Red shirting, again.

[Anonymous]

So. what if you apply to K at your top choice private school and the school also has a pre-K and the school admits your child for pre-K, but not K. If you're on the fence about what would be best for your particular child (starting in K or pre-K), I'm not sure how it can be so terrible to comply with the school's recommendation. For one, if the school is recommending this for our son, I'd think they are giving others the same or similar message. I just don't think it's actually left to the parents anymore, and it's not worth it to me to give up a slot at our top choice school (eventually for our 2 kids) because our son would be on the older side rather than the younger side. Both my DH and I were the youngest in our classes and wound up at the top of our classes and happy with our social lives, so I don't personally have any concern about our son being the youngest in his class. But, if going to our top-choice school is contingent on his bieng one of the older kids, that's fine by me too, and certainly not a battle Id choose to fight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have the same problem with our July born DD. She is doing quite well academically, but socially and behaviorally she is "immature". The teacher told me our DD is behind the others in maturity. I said, "Look at your birthday wall, she's a year younger than over half of these kids." The teacher was shocked and said, WHAT she's not 6? No, my kid just went to K on time.
Parents, just keep thinking your 6 y.o. is brilliant while he's doing 5 y.o. work. It clearly makes you feel good about yourselves.

You might consider taking your own advice. How about you stop worrying about other parents, and just start telling yourself your 5 y.o. is doing brilliantly so you can finally feel good about yourself. And more importantly, her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Actually, my child and I would BOTH be cheating...that was my point. And of course, he would be at the top of the pack--he would be older than everybody else. You're already cheating by holding your child back one year, why should you care if I hold my child back three years? After all, cheating is cheating.

Anonymous wrote:A little sensitive aren't you?

I'm thinking about redshirting my child until he's eight years old and then putting him in Kindergarten. And why not? Then I can embarrass myself by bragging about how my jumbo Kindergartner is SO much more advanced than the other children and has developed into SUCH a "leader". LOL! Slippery slope, people, slippery slope...
__________________________________________________________________________________

Go ahead and do so. I guarantee you he will not even be at to top of the pack!

You are not cheating but you WILL cheat your 8-year-old!

NP here. Actually, I don't care. I think you're cheating your child, but I don't particularly care. You must have some reason for doing so. In your case, it appears to be because you have an axe to grind, but again - I don't particularly care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So. what if you apply to K at your top choice private school and the school also has a pre-K and the school admits your child for pre-K, but not K. If you're on the fence about what would be best for your particular child (starting in K or pre-K), I'm not sure how it can be so terrible to comply with the school's recommendation. For one, if the school is recommending this for our son, I'd think they are giving others the same or similar message. I just don't think it's actually left to the parents anymore, and it's not worth it to me to give up a slot at our top choice school (eventually for our 2 kids) because our son would be on the older side rather than the younger side. Both my DH and I were the youngest in our classes and wound up at the top of our classes and happy with our social lives, so I don't personally have any concern about our son being the youngest in his class. But, if going to our top-choice school is contingent on his bieng one of the older kids, that's fine by me too, and certainly not a battle Id choose to fight.

I would get very suspicious of a school that asked you to do that. I ask myself, what is their limit? We in MD already pushed the start date back to September 1, so that there would be older kids coming into K, and so on. Now some (private) schools want June 1. Where does it stop? I think that if a school can not teach a young 5 year old, then you need to ask yourself what you are getting yourself into. These schools can capitalize on this from a financial perspective and a time saving perspective. They get the older kids in and RELAX. But I am not paying them to do that.
Primary Day encourages the red shirting, so does (did) Green Acres. Why put out the sign saying that you are there to teach young children if in fact, you can't. I don't care how "young" a 5 year old is, most good teachers can teach them. Are they saying they don't have good teachers?
What's more, how do they make this decision in a hour long play date?
I am not suggesting that any parent argue with the school, but I do suggest that you take a close look at what kind of school you are dealing with.
I admire some of the schools that limit red shirting. I think Norwood and WES have a limits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So. what if you apply to K at your top choice private school and the school also has a pre-K and the school admits your child for pre-K, but not K. If you're on the fence about what would be best for your particular child (starting in K or pre-K), I'm not sure how it can be so terrible to comply with the school's recommendation. For one, if the school is recommending this for our son, I'd think they are giving others the same or similar message. I just don't think it's actually left to the parents anymore, and it's not worth it to me to give up a slot at our top choice school (eventually for our 2 kids) because our son would be on the older side rather than the younger side. Both my DH and I were the youngest in our classes and wound up at the top of our classes and happy with our social lives, so I don't personally have any concern about our son being the youngest in his class. But, if going to our top-choice school is contingent on his bieng one of the older kids, that's fine by me too, and certainly not a battle Id choose to fight.

