Forum Index
»
Private & Independent Schools
"Red-Shirting" of kids
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
PP: I take your point regarding flexibility since children do develop at different rates. Flexibility would be welcome and I believe is needed in any school system worth its salt. But it needs to be within a 12 month range. 18 months is just too much for the average group of typically developing children. There is just now way that a just-turned 4 year old can compete with a 5 and 1 /2 year old. Even if the 4 year old is precocious and the 5 and a 1/2 year old is average. That is too large a percentage of the 4 year olds life span!
|
Anonymous
If people would stop trying to nose into other families' lives and telling other people how to parent, it wouldn't be necessary to point out that they are in fact attempting to nosily intrude into other families' lives. |
Anonymous
|
This is an anonymous message board. No one is trying to tell you how to parent. This is a broader society impact discussion.
However, the insults that you cast undermine any sort of logical arguments that can be made on the topic and show the mindset of the type of parent who is pushing the need for the discussion in the first place. |
Anonymous
Just wait until social dynamics in middle and high school. This not ready for kindergarten or first grade mantra might be a valid reason for some on this board. However the current crop of red shirts in high school have some that present social issues for the grades as a whole. The majority were redshirted for sports and leadership opportunities and as others catch up it seems some redshirts need to exhibit male superiority in other venues. |
Anonymous
Would you please show us some data to back up that claim? Statistics or credible articles please, not anecdotes. In the five pages of comments (not even including the other parallel threads) no one has posted any hard data to suggest that significant numbers of kids are being "redshirted" for such reasons. Without some non-anecdotal support, I just assume that's DCUM fear and speculation talking. Looking forward to your data. Thanks. |
Anonymous
How snarky. Unfortunately for you, the plural of anecdote is not data. |
Anonymous
And you know this... how? Because of all the many parents who have discussed it with you personally? Or because you have an opinion and can't support it other than making up "facts." Maybe they had reasons other than sports and leadership which they didn't care to share with you. I certainly wouldn't. It's called none-of-your-business. You really have no idea and you can't seem to come up with ANYTHING factual to support your assertions. |
Anonymous
| Questions to all the defensive red-shirters: do you actually think its a GOOD idea for your child to be a 18 months older than some kids in the class? How is your kid going to relate? Do you not think that that is a large gap and one that potentially will result in a social divide in the classroom? Who is this social divide going to benefit? Do you REALLY believe that your kid needs to be 20 and a freshman in college? Is your child THAT deficient? Do you want your child to never learn how to strive and struggle? Are those not good character traits to develop? Do you want to train your kid into laziness? Is life always going to be easy? And if it isn't, will your child always be able to game the system? Ask yourself these questions before you redshirt! Please note that I am not addressing these questions to the small minority of children with genuine developmental difficulties who need to be held back. I am addressing it to the run-of-the-mill redshirting parent. |
Anonymous
I learned about the specific reasons from parents. Some students have also been forthcoming to my children - in older years it is commonly a chance to be competitive in sports. Stop being so defensive. It's the same redshirt principal as in college sports. |
Anonymous
| to the PP, +1 |
Anonymous
Most of these kids, particularly boys, who are redshirted do not have "developmental difficulties" (like learning disabilities, etc). They simply have not had the time yet for their natural skills to mature to the point where they can adequately handle a traditional 1st grade curriculum (now taught in K). Our summer birthday child needed that extra year to get his motor skills developed, and now tests at the 99%. |
Anonymous
How many parents did you survey? Newsflash: the half-dozen people you may or may not have spoken to don't exactly constitute a statistically valid sample size. |
Anonymous
|
To the PP +1
I would think that your child would have developed his motor skills regardless of which grade you started him on. And he would have thrived no matter what. His testing today reveals his cognitive strengths and those were always there. Perhaps the question here is what to do about the fact that the average boy seems to develop motor skills a little slower than girls. Is that a reason to red-shirt? Or is that a reason for schools to differentiate by gender until the boys have caught up. Then one doesn't need to get into this ridiculous holding back business. If differentiated motor skills (on average) is a fact then the schools should deal with it accordingly. |
Anonymous
Yet again, the plural of anecdote is still not data. |
Anonymous
|
to 18:07
The latter. Schools (as they did for the last 100 years) need to figure out and adjust their methodology to handle the differentiation between boys and girls. Red Shirting the "average" person (not someone with health or cognitive issues) creates so many problems downstream. |