My son's kindergarten class has several 7 yr olds in it.

[Anonymous]

And here we go loop-de-loop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

We have a friend with a daughter in 3rd grade. They were going to enroll her in a the 3rd-4th grade level basketball but decided to give her the "gift of time" and enrolled her in the 1st-2nd grade division.

She looked ridiculous being so tall and dominant. Did other little girls complain? No. But don't you see that having an older kid in the group robbed another girl the chance to learn?

I fault the league more than the parents but its the same as redshirting your kid in school.

That's one way to look at it if you're wired that way.

Another way to look at it is the smaller less dominant kids will grow up quicker and soon neutralize the bigger, older and dominant kid (Ask Lebron James and Kobe Bryant. There were wired a little different when playing against much older, bigger and stronger opponents).

The big kid on the block loses out in the long run since she will not play against "good" competition.

As a school and collegiate athlete I always preferred to play with the bigger and older kids during my development days. I made it a point to always age or grade up for higher and more intense athletic competition (It works for academics too). Growing up, I would never dream of playing on teams where I was the oldest and dominant athlete...because it did not improve my game in the log run. Coaches and players understand this phenomenon. Ribbons and tin trophies do not an athlete make. But, parents are happy as clams and have something to brag about.

The difference in redshirtingand your point is that you (or your parents) chose for you to play against older competition. I am sure they made an informed decision. Redshirting is the opposite---some other parent chooses (with administration blessing) to put older competition in with younger kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

That's one way to look at it if you're wired that way.

Another way to look at it is the smaller less dominant kids will grow up quicker and soon neutralize the bigger, older and dominant kid (Ask Lebron James and Kobe Bryant. There were wired a little different when playing against much older, bigger and stronger opponents).

The big kid on the block loses out in the long run since she will not play against "good" competition.

As a school and collegiate athlete I always preferred to play with the bigger and older kids during my development days. I made it a point to always age or grade up for higher and more intense athletic competition (It works for academics too). Growing up, I would never dream of playing on teams where I was the oldest and dominant athlete...because it did not improve my game in the log run. Coaches and players understand this phenomenon. Ribbons and tin trophies do not an athlete make. But, parents are happy as clams and have something to brag about.

Touche. Redshirting on academic playing fields and in the educational arena is no different.




You say redshirting for athletics are no different than redshirting. When a college kid is redshirted athletically, it's 100% acknowledged to be for competitive reasons. When redshirting happens in kindergarten most (not all) parents lie and say its for developmental issues when, indeed, its also for competitive reasons.

[Anonymous]

...ok. It's the law.

[Anonymous]

On what planet do you think that kids/people are entitled to compete only against (or be compared only to) others within a 12 month age range and that anything else is unfair or cheating? That's just a really bizarre assumption.

[Anonymous]

Isn't the essence of redshirting in college athletics that the redshirted player practices with the team the first year but doesn't compete? It's not about age (there's at least a five year age range in college athletics even without redshirting) but about a limited number of seasons of eligibility. And redshirting is legal.

So for the private school situation to be parallel, I guess you'd have to imagine kindergarten filled with auditors who plan on repeating the grade for credit (or a grade?!) the next year....

One of the most bizarre things about this thread is how many people seem to assume that there's no actual education in education -- that ability is primarily a function of age (or size) rather than work, teaching, talent, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn't the essence of redshirting in college athletics that the redshirted player practices with the team the first year but doesn't compete? It's not about age (there's at least a five year age range in college athletics even without redshirting) but about a limited number of seasons of eligibility. And redshirting is legal.

So for the private school situation to be parallel, I guess you'd have to imagine kindergarten filled with auditors who plan on repeating the grade for credit (or a grade?!) the next year....

One of the most bizarre things about this thread is how many people seem to assume that there's no actual education in education -- that ability is primarily a function of age (or size) rather than work, teaching, talent, etc.

Yes. The term redshirting in sports is a poor analogy to what some parents do for summer birthday 5 year olds. "Redshirting" as it applies to K seems to have been coined by an anti-redshirter (because it engenders the idea that I'm keeping a kid on the sideline so that he'll be bigger better faster next year and nothing about maturity, ability to sit, focus, etc. etc.). Really the parents of 4 year old should not be taking on the college athletes (and vice versa) in this argument.

I prefer to say that my September 28th birthday boy is taking a "gap year." I think it's a much closer analogy to when kids take a year off between high school to college to better figure things out (rather than "redshirting").

[Anonymous]

Gap year suggests he's working or traveling rather than going to school. Aren't you just keeping him in preschool an extra year?

[Anonymous]

And isn't a Sept 28th kid already/naturally among the oldest in his class? Seems like he'd just miss the Sept 1 cutoff most local private have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gap year suggests he's working or traveling rather than going to school. Aren't you just keeping him in preschool an extra year?

That may be how the Europeans use gap year. But in US modern times, at least from the recent "take a gap year" seminars I've heard about regarding our high school senior, I understand "gap year" to be more generic, sort of taking a year to get your stuff together. (For example, to earn money to go to college or to decide if college is for you, to mature before you leave for college, stay home with a sick relative etc etc.)

But sure our 5 year old has traveled and done lots of other things this past year. And he was in JrK. "Just keeping him in preschool an extra year" is not how his gap year could be described.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And isn't a Sept 28th kid already/naturally among the oldest in his class? Seems like he'd just miss the Sept 1 cutoff most local private have.

At our school, it would be the youngest (in terms of age cut off dates).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gap year suggests he's working or traveling rather than going to school. Aren't you just keeping him in preschool an extra year?

That may be how the Europeans use gap year. But in US modern times, at least from the recent "take a gap year" seminars I've heard about regarding our high school senior, I understand "gap year" to be more generic, sort of taking a year to get your stuff together. (For example, to earn money to go to college or to decide if college is for you, to mature before you leave for college, stay home with a sick relative etc etc.)

But sure our 5 year old has traveled and done lots of other things this past year. And he was in JrK. "Just keeping him in preschool an extra year" is not how his gap year could be described.

Sorry but this is really pretentious when you're talking about a 5 year old. He's not figuring things out or deciding if K is for him or taking a break from school after 12+ consecutive years of it. You don't think he's ready for K, so you're not enrolling him in K yet. No big deal, unless you turn it into one by framing it in a way that makes people want to roll their eyes. There's no gap -- you just put him in JrK rather than K. And that's what JrK is there for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And isn't a Sept 28th kid already/naturally among the oldest in his class? Seems like he'd just miss the Sept 1 cutoff most local private have.

At our school, it would be the youngest (in terms of age cut off dates).

Ah, makes sense.

[Anonymous]

On what planet do you think that kids/people are entitled to compete only against (or be compared only to) others within a 12 month age range and that anything else is unfair or cheating? That's just a really bizarre assumption.

I'm sure these moms are all pulling out the birth certificates of other mothers and fathers in the workplace to ensure homogeneous ages and size in their various divisions and departments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gap year suggests he's working or traveling rather than going to school. Aren't you just keeping him in preschool an extra year?

That may be how the Europeans use gap year. But in US modern times, at least from the recent "take a gap year" seminars I've heard about regarding our high school senior, I understand "gap year" to be more generic, sort of taking a year to get your stuff together. (For example, to earn money to go to college or to decide if college is for you, to mature before you leave for college, stay home with a sick relative etc etc.)

But sure our 5 year old has traveled and done lots of other things this past year. And he was in JrK. "Just keeping him in preschool an extra year" is not how his gap year could be described.

Sorry but this is really pretentious when you're talking about a 5 year old. He's not figuring things out or deciding if K is for him or taking a break from school after 12+ consecutive years of it. You don't think he's ready for K, so you're not enrolling him in K yet. No big deal, unless you turn it into one by framing it in a way that makes people want to roll their eyes. There's no gap -- you just put him in JrK rather than K. And that's what JrK is there for.

It's like you walked into the middle of a conversation and offered your 2 cents. To recap: someone didn't like the term redshirt so much and preferred the term gap year. Another poster thought "gap year" was limited to when 18 year olds travel or work before school (and that poster, maybe you, didn't think traveling and work experience were necessary for a 5 year old (tee hee)). Then came a broader definition of "gap year" as applied to 18 year olds (the just figuring out stuff that could include travel and work but not necessarily). You'd need to extrapolate a bit to think of how it's used for a 5 year old (like just letting a late summer birthday boy mature a bit, etc. etc). See, pretentiousness involved.