I would get very suspicious of a school that asked you to do that. I ask myself, what is their limit? We in MD already pushed the start date back to September 1, so that there would be older kids coming into K, and so on. Now some (private) schools want June 1. Where does it stop? I think that if a school can not teach a young 5 year old, then you need to ask yourself what you are getting yourself into. These schools can capitalize on this from a financial perspective and a time saving perspective. They get the older kids in and RELAX. But I am not paying them to do that.
Primary Day encourages the red shirting, so does (did) Green Acres. Why put out the sign saying that you are there to teach young children if in fact, you can't. I don't care how "young" a 5 year old is, most good teachers can teach them. Are they saying they don't have good teachers?
What's more, how do they make this decision in a hour long play date?
I am not suggesting that any parent argue with the school, but I do suggest that you take a close look at what kind of school you are dealing with.
I admire some of the schools that limit red shirting. I think Norwood and WES have a limits.

Hate to be the one to break it to you, but this has been common practice at the top tier DC privates for quite some time. If you want Beauvoir and Beauvoir tells you to red shirt, then enrolling at Norwood or WES just isn't the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So. what if you apply to K at your top choice private school and the school also has a pre-K and the school admits your child for pre-K, but not K. If you're on the fence about what would be best for your particular child (starting in K or pre-K), I'm not sure how it can be so terrible to comply with the school's recommendation. For one, if the school is recommending this for our son, I'd think they are giving others the same or similar message. I just don't think it's actually left to the parents anymore, and it's not worth it to me to give up a slot at our top choice school (eventually for our 2 kids) because our son would be on the older side rather than the younger side. Both my DH and I were the youngest in our classes and wound up at the top of our classes and happy with our social lives, so I don't personally have any concern about our son being the youngest in his class. But, if going to our top-choice school is contingent on his bieng one of the older kids, that's fine by me too, and certainly not a battle Id choose to fight.

I would get very suspicious of a school that asked you to do that. I ask myself, what is their limit? We in MD already pushed the start date back to September 1, so that there would be older kids coming into K, and so on. Now some (private) schools want June 1. Where does it stop? I think that if a school can not teach a young 5 year old, then you need to ask yourself what you are getting yourself into. These schools can capitalize on this from a financial perspective and a time saving perspective. They get the older kids in and RELAX. But I am not paying them to do that.
Primary Day encourages the red shirting, so does (did) Green Acres. Why put out the sign saying that you are there to teach young children if in fact, you can't. I don't care how "young" a 5 year old is, most good teachers can teach them. Are they saying they don't have good teachers?
What's more, how do they make this decision in a hour long play date?
I am not suggesting that any parent argue with the school, but I do suggest that you take a close look at what kind of school you are dealing with.
I admire some of the schools that limit red shirting. I think Norwood and WES have a limits.

Hate to be the one to break it to you, but this has been common practice at the top tier DC privates for quite some time. If you want Beauvoir and Beauvoir tells you to red shirt, then enrolling at Norwood or WES just isn't the same.

Then how do you explain GA and PDS? No great shakes. Anyway, if this is what happens at all of the top tier schools then maybe Whitman is better, b/c not only do they take all comers, but they don't red shirt. So that makes me think that their SAT scores are actually very good compared to say STA taking those factors into account.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have the same problem with our July born DD. She is doing quite well academically, but socially and behaviorally she is "immature". The teacher told me our DD is behind the others in maturity. I said, "Look at your birthday wall, she's a year younger than over half of these kids." The teacher was shocked and said, WHAT she's not 6? No, my kid just went to K on time.
Parents, just keep thinking your 6 y.o. is brilliant while he's doing 5 y.o. work. It clearly makes you feel good about yourselves.

You might consider taking your own advice. How about you
stop worrying about other parents, and just start telling yourself your 5 y.o. is doing brilliantly so you can finally feel good about yourself. And more importantly, her.

The problem is not how I feel about my child. It's how the teacher views my DD in relation to the 6 1/2 y.o. children in her class. This teacher can't help but compare the kids to each other behaviorally, and a just turned 5 is going to be a good bit more immature than an almost 7 y.o. And that is a problem for my DD and me. All when we were playing by the rules by sending her at the RIGHT time. Sorry, it's not about brilliance or academics at this age. The kids who are smart will be able to do the work, but they will fall behind socially or will be seen as inattentive because COMPARED to the other kids (who are older) the child cannot sit still for as long or cannot form appropriate peer relationships or get bullied. The teacher, as I said, didn't even know how old my child was, she was just comparing her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have the same problem with our July born DD. She is doing quite well academically, but socially and behaviorally she is "immature". The teacher told me our DD is behind the others in maturity. I said, "Look at your birthday wall, she's a year younger than over half of these kids." The teacher was shocked and said, WHAT she's not 6? No, my kid just went to K on time.
Parents, just keep thinking your 6 y.o. is brilliant while he's doing 5 y.o. work. It clearly makes you feel good about yourselves.

