mad - kid in kindergarten has late birthday

[Anonymous]

I live in an area that did half grades in the period from the 1930s-1950s or so. I’ve never seen a full explanation for it, but the concept was that everyone was grouped in 6 month cohorts instead of year-long cohorts. It was before mandatory kindergarten.

I think it would be better for kids like the ones that are not quite ready for K but would be bored by the spring of a repeated PreK year, but I’m sure redshirting would mess that up, too. But anyway: imagine some kids starting K in September and others starting in Feb/March.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of my concerns would be if the teacher has skewed expectations of a five year old because her classroom is full of redshirted 7 yo kids, which was true in my sons classroom.

The system has a skewed expectation of 5-year-olds. Remember when K was finger painting and naps? Redshirting didn't cause this change. If anything, redshirting is a response to this change.

+2000

[Anonymous]

Why does it bother you? And how does it even remotely affect your kid? May be the kid was sick and missed starting on time, may be his parents took the year off enjoyed their time living on the beach. Whatever reason, it doesn’t really affect you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live in an area that did half grades in the period from the 1930s-1950s or so. I’ve never seen a full explanation for it, but the concept was that everyone was grouped in 6 month cohorts instead of year-long cohorts. It was before mandatory kindergarten.

I think it would be better for kids like the ones that are not quite ready for K but would be bored by the spring of a repeated PreK year, but I’m sure redshirting would mess that up, too. But anyway: imagine some kids starting K in September and others starting in Feb/March.

I would have loved this. My kid (see my post above) was over preschool and soooo excited for a kinder by the end of the 5s class.
He truly needed extra time. Not for an academics but for a little behavior and school expectations. In 4s Participation - he was always tending in the back and not participating during songs. In 5s, he was actively involved and not standing aloof at the back.

If he had started Kinder at a hypothetical staggered start, I’d even be happy to do some summer leading into First grade.

[Anonymous]

I worked with a kid a few years ago who was one of the smallest and most immature kids in the second grade, he was also literally the oldest kid in the entire second grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it op. My late-August birthday girl was called a baby and told she belonged in pre-k because she was still 5 in the late spring of her kindergarten year, by the 7 year olds in the class. Blatant red-shirting skews the dynamics.

You sent a 4 year old to kindergarten?

NP here. I was 4 when I went to kindergarten. Fall birthday and the cut off was 12/31. My daughter (now in MS) has classmates who were 4 for the first month of K, and they're a couple of the most intelligent kids in the grade honestly.

Same. I have a November birthday and was 4 when I started. Now people act like that's crazy. It was fine.

Same here, I am a November baby and was always the youngest in my class. Attended a 7 sisters, and Ivy grad.
My November baby also started K as a 4 year old. 15 year old junior in high school now and scoring near 1500 on the SAT. The kids can handle the work if they have the talent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it op. My late-August birthday girl was called a baby and told she belonged in pre-k because she was still 5 in the late spring of her kindergarten year, by the 7 year olds in the class. Blatant red-shirting skews the dynamics.

You sent a 4 year old to kindergarten?

NP here. I was 4 when I went to kindergarten. Fall birthday and the cut off was 12/31. My daughter (now in MS) has classmates who were 4 for the first month of K, and they're a couple of the most intelligent kids in the grade honestly.

Same. I have a November birthday and was 4 when I started. Now people act like that's crazy. It was fine.

Same here, I am a November baby and was always the youngest in my class. Attended a 7 sisters, and Ivy grad.
My November baby also started K as a 4 year old. 15 year old junior in high school now and scoring near 1500 on the SAT. The kids can handle the work if they have the talent.

I think being the youngest gives you the lifelong skills of concentrating more and working harder. My sibling and I are exactly 12 months apart, but we were two years apart in school. We are both mid September birthdays. I went to kindergarten at 4, Sibling was redshirted. Sibling tested to a much higher IQ than I did, but I did much, much better in school. I also went Ivy, etc.

Sibling rested on laurels and got very bored with school being so easy.

But the big caveat is that Sibling was more emotionally mature and developed better social skills. I was an insecure nerd, Sibling was very confident and popular.

So, I’m really on the fence about redshirting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it op. My late-August birthday girl was called a baby and told she belonged in pre-k because she was still 5 in the late spring of her kindergarten year, by the 7 year olds in the class. Blatant red-shirting skews the dynamics.

You sent a 4 year old to kindergarten?

NP here. I was 4 when I went to kindergarten. Fall birthday and the cut off was 12/31. My daughter (now in MS) has classmates who were 4 for the first month of K, and they're a couple of the most intelligent kids in the grade honestly.

Same. I have a November birthday and was 4 when I started. Now people act like that's crazy. It was fine.

Same here, I am a November baby and was always the youngest in my class. Attended a 7 sisters, and Ivy grad.
My November baby also started K as a 4 year old. 15 year old junior in high school now and scoring near 1500 on the SAT. The kids can handle the work if they have the talent.

I think being the youngest gives you the lifelong skills of concentrating more and working harder. My sibling and I are exactly 12 months apart, but we were two years apart in school. We are both mid September birthdays. I went to kindergarten at 4, Sibling was redshirted. Sibling tested to a much higher IQ than I did, but I did much, much better in school. I also went Ivy, etc.

Sibling rested on laurels and got very bored with school being so easy.

But the big caveat is that Sibling was more emotionally mature and developed better social skills. I was an insecure nerd, Sibling was very confident and popular.

So, I’m really on the fence about redshirting.

I have a late August birthday and was sent as a new 5, and my September born brother was redshirted. We had the same experience/outcome as you two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it op. My late-August birthday girl was called a baby and told she belonged in pre-k because she was still 5 in the late spring of her kindergarten year, by the 7 year olds in the class. Blatant red-shirting skews the dynamics.

You sent a 4 year old to kindergarten?

NP here. I was 4 when I went to kindergarten. Fall birthday and the cut off was 12/31. My daughter (now in MS) has classmates who were 4 for the first month of K, and they're a couple of the most intelligent kids in the grade honestly.

Same. I have a November birthday and was 4 when I started. Now people act like that's crazy. It was fine.

Same here, I am a November baby and was always the youngest in my class. Attended a 7 sisters, and Ivy grad.
My November baby also started K as a 4 year old. 15 year old junior in high school now and scoring near 1500 on the SAT. The kids can handle the work if they have the talent.

I think being the youngest gives you the lifelong skills of concentrating more and working harder. My sibling and I are exactly 12 months apart, but we were two years apart in school. We are both mid September birthdays. I went to kindergarten at 4, Sibling was redshirted. Sibling tested to a much higher IQ than I did, but I did much, much better in school. I also went Ivy, etc.

Sibling rested on laurels and got very bored with school being so easy.

But the big caveat is that Sibling was more emotionally mature and developed better social skills. I was an insecure nerd, Sibling was very confident and popular.

So, I’m really on the fence about redshirting.

Eh, birth order often plays a huge role in academic performance too. But, I also can’t imagine looking at the data point in your second to last paragraph and NOT wanting to redshirt my kid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, a LOT of people redshirted young kids during Covid and I don’t blame anyone for doing what they thought was best for their kid. Others make their choice for a variety of other reasons.

Current kindergarteners were toddlers during COVID, school COVID closures have nothing to do with those redshirting choices.

That said, it's even odds that he got held back for developmental/behavioral/medical reasons, and not just parent choice. No way to know unless the parents have told you, so seems premature to be angry over it.

Not necessarily, a lot of those toddlers missed out on normal preschool or day care experiences and haven't had the social opportunities that the kids before them had. I'm not mad about it.

Here's the problem with the COVID argument:

All kids who were toddlers/PK age during COVID experienced that. Redshirting for COVID thus makes no sense and is actually an argument against redshirting -- it's better for these kids who had this weird experience at the same time to enter school as a cohort and deal with the that weirdness together.

If you redshirt a kid who missed out on a normal PK or daycare experience during Covid, what are you doing? You are putting an older kid with a social deficiency into a classroom of younger kids who don't share that deficiency, because they were able to attend PK after Covid and the most severe Covid restrictions were over. Who does that help? Not the older kid who will now be expected to acclimate to this classroom of kids who are technically less mature but also more socially adapted. And not the younger kids who now have a bigger, older kid in their midst who might struggle more than they do with social skills. It's a lose-lose.

As is often the case, redshirting like this is designed to afford one kid a small advantage and instead just winds up screwing up whole classroom dynamics and making everything a little bit worse for a bunch of kids.

Honestly, just sent your kid on time, absent extenuating circumstances. Unless you've got a doctor or a teacher saying "they aren't ready," they probably are, even if they are on the young side or had a weird preschool experience.

You realize most of the parents have talked to doctors and teachers already about the best course of action? People are going to do what's best for their kid, not yours. If your kid is only in kindergarten you have a lot to learn.

I was responding to the comments from people saying that a lot of currently redshirted kids were redshirted due to Covid. Not because a teacher or a doctor suggested it, but simply because they didn't want to send their kid to kindergarten in a mask, or their kid missed out on normal preschool due to Covid. So actually I'm talking specifically about people who are making a personal judgment call, not a choice based on consultations with teachers and doctors.

And my whole points is that if this is your reasoning, it's not actually best for your kid. The best thing for your kid would be to send them to school with their age cohort who had the same weird COVID experience in their toddler/preschool years. If COVID impacted social development for these kids, and I think it very well may have, then it actually makes sense to keep them together and address those issues as a group.

Redshirting in this sort of situation is misguided. It's this belief that simply more time in preschool or at home will address a deficiency and make your kid "on target." But the truth is that kindergarten is actually already designed to address a lot of those deficiencies, that's the whole point. All you are doing is delaying your child's access to tools that will help them get back on track, and you're doing it in a way that is disruptive for other kids too.

Also my kids are much older than kindergarten. I'm speaking from extensive experience working with ECE kids and as a parent to two kids, one of whom had developmental delays and has ADHD.

So you have no skin in the game. Got it. I redshirted one kid for reasons that are nobody’s business and the other two went on time. All are doing great. No regrets. I would never take or seek advice on this from busybody strangers from dcurbanmoms. Get over yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why does it bother you? And how does it even remotely affect your kid? May be the kid was sick and missed starting on time, may be his parents took the year off enjoyed their time living on the beach. Whatever reason, it doesn’t really affect you.

Not OP but redshirting impacts the other kids in the cohort. You can claim up and down that it's just a personal choice and no one else's business, but if it actually had no impact on other kids, no one would complain about it.

The reason redshirting is controversial is that a lot of us have had experiences of our on time kids being in classrooms that were dysfunctional, had behavioral issues, or where behavioral expectations did not make sense for kids were were enrolled on the schedule the school set out as "on time." And at root of this was a number of redshirted kids in the classroom. It changes the school environment.

Most parents (including those that redshirt), if given the option of sending their kid to a kindergarten classroom where a substantial number of the kids are more than a year older than their kid, would be opposed. I mean, isn't this exactly the reasoning behind a lot of redshirting choices? They don't want their kid to be significantly younger than the oldest kids in class.

Well guess what, I don't want that either. But redshirting parents put me in a situation where in order to get that, I would have to redshirt. And at that point, why not just have all the kids start K at 6? But then you get the same problem all over again.

Redshirting parents, other than situation where a child has a serious delay or other extenuating circumstance, are cheating. They are ensuring their kids don't have to be in a classroom with kids 9-10 months older than them, and in so doing, they are forcing other people's kids to be in a classroom with kids who are 13+ months older. It's selfish and antisocial and that's why people don't like it. So go ahead and reshirt, but don't expect use to pat you on the back for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does it bother you? And how does it even remotely affect your kid? May be the kid was sick and missed starting on time, may be his parents took the year off enjoyed their time living on the beach. Whatever reason, it doesn’t really affect you.

Not OP but redshirting impacts the other kids in the cohort. You can claim up and down that it's just a personal choice and no one else's business, but if it actually had no impact on other kids, no one would complain about it.

The reason redshirting is controversial is that a lot of us have had experiences of our on time kids being in classrooms that were dysfunctional, had behavioral issues, or where behavioral expectations did not make sense for kids were were enrolled on the schedule the school set out as "on time." And at root of this was a number of redshirted kids in the classroom. It changes the school environment.

Most parents (including those that redshirt), if given the option of sending their kid to a kindergarten classroom where a substantial number of the kids are more than a year older than their kid, would be opposed. I mean, isn't this exactly the reasoning behind a lot of redshirting choices? They don't want their kid to be significantly younger than the oldest kids in class.

Well guess what, I don't want that either. But redshirting parents put me in a situation where in order to get that, I would have to redshirt. And at that point, why not just have all the kids start K at 6? But then you get the same problem all over again.

Redshirting parents, other than situation where a child has a serious delay or other extenuating circumstance, are cheating. They are ensuring their kids don't have to be in a classroom with kids 9-10 months older than them, and in so doing, they are forcing other people's kids to be in a classroom with kids who are 13+ months older. It's selfish and antisocial and that's why people don't like it. So go ahead and reshirt, but don't expect use to pat you on the back for it.

Your kid’s problems are not due to the redshirting kids. Stop blaming others.

[Anonymous]

I hate redshirts. They turn all my white socks pink.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does it bother you? And how does it even remotely affect your kid? May be the kid was sick and missed starting on time, may be his parents took the year off enjoyed their time living on the beach. Whatever reason, it doesn’t really affect you.

Not OP but redshirting impacts the other kids in the cohort. You can claim up and down that it's just a personal choice and no one else's business, but if it actually had no impact on other kids, no one would complain about it.

The reason redshirting is controversial is that a lot of us have had experiences of our on time kids being in classrooms that were dysfunctional, had behavioral issues, or where behavioral expectations did not make sense for kids were were enrolled on the schedule the school set out as "on time." And at root of this was a number of redshirted kids in the classroom. It changes the school environment.

Most parents (including those that redshirt), if given the option of sending their kid to a kindergarten classroom where a substantial number of the kids are more than a year older than their kid, would be opposed. I mean, isn't this exactly the reasoning behind a lot of redshirting choices? They don't want their kid to be significantly younger than the oldest kids in class.

Well guess what, I don't want that either. But redshirting parents put me in a situation where in order to get that, I would have to redshirt. And at that point, why not just have all the kids start K at 6? But then you get the same problem all over again.

Redshirting parents, other than situation where a child has a serious delay or other extenuating circumstance, are cheating. They are ensuring their kids don't have to be in a classroom with kids 9-10 months older than them, and in so doing, they are forcing other people's kids to be in a classroom with kids who are 13+ months older. It's selfish and antisocial and that's why people don't like it. So go ahead and reshirt, but don't expect use to pat you on the back for it.

Citation that redshirting is the root of behavior issues in the classroom? Got a link to that opinion?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another day, another "my kid should be protected from the redshirts" thread.

Your kid is going to have to be in a classroom with older kids, younger kids, smarter kids, dumber kids, meaner kids, athletic kids, nerdy kids, disruptive kids, smelly kids, kids whose parents have different rules than you, kids whose parents provide them extra tutoring, and the list goes on. Your kid will be fine. Education is not a zero sum game. The schools aren't going to outlaw this perceived moral outrage because it's not a moral outrage. It is a parent deciding for whatever reason that this was the best choice for their kid. They aren’t making parenting decisions for you and you don’t get to make parenting decisions for them. You can judge that all you want on an anonymous forum but if you try to make your case to the schools, they will nod politely and explain the rules to you, and perhaps write a note in the file so other teachers know what to expect from you. You have no substantive grounds for being appalled by this. Plenty of educators think it is developmentally appropriate in many instances for many different reasons. The K enrollment rules are structured to allow this, and there is no evidence-based reason why this should change.

To sum up: you are ridiculous.

No, parents who hold back (“redshirt”) their non-SN kids so they’re seven freaking years old in kindergarten are ridiculous. DP