Kindergarten used to be mostly play based and now it’s not. Many other western countries don’t have kids beginning formal education until 6 or 7.
Bottom line is that there should be a standardized age to begin kindergarten (ie 5 when K starts). Parents should be able to choose what works best for their child. Nobody redshirts spring birthdays up here, but in general people doing that probably have a reason.
This. And there’s very little suggestion American children do better globally because they start so early.
This is misleading though because countries that don't start "formal education" until 6 or 7 generally have extensive, state-sponsored daycare that is very high quality and has a lot of enrichment-- tons of SEL, lots of arts and physical ed, plus pre-literacy and early math. And while this isn't compulsory, in practice everyone utilizes it, so kids show up at 6/7 extremely prepared for "formal learning."
In the US we have crap childcare and very little of it is universal or accessible to most families. There's no consistency as to what is offered in daycares or preschools. Kindergarten is meant to be a transitional year to help get all kids on the same page after having very different background prior, so it is historically very normal for there to be a broad range of kids and abilities.
If we adopted the idea of waiting to begin formal education until 6/7, but did nothing to make our daycare/preschool system more robust and universal, we'd just be having these same conversations about readiness for 6/7 year olds.
I think one reason DCPS can have strict rules about redshirting that get enforced even in the high-SES schools is the universal PK which is actually really high quality pretty much across the board and does a remarkably good job of getting kids ready for K. I have two kids, one who has 2 years of PK and one who only had 1 due to Covid, and it's remarkable how much more prepared the older one was for K. My younger struggled more, especially with social-emotion stuff, and I don't think the issue was that she was too young, I think it's that shd has less time in a preschool classroom.
Right but this just underscores the broader issue- which is that kids should not be in kindergarten at 4 going 5 years old anymore. local governments are using kindergarten as a band aid for lack of subsidized childcare. In Western European countries, the kids are in preschool/daycare type environments until they start school at 6-7. They are not doing ditto sheets and actively learning to read.
Anonymous wrote:I get it op. My late-August birthday girl was called a baby and told she belonged in pre-k because she was still 5 in the late spring of her kindergarten year, by the 7 year olds in the class. Blatant red-shirting skews the dynamics.
I hate this. Redshirt a summer birthday if you feel they aren't ready, but kids with a birthday during the year should not be redshirted at parent discretion (it should be the school's call) and if you do hold a kid like this back, teachers should be proactive about shutting down this kind of teasing/bullying. It happened to my kid too (early August birthday and a full 2 months before the cutoff of September 30th) and it was really frustrating because the attitude of some parents seems to be "if you don't like it, you should redshirt." But that's nuts. You should be able to send a child who is prepared on time and not assume they will get harassed by redshirted kids for being too small.
I have a late summer birthday who was sent ahead, despite being a month younger than the cutoff date. She passed the readiness interview and the school took her early (private school). She is small for her age and was called a baby in K by some of the kids. Luckily the other kids’ parents and the teachers shut that down pretty quickly. Everyone thought she was ready, despite being very young and small for her age. Fast forward a few years - she’s a straight A student and socially well adjusted. I debated if I made the right call not to hold her with her age. Turns out the other kids come from good families that don’t put up with child antics and neither do the teachers. I am grateful for this. Redshirting should be a decision for the school and parents; it is very unique to the children involved. (I send her to a competitive private that normally recommends to redshirt - but not always).
Agree it should be a joint decision by the school and the parents. I think it should be at a parents discretion for a child near the cut off (within 2 months or so) but otherwise it should be a consultation with the school.
One element at play is that unless you have older children, I think parents don't always understand what it means to be ready for kindergarten. It can be hard to look at your 4 year old or just-turned 5 year old and imagine them in elementary school in a few months. But the vast majority of 5 yr olds are totally fine starting kindergarten on time. It's also common for children to have stuff they need to work on, and that doesn't make them unready. I had a kid who started reading on her own the summer before K, but who was very young for her grade and maybe even a little socially immature for her age. To be perfectly honest, there was no "right" answer for her, because sending on time made sense academically but was more of a challenge socially, but holding her back might have eased some of the social stuff but potentially also been a mess because her preschool classroom definitely couldn't support where she was at academically. I think situations like this are more common than we are willing to admit.