You might consider taking your own advice. How about you
stop worrying about other parents, and just start telling yourself your 5 y.o. is doing brilliantly so you can finally feel good about yourself. And more importantly, her.

The problem is not how I feel about my child. It's how the teacher views my DD in relation to the 6 1/2 y.o. children in her class. This teacher can't help but compare the kids to each other behaviorally, and a just turned 5 is going to be a good bit more immature than an almost 7 y.o. And that is a problem for my DD and me. All when we were playing by the rules by sending her at the RIGHT time. Sorry, it's not about brilliance or academics at this age. The kids who are smart will be able to do the work, but they will fall behind socially or will be seen as inattentive because COMPARED to the other kids (who are older) the child cannot sit still for as long or cannot form appropriate peer relationships or get bullied. The teacher, as I said, didn't even know how old my child was, she was just comparing her.

I have to agree. The teachers are only human, so I don't blame them.
Look, MCPS has a lot of good reasons not to fight red shirting. Many of these kids that are held back might have real problems that the parents are reluctant to face. They delay the inevitable need for special services, so that is money in the bank for MCPS. Very few parents are as responsible as the pp, who got the special services for her child, and put the child in the correct grade.
The best we can hope for is that the schools take the large classes of incoming K, 1, 2, 3 graders and separate them by age in general. Maybe a class of all 6 year old Ks, a class of fall b-day kids, and so on, as an attempt to level the playing field earlier. Then after third grade or so, reality sets and kids start getting the services they need. Also, the age gaps do not represent as large a percentage difference in years. The teachers will then be able to make reasonable comparisons among the students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have the same problem with our July born DD. She is doing quite well academically, but socially and behaviorally she is "immature". The teacher told me our DD is behind the others in maturity. I said, "Look at your birthday wall, she's a year younger than over half of these kids." The teacher was shocked and said, WHAT she's not 6? No, my kid just went to K on time.
Parents, just keep thinking your 6 y.o. is brilliant while he's doing 5 y.o. work. It clearly makes you feel good about yourselves.

You might consider taking your own advice. How about you
stop worrying about other parents, and just start telling yourself your 5 y.o. is doing brilliantly so you can finally feel good about yourself. And more importantly, her.

The problem is not how I feel about my child. It's how the teacher views my DD in relation to the 6 1/2 y.o. children in her class. This teacher can't help but compare the kids to each other behaviorally, and a just turned 5 is going to be a good bit more immature than an almost 7 y.o. And that is a problem for my DD and me. All when we were playing by the rules by sending her at the RIGHT time. Sorry, it's not about brilliance or academics at this age. The kids who are smart will be able to do the work, but they will fall behind socially or will be seen as inattentive because COMPARED to the other kids (who are older) the child cannot sit still for as long or cannot form appropriate peer relationships or get bullied. The teacher, as I said, didn't even know how old my child was, she was just comparing her.

This is the first time I've ever heard of a child being bullied because they couldn't sit still. IIRC, back in the day we had "class clowns" but they were generally popular.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have the same problem with our July born DD. She is doing quite well academically, but socially and behaviorally she is "immature". The teacher told me our DD is behind the others in maturity. I said, "Look at your birthday wall, she's a year younger than over half of these kids." The teacher was shocked and said, WHAT she's not 6? No, my kid just went to K on time.
Parents, just keep thinking your 6 y.o. is brilliant while he's doing 5 y.o. work. It clearly makes you feel good about yourselves.

You might consider taking your own advice. How about you
stop worrying about other parents, and just start telling yourself your 5 y.o. is doing brilliantly so you can finally feel good about yourself. And more importantly, her.

The problem is not how I feel about my child. It's how the teacher views my DD in relation to the 6 1/2 y.o. children in her class. This teacher can't help but compare the kids to each other behaviorally, and a just turned 5 is going to be a good bit more immature than an almost 7 y.o. And that is a problem for my DD and me. All when we were playing by the rules by sending her at the RIGHT time. Sorry, it's not about brilliance or academics at this age. The kids who are smart will be able to do the work, but they will fall behind socially or will be seen as inattentive because COMPARED to the other kids (who are older) the child cannot sit still for as long or cannot form appropriate peer relationships or get bullied. The teacher, as I said, didn't even know how old my child was, she was just comparing her.

This is the first time I've ever heard of a child being bullied because they couldn't sit still. IIRC, back in the day we had "class clowns" but they were generally popular.

