My son's first grade class

[Anonymous]

I am opening a can of worms - but here goes: I resent the fact that there are 2 boys in my son's new first grade who have summer birthdays which put them well into 7 years old when school starts. Most of the kids start turning 7 much later into the school year. I know this is called red-shirting. But it is really weird, IMO. These boys will be 18 yo seniors, almost 19 when they graduate. Things were different where I come from!

[Anonymous]

Someone is probably opening up a nice can of whoop-ass to go with your worms.

This is just how it is now. What do you care how old some seniors will be? I am sure whatever incremental advantage they have in grade 1 will disappear quickly. Plus, I don't think parents have THAT much say in the process.

[Anonymous]

OP, I can't tell if you think that the older boys will have some advantage over your son or that their parents are doing them a disservice. What exactly is your concern?

[Anonymous]

OP, I shared your concern when our child was starting K with a December bday (this was a few years ago, before DCPS moved its cutoff date from 12/31 to September). Our child would have been entering K as a 4-year-old, and turning 5 near the end of the calendar year. It made us very anxious when we realized that many of the boys (and at least one girl) in our child's potential class were going to be held back/red-shirted, with a sizable number entering K as freshly-minted 6-year-olds. Someone has to be the youngest, obviously, but I don't think any parent relishes the idea of starting a child in a class where a good number of children are 1.5 years older. It's a reasonable concern.

[Anonymous]

You're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. You now live in an area where parents realize that they have a voice and that if holding their child back is in the best interests of their child, they have their power to do it. I'm sure as a parent there are things you do that other parents don't and that you do them because you believe it is in your child's best interests, which means that you actually have a lot in common with the parents of those 7 year olds in your child's first grade class.

[Anonymous]

You're upset because these kids have been 7 for up to 3 months going into second grade???? Um, that's normal. Kids who turned 7 last fall going into second grade now is normal. Now if they had turned 8, yeah, that would be an issue.

[Anonymous]

You're lucky there are only two! In my son's first-grade class there are *many* more than two kids who will already have turned seven (no, not an exaggeration since there was a party for the class and I met most families from the class). I don't really mind so much since I prefer our son to be in the middle of the pack, age-wise (personally, I think that's preferable to being either the oldest or youngest), and since DS has a December birthday, it works out.

[Anonymous]

OP, are you in a district with a 9/1 cutoff? If so, a summer birthday doesn't seem like something to get so upset about.

[Anonymous]

. These boys will be 18 yo seniors

The majority of my classmates turned 18 during senior year in HS. I have a November b-day and turned 18 during my senior year. So what if a kid turns 18 in July or August instead of September or October.

[Anonymous]

You will have way more important things to resent by the time your kid has been in the school a few months - there will be many things that don't go as you would prefer....

Save your ill will for more important things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You will have way more important things to resent by the time your kid has been in the school a few months - there will be many things that don't go as you would prefer....

Save your ill will for more important things.

Seriously, this is rung one on life's ladder of perceived injustices.

[Anonymous]

would you be more upset if these kids were just turning 6 and were barely "ready" for 1st grade and consuming a lot of teacher time and resources so that your son was not able to get as much attention?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am opening a can of worms - but here goes: I resent the fact that there are 2 boys in my son's new first grade who have summer birthdays which put them well into 7 years old when school starts. Most of the kids start turning 7 much later into the school year. I know this is called red-shirting. But it is really weird, IMO. These boys will be 18 yo seniors, almost 19 when they graduate. Things were different where I come from!

Why? I'm not a redshirting fan by any stretch but 2 kids out of class of potentially 26-28 kids where I'm from wouldn't be worth getting feathers in a ruffle. Also, you don't know what the situation may have been for those kids. I'm willing to believe that 2 kids out of 26 may have had legit reasons to not be ready for school by the cutoff. If it was something like half the class, that's where I would start to wonder if statistically that many kids weren't ready or if it was becoming the trendy thing to do.

[Anonymous]

What PP said. It's only two boys, they're only older by a few months, who cares when they graduate if this is only first grade! FYI: In my son's class, many of the smartest children were the youngest. Age is not that determinative! And as you get to know the class, you may be wishing some of your son's classmates, the helions, had been held back a year. Hee. Also, at private schools the age span within a class can be 20 or more months. It is not as big of a deal as you think.

[Anonymous]

Having a few kids that are older than the rest is not as new a circumstance as you seem to think. My high school class from over 20 years ago had 4-5 people (that I knew about) who turned 18 in junior year (more than 5% of the class). It's just not as big a deal as you're thinking it might be.