Which is why I think it's important that these decisions be made with the school in all cases except kids truly on the cusp in terms of birthday. And yes, I guess that means I don't totally trust other parents to do what's right. I don't! People make mistakes all the time with parenting and since this is a decision that will impact the overall make up of grade cohorts, I don't think it should just be at the parents discretion. There was a PP flipping out about this and the idea that you might need an assessment or consultation with the school in order to be allowed to redshirt, and I just don't understand why that would be an issue. I think it would be clarifying. My kids have taken all kind of placement screenings in life -- I find it useful because usually the school or activity is much better positioned to make sure my kid is in the appropriate level in terms of both readiness and challenge.
ITA.
I'm skeptical of anyone who balks at the idea of involving the ES in the decision to redshirt. If you are doing it because you are concerned about child's readiness -- not to confer a competitive advantage by being older and bigger -- then you should welcome school's input. I agree that so many parents really don't know what Kindergarten readiness looks like -- Kindergarten is in very large part for working on SEL.
What you're missing is that with private schools it's often at the suggestion of the school. You all need to make up your minds about who you're mad at here. The schools love kids ready to hit the ground running and learning even if that means fewer 4 year olds and more kids about to turn 6.
I can only speak for myself, but I was talking about public school...I know private school is very different on this front.
Ok. I haven't read a single legitimate complaint here about how any child was truly affected by another kid being a few months older. So far its parents don't like other parents bragging. And not getting enough play time as a starter in basketball for a kid who never had any basketball promise anyway. What am I missing? Anything else?
Then you either haven't been reading or you've just decided to define "legitimate" as only posts you agree with. A number of posters have talked about having kids who have been bullied or teased, either by redshirted kids or in general for being young, even though they were on time for the class (having a significant number of older kids in a K class is going to make the younger kids seem younger).
Please bump those because I haven't seen any.
Do you think there should be grades at all? Should I be able to send my child to school at 2 if I think they're ready? Should I be able to hold them back 4 years because I want to travel first and can't be bothered? If you agree that there are some limits, then the question is what the limits should be. You may think there's no negative effect to sending a kid a few years early, but you obviously draw the line somewhere and are therefore making some kind of judgment that it matters if kids in a single class are about the same age.
In any case, having much older kids in a class can absolutely make it harder for the teacher to teach because it makes kids more dissimilar and it is easier to teach more similar kids. The teacher's job being harder makes it more likely that my kid's classroom experience won't be as good. There's also the bullying, boredom, sports domination, etc aspects. I don't begrudge parents who redshirted their kid because they and the school decided it was the appropriate decision in light of all facts (including the effects on the class s/he would go into) nor deny that it is an appropriate decision for some kids (and I have no trouble with a +/- 1 month judgment zone where we leave it entirely to parents). But given the number of parents I know who redshirted their boy so that he would have a competitive advantage particularly at sports (not actually so that they would be a superstar, but more for the social cache/confidence boosting reason), I absolutely do not trust that most parents are only doing this because their kid is legitimately behind in some way. There's a reason that non-school-based sports leagues use age cutoffs; it absolutely does matter and parents absolutely try to game the system. Why is it that for baseball we're like of course it's a problem have a kid play down even if they weren't great at baseball as a kid so started late... but in school it's super controversial to say that kids shouldn't typically redshirt?
All of this. No one is saying that redshirting should be banned or that there aren't legitimate reasons to do it, but of course there should be limits and some of us feel the trend towards more redshirting, including redshirting of kids born in the spring, is really widening the window on what is acceptable to a degree that ultimately does a disservice to other children and the classroom environment as a whole.
I find the argument that I'm supposed to just trust other parents to do the right thing so weird. While I know plenty of parents who I feel reasonably confident wouldn't abuse redshirting in order to get their kid an advantage, I also know plenty who would. Not everyone is interested in "playing socially" and lots of people are just out for their own or their kid's interest and could not care at all who else it impacts. Which is why I start giving side eye when I see it normalized for a not-insignificant number of March or April birthdays to be redshirted. I'm sorry, but when a cohort has 10 spring birthdays and 5 of them are redshirted kids, we are not longer in the realm of people redshirting out of necessity. In no world are half of these kids unready for kindergarten.
