Not redshirting our May birthday boy?

[Anonymous]

I’m now in Indiana. There were FOUR 5 year olds on our street last year, and mine was the only one who started kindergarten. Redshirting is super common here. My 10 year old has an April birthday and is currently one of the youngest in his class. He’s very smart and was reading chapter books going into kindergarten, but he’s definitely more immature (and shorter) than his classmates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m now in Indiana. There were FOUR 5 year olds on our street last year, and mine was the only one who started kindergarten. Redshirting is super common here. My 10 year old has an April birthday and is currently one of the youngest in his class. He’s very smart and was reading chapter books going into kindergarten, but he’s definitely more immature (and shorter) than his classmates.

He's not immature. He's appropriate for his age. You cannot compare him to a child a year or two older.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think public schools should start enforcing their cut off date. If you're holding your kid back a year, you need a medical diagnosis. "My kid is short" is NOT a medical diagnosis.

+1 and if a child isn't prepared instead of blaming the child, blame the parent and preschool for not preparing them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here..

If we send him on time as planned, what are some specific skills we can work with him on this year so he can succeed? We are already in a competitive district. He's in a part time play based preschool and has been since age 1.

Know all his numbers, letters, shapes and colors. Start reading (sight or phonics) and hopefully reading before K. Also, start with basic writing skills and basic math. Tons of workbooks and online apps. Endless reader is a fun app for starting to read.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I would NOT hold a May birthday child back unless there are significant cognitive issues at play. I have a June child who I did not hold back. She is one of the youngest in her class. She has always been in the top reading/math groups though. Plus, socially, there were plenty of other kids with late spring/summer birthdays. I child with a May birthday will turn 7 in K. There will be an almost 2 year age difference between your child and a child with a late summer birthday who goes on time. That's just to big a spread IMHO.

I’m against redshirting a May birthday kid too but your math is wrong. There will not be an “almost 2 year age difference” between ops potentially redshirted kid and a late summer bday kid who goes on time. In this scenario OP’s kid would turn 6 in May 2020 so born 2014, the youngest kid in the class would turn 5 in August 2020 so would have been born 2015, or at most 15 months younger than OP’s kid.

Anyway, it’s ridiculous to redshirt a May bday. My siblings and I all have late summer and early fall birthdays and all went on time. We grew up in Tennessee too coincidentally.

If we go on time our May 30 son will be younger by 16 months Feb boys who redshirt. It is a significant gap at that age. It's more than 20% his age. For kids in August who go on time, it's a 19 month gap....

No one w a feb bday kid should be redshirting. That’s crazy.

Ok, feb to May is 3 months not 4, feb to August is 6 months not 7. You are exaggerating the potential age gaps. Yes, 15 or 18 months difference is still very big. But realistically how many kids w February bdays will be redshirted? My guess is very few if any.

OP just said she knows a bunch of february birthdays redshirting. Those parents are neglectful and disgusting. They are going to have 20 year old GROWN men in high school. It's so gross.

Again, the February redshirted kid would turn 19 in high school not 20. It’s not a 2 year age difference we’re talking about here in most cases (though there could be some late summer bday started on time kids who graduate high school at 17 and don’t turn 18 til college whereas the potential February redshirted kid would have turned 19 while still in high school. Again, it’s a 12-18 month age difference not 2 full years.

Still, it should not be allowed to hold back any kid born in February-May unless there’s a very good reason for it (medical issues, learning issues, etc)

I highly doubt OP actually knows “a bunch” of kids w February birthdays who’ll be redshirted. She exaggerated everything else so I don’t believe that.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I would NOT hold a May birthday child back unless there are significant cognitive issues at play. I have a June child who I did not hold back. She is one of the youngest in her class. She has always been in the top reading/math groups though. Plus, socially, there were plenty of other kids with late spring/summer birthdays. I child with a May birthday will turn 7 in K. There will be an almost 2 year age difference between your child and a child with a late summer birthday who goes on time. That's just to big a spread IMHO.

I’m against redshirting a May birthday kid too but your math is wrong. There will not be an “almost 2 year age difference” between ops potentially redshirted kid and a late summer bday kid who goes on time. In this scenario OP’s kid would turn 6 in May 2020 so born 2014, the youngest kid in the class would turn 5 in August 2020 so would have been born 2015, or at most 15 months younger than OP’s kid.

Anyway, it’s ridiculous to redshirt a May bday. My siblings and I all have late summer and early fall birthdays and all went on time. We grew up in Tennessee too coincidentally.

If we go on time our May 30 son will be younger by 16 months Feb boys who redshirt. It is a significant gap at that age. It's more than 20% his age. For kids in August who go on time, it's a 19 month gap....

No one w a feb bday kid should be redshirting. That’s crazy.

Ok, feb to May is 3 months not 4, feb to August is 6 months not 7. You are exaggerating the potential age gaps. Yes, 15 or 18 months difference is still very big. But realistically how many kids w February bdays will be redshirted? My guess is very few if any.

OP just said she knows a bunch of february birthdays redshirting. Those parents are neglectful and disgusting. They are going to have 20 year old GROWN men in high school. It's so gross.

Again, the February redshirted kid would turn 19 in high school not 20. It’s not a 2 year age difference we’re talking about here in most cases (though there could be some late summer bday started on time kids who graduate high school at 17 and don’t turn 18 til college whereas the potential February redshirted kid would have turned 19 while still in high school. Again, it’s a 12-18 month age difference not 2 full years.

Still, it should not be allowed to hold back any kid born in February-May unless there’s a very good reason for it (medical issues, learning issues, etc)

I highly doubt OP actually knows “a bunch” of kids w February birthdays who’ll be redshirted. She exaggerated everything else so I don’t believe that.

The only way someone would be 20 in high school is if they were held back twice.

[Anonymous]

I have a November kid who missed the cutoff last year and did a year of private K. I am still sending her to public K this fall and not 1st specifically because of people who hold back May birthdays, meaning my kid would be in classes with kids 18 months older than her.

August/September birthdays: consider it. Any other month and your kid is neurotypical: get your sh*t together and go to school.

[Anonymous]

I only know one kid with a birthday that early who was redshirted (and not for academic or maturity reasons), and his parents totally regret it. I mean, he's fine, but he was so bored the last year of preschool. It didn't help him in any way.

[Anonymous]

My rising 9th grader has a May birthday. He is a straight A student and is headed into pre calculus and also taking probability statistics/discrete math as an elective. I could not imagine how bored he would be right now if we had held him back.feom a math perspective, in 8th grade he was sitting in a math class with 9th graders. He was fine. Additionally he plays travel lacrosse on a very competitive team and has a active social life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are these crazy 7 month redshirting parents only redshirting boys? Are all the girls in the grade then younger than the boys? That seems messed up.

I’m in Texas and yes this is absolutely the case.

It is so so weird, I agree.

It's big in the South because of football/other sports. People want their boys to be as big as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are these crazy 7 month redshirting parents only redshirting boys? Are all the girls in the grade then younger than the boys? That seems messed up.

I’m in Texas and yes this is absolutely the case.

It is so so weird, I agree.

If it's just the boys, then it seems pretty obvious to me that it's about sports. Which is straight-up stupid. You redshirt because your kid is close to the cutoff and there are social, behavioral, medical, or cognitive issues which would not benefit from the services that the school would provide (or at least not enough to outweigh the problems) but are likely to improve over the year, either with or without treatment/therapy/etc. Holding your kid back so he'll be better at high school football is nuts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are these crazy 7 month redshirting parents only redshirting boys? Are all the girls in the grade then younger than the boys? That seems messed up.

I’m in Texas and yes this is absolutely the case.

It is so so weird, I agree.

It's big in the South because of football/other sports. People want their boys to be as big as possible.

Aren’t youth sports based on DOB though? You can’t play U11 if you turn 11 before 9/1 (or 1/1 depending on if your league uses school year or calendar year). So you can send your 6.5 year old to K, but you’d have to put him on a 1st grade soccer team. At least here in DC area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are these crazy 7 month redshirting parents only redshirting boys? Are all the girls in the grade then younger than the boys? That seems messed up.

I’m in Texas and yes this is absolutely the case.

It is so so weird, I agree.

If it's just the boys, then it seems pretty obvious to me that it's about sports. Which is straight-up stupid. You redshirt because your kid is close to the cutoff and there are social, behavioral, medical, or cognitive issues which would not benefit from the services that the school would provide (or at least not enough to outweigh the problems) but are likely to improve over the year, either with or without treatment/therapy/etc. Holding your kid back so he'll be better at high school football is nuts.

Which is why they started calling it redshirting because some parents are trying to give their kids an athletic advantage by holding them back a year.

Before it became more common it was simply holding a kid back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m now in Indiana. There were FOUR 5 year olds on our street last year, and mine was the only one who started kindergarten. Redshirting is super common here. My 10 year old has an April birthday and is currently one of the youngest in his class. He’s very smart and was reading chapter books going into kindergarten, but he’s definitely more immature (and shorter) than his classmates.

He's not immature. He's appropriate for his age. You cannot compare him to a child a year or two older.

Exactly. I have an ES kid born just before the cutoff. We sent her on time, but we make a point of mentioning to her teachers each year that she is the youngest. It's not that she has serious behavior issues, and academically she's fine, but she's tall for her age and highly verbal, so people often think she's older than she is, so we find it helpful to set appropriate expectations. (I don't want her flagged for ADHD, for example, just based on age-appropriate behavior.) It's never been a problem. They usually thank us for the reminder and then she has a great year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are these crazy 7 month redshirting parents only redshirting boys? Are all the girls in the grade then younger than the boys? That seems messed up.

I’m in Texas and yes this is absolutely the case.

It is so so weird, I agree.

It's big in the South because of football/other sports. People want their boys to be as big as possible.

Aren’t youth sports based on DOB though? You can’t play U11 if you turn 11 before 9/1 (or 1/1 depending on if your league uses school year or calendar year). So you can send your 6.5 year old to K, but you’d have to put him on a 1st grade soccer team. At least here in DC area.

I don't know if that applies to high-school sports, though, and high-school football, for example, is huge in the South.