Why is redshirting so rare if it's so advantageous?
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Anonymous
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I don’t have kids OP, but I’d assume that most parents don’t redshirt because they’ve learned to view the world objectively. Putting a child in a room full of kids less mature than them isn’t going to make them objectively more mature at that point in time. It’s the same with academics. An 8-year-old 2nd-grader reading at a 3rd grade level really isn’t any more impressive than an 8-year-old 3rd-grader reading at a 3rd grade level. The 8-year-old 2nd-grader is just overall less educated.
A 13-year-old 7th grader may be more mature relative to their classmates than a 13-year-old 9th grader, but guess what? In actuality, the 13-year-old 9th grader knows more than the 13-year-old 7th grader. Redshirting a child doesn’t make them smarter, faster, or stronger. It’s just an optical illusion. They just seem smarter, faster, and stronger because they’re always around kids younger than them. In short, OP, redshirting your son will increase his maturity relative to his classmates but decrease his knowledge at a given point in time, as he’ll always be less educated than he would’ve been otherwise. As far as I’m concerned, facts are what matter in the world. |
Anonymous
| Where is all this evidence? Everything I have seen says that it’s only good for sports. Every kid has that moment where they start to struggle to do well in school when you actually have to study to get good grades. In the long term red shirting doesn’t help. |
Anonymous
DP I'm not in NY, but live in a school district that allows parents to request that their child be allowed to enter K if they are turning 5 after the mid-September official cutoff all the way to turning 5 in mid-November of their K year. It's not state policy but the district can get around that by making a different process for enrollment. We know several parents who did this, and they all said filling in the form was all they had to do. There wasn't even an evaluation. |
Anonymous
| Most kids ARE ready at 5. The people I know who redshirted all had boys who were notably immature in some way at 3 and at 4. So it was not a surprise that they weren’t ready at 5. Often it was a toileting issue. My friend’s son was still pooping in a pull up in public at 4 and a half. She didn’t want to pressure him to stop. So he was still doing it at 5.5 and they redshirted him. |
Anonymous
Also, when the red-shirted kids realize the reason they are advanced has nothing to do with their intellect and everything to do with social engineering, watch out. My son went to school with a lot of red-shirted kids. |
Anonymous
| Seems to me it’s not rare at all. When my late August was born (actually when I was still pregnant and didn’t know due date) the admissions director at my kids’ private school said he should start the following year. Totally unprompted. |
Anonymous
*DID know due date. |
Anonymous
| OP- the crazy anti-redshirting parents came out in full force for this one! I held my kid back because his preK teacher recommended it for social/speech reasons. He could ready by four and has always scored in the 99th percentile for everything, so my teacher friends were appalled that I was holding him back. He’ll be bored! they said. Nope. He was just mature enough to cope with the mundane aspects of public school- all the sitting and paperwork that now constitutes first grade etc. As he’s gotten older, I have never once regretted holding him back. I think for boys especially, it’s a good thing. I don’t think of it as “cheating”. I don’t care about his performance on whatever tests. I care about MY KID and that decision was best for him. The anti-redshirting families are weirdly competitive and they are very vocal. They are the families who pay attention to their child’s scores etc compared to their classmates’ etc. My kid isn’t sporty so he isn’t taking anyone’s prized basketball spot or anything either. Just make the right decision for your kid, listen to people you trust. If you can afford to give your kid one more year of sweet non structured preK living, go for it! Good luck. |
Anonymous
We aren’t crazy, we just believe the evidence that says that for the typical kid there is no benefit and could have deleterious effects in the long term. But since your kid had delays, of course it makes sense to redshirt him. Good for you for doing that, seriously. A quick summary of some research: “In the academic arena, advantages are seen not for older students, but for those who are young for their year. In a large-scale study at 26 Canadian elementary schools, first graders who were young for their year made considerably more progress in reading and math than kindergartners who were old for their year (but just two months younger).[18] In another large study, the youngest fifth-graders scored a little lower than their classmates, but five points higher in verbal I.Q., on average, than fourth-graders of the same age.[19] These studies are consistent with the idea that the source of increased opportunity in this case is school itself, with effects that are more favorable to students who are surrounded by children who are older than themselves.[citation needed] One 1997 study found that adolescents whose school entry had been delayed exhibited more behavioral problems than their classmates.[20] Moreover, in light of evidence of a higher use of special education services by redshirted youths, it has been speculated that many individuals who were redshirted as kindergarteners may have had special needs that were misdiagnosed as immaturity and that should have been treated by some form of direct intervention other than delayed entry.[6][7]” |
Anonymous
| It's not that uncommon. Every year my kids have at least one child in their class who was redshirted. |
Anonymous
Yes, but it is always obvious who that kid is. And not always in a positive way. Actually, typically not in a positive way. |
Anonymous
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I have a "Greenshirted" kid who is a Junior in HS right now. His birthday is late September and the cut-off was Sept 1. He had to take a test to qualify for early entrance to kindergarten.
Here are the reasons we greenshirted - - he is very bright and was ahead in all academic markers (could read from 3 yrs of age) - he was average height and weight, healthy and active. - he was very well socialized, very articulate, independent, mature and is NT - keeping him back would have been a disservice to him. - he is the youngest of the siblings and so he was really at par with his elder siblings. - it made no sense to pay for another year of private school before he could go to public school ES. He excelled in the classroom and playground. He soon leapfrogged to a more advanced track and program in public school and has really thrived. Detrimental in some ways? - a lot of prestigious opportunities and internships in HS have a strict age-limit and he is always younger by a couple months. Not really impactful for a kid who is a focussed student and not a wild party animal. YMMV. - - his driver's license came a few months later than most of his peers - he will probably be a few months younger than his peers before he can have his first legal beer. |
Anonymous
That is really cool. I always liked being the youngest in my class and it would have been such a confidence boost to have been even younger. (Not that’s why you should green shirt but it would be nice still) |
Anonymous
My son started college at 16. He loves it. That is something that really built confidence. Can't imagine starting college at 20 would be a good feeling. |
Anonymous
I don't even understand how that would be possible. A kid not born in the fall would have to both be redshirted AND take a gap year between high school and college. The probabilities of doing either of those things are incredibly low. Multiple those probabilities together, and I think we can all agree that starting college at 20 pretty much never happens. |