I do think one thing that happens a lot is that one family will redshirt for totally legitimate reasons that might not be obvious to others, and this freaks out other competitive parents who then redshirt out of fear of being left behind. Literally for no other reason than because they heard some other kid with a May birthday is delaying kindergarten. Parents can be huge lemmings. Which is why having stricter cut offs and requiring some kind of justification that is approved by the school makes sense.
So why don't schools do this (stricter cut offs)? It seems as if they may have a better sense about what's going on than all the hand wringing over hypothetical and baseless fears other parents have. Where is the data to back up your concerns as legitimate? If you don't trust your school, or the teachers who might get confused over what is appropriate kindergarten behavior, you also don't trust the other parents who might be out to screw you over, I'm not sure what to tell you other than you sound extremely paranoid and anxious. It's not the other parents job to manage your issues around this.
Some schools are strict about cut-offs, and then you encounter parents trying to make an endrun around it. We're in DCPS and I've known a number of parents who have tried to finagle their way into redshirting, and generally failed because there was no compelling reason why their kids needed to be held back.
You're still talking in hypotheticals and what ifs. I don't think you have any skin in this game whatsoever.
I have a child in elementary school with a summer birthday who started on time, and I think the classroom dynamics in a classroom with about 10 kids who are 15-18 months older than she is are highly problematic. Already I see a lot of "mature" behaviors that I think are inappropriate in a K or 1st grade classroom (she's in 1st now), and I am very concerned about how puberty is going to impact this situation in a few years. Academically, she's on grade level in math and reading several grades ahead, so it's not about academics.
What is your "skin in the game?"
Is this actually true? I find people on DCUM frequently exaggerate how much older redshirted kids really are. Your kid has a summer bday and is now in 1st grade so let’s do a little math. If your kid’s bday is June-August 2017, you’re saying there are kids in her class who were born in December 2015-February 2016 and will turn 8 half way through 1st grade? That’s an 18 month difference. Sorry but I don’t believe that. I’m a teacher and have never heard of a kid (barring profound disabilities) who turned 8 in winter of 1st grade. Never. Have seen a few kids who are redshirted with spring (March-May) bdays but even that’s quite rare.
It’s only common in more wealthy schools. I have a September kid who went at 5 so if a child was held back in May it could be that big of an age spread. Then the big problem comes when kids are younger and advanced and put into higher grade classes in ms and high school and you get a huge range. My child is the youngest in several classes that range from freshman to seniors. So, beginning of the school year 13 to 18 year olds.
If your September kid goes on time and a May kid was redshirted it would be 16 month difference not 18 month. I have heard of a very few cases of 15-16 month age gap in a class. Never heard of 18 month. That was the math I was disputing.
I think a 16 month age gap is pretty big, and problematic if there's not a reason for it. Generally speaking, a kid who is 6 years, 4 months old is a lot more mature than one who just turned 5 yesterday. And a class with a number of kids who are 16 mo older than the youngest kid could definitely have issues accommodating both of their needs.
You "think" it's a problem? There are 25 other kids in class. The two ends of the spectrum aren't really that big of a deal in the grand scheme. They probably won't be best friends but they will find their place. Stop worry so much about kids that aren't yours.
Lol. This is my favorite theme in this thread, to paraphrase:
“A 16 month age gap is no big deal in the grand scheme of things. Also, MYOB, my little Johnny with a July birthday just wasn’t ready to be in K with a 10 month age gap behind the oldest and more mature kids in the on time cohort. He had to be held back because it was what was best for him. ”
I really don’t know if the redshirt brigade is defensive or obtuse, but you’re not fooling the rest of us. If a 16 month gap is really no big deal in the grand scheme of things then a 10 month gap for most redshirts wouldn’t be a big deal in the grand scheme of things. But you can’t simultaneously defend the extent of redshirting that is happening and then brush off a 16 month age gap as no big deal.
*Before the mom with genetic mutation kid strikes out at me, yes, as every redshirt skeptic has said, there are legit reasons to redshirt. We just doubt it’s true for all of the 15% or so of kids that get redshirted
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