She did not say that the child was being bullied for not being able to sit still. She said that being bullied is one possible problem with being young. Also, younger children may not be able to sit still as long as the older ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The problem is not how I feel about my child. It's how the teacher views my DD in relation to the 6 1/2 y.o. children in her class. This teacher can't help but compare the kids to each other behaviorally, and a just turned 5 is going to be a good bit more immature than an almost 7 y.o. And that is a problem for my DD and me. All when we were playing by the rules by sending her at the RIGHT time. Sorry, it's not about brilliance or academics at this age. The kids who are smart will be able to do the work, but they will fall behind socially or will be seen as inattentive because COMPARED to the other kids (who are older) the child cannot sit still for as long or cannot form appropriate peer relationships or get bullied. The teacher, as I said, didn't even know how old my child was, she was just comparing her.

NP here. I never quite thought of Kindergarten as a competition. I mean, they don't calculate GPA or class rank. They don't even give letter grades! Who cares how your DC stacks up against specific other kids, older or younger, as long as your DC is happy and learning? Isn't that the point?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The problem is not how I feel about my child. It's how the teacher views my DD in relation to the 6 1/2 y.o. children in her class. This teacher can't help but compare the kids to each other behaviorally, and a just turned 5 is going to be a good bit more immature than an almost 7 y.o. And that is a problem for my DD and me. All when we were playing by the rules by sending her at the RIGHT time. Sorry, it's not about brilliance or academics at this age. The kids who are smart will be able to do the work, but they will fall behind socially or will be seen as inattentive because COMPARED to the other kids (who are older) the child cannot sit still for as long or cannot form appropriate peer relationships or get bullied. The teacher, as I said, didn't even know how old my child was, she was just comparing her.

NP here. I never quite thought of Kindergarten as a competition. I mean, they don't calculate GPA or class rank. They don't even give letter grades! Who cares how your DC stacks up against specific other kids, older or younger, as long as your DC is happy and learning? Isn't that the point?

Well, if the teacher has a low opinion of your child, it translates to the parents, and that is upsetting. No parent wants to hear a load of negatives. It gets to be a problem if it translates to the child, which is where self esteem issues come up.

[Anonymous]

Then bolster your child's self-esteem if necessary. But whether or not you approve of the reasons for other children being red-shirted? It's none of your business. The parents do not owe you an explanation, nor do they need to compromise their child's privacy in order to get YOUR approval for THEIR parenting decisions.

If you want a homogenous environment where everyone has been sorted according to criteria which meet your approval? Go private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The problem is not how I feel about my child. It's how the teacher views my DD in relation to the 6 1/2 y.o. children in her class. This teacher can't help but compare the kids to each other behaviorally, and a just turned 5 is going to be a good bit more immature than an almost 7 y.o. And that is a problem for my DD and me. All when we were playing by the rules by sending her at the RIGHT time. Sorry, it's not about brilliance or academics at this age. The kids who are smart will be able to do the work, but they will fall behind socially or will be seen as inattentive because COMPARED to the other kids (who are older) the child cannot sit still for as long or cannot form appropriate peer relationships or get bullied. The teacher, as I said, didn't even know how old my child was, she was just comparing her.

NP here. My son has a September birthday, and is (was) in the same boat as your child -- academically strong, but emotionally immature. We redshirted him *gasp*.

Something to consider for you -- maybe she is unfairly comparing your child to those who are 14 months older. But did you stop and consider how much K has changed? When I went to K, we played at the sand table, read books, played dolls, had nap, etc. Nowadays the kids SIT AT THEIR DESKS all day. So, while you are so bitter about having been suckered into "playing by the rules"... I looked at the NEW expectations for K, and decided my son wasn't ready to meet them. And how do you know that the teacher views your child in comparison? Admittedly, that is one possibility. But the other is that the teacher is applying the new K "standard" (i.e., that kids sit at their desks and practice their letters all day). So, another possibility, is that your child, in the abstract, is not ready to meet that standard. That's fine. No shame in that. But, instead of calling all of us redshirting parents "cheaters"... maybe you SHOULD'VE considered holding her back? You say the teacher didn't even know how old your daughter was... well... should she really have known? Should she really be looking up kids' ages and applying different standards for each? I don't think so. If she's doing her job, she should be applying the same standard to each kid... regardless of age.

[Anonymous]

This thread is unbelieveable. What amazes me is that if OP's child was born in September, say, right before the cut-off, there is no doubt in my mind that OP would have red-shirted. I actually do find it a little ridiculous for people to red-shirt their kids with SPRING brithdays, but late summer/early fall. I hardly fault them if they feel that is best for their kids.

By the way, my son just misses the cut-off, so I won't be redshirting, but I'm sure the likes of OP will hate my son anyways b/c he just happens to be bigger and more mature than her son (heaven's forbid he be 6 months older).