Reply to Did a 180 and decided to redshirt my child- question for parents who decided to do the same

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[quote=Anonymous]I decided to redshirt my child who was born in May. I was originally staunchly opposed but our last year of prek changed my mind.  We had 4 redshirts in the class and my observations and experiences showed me it would be better for my child to be older than younger.

This is not going to be a debate on redshirting, but rather I want to know if you are asked questions or if you are ever asked about your child's age. If you are, how do you handle it? I was hoping it would be a nonissue. I know my son has friends that are 3, 4, 5, 6, and even 8 and 9! I didn't think it would matter to other families if I let my child go to preschool twice. I don't feel like explaining my reasoning for our family decision to every parent who may press the issue on me.

I am not ashamed of my child and want to feel natural and good about his school experience. My child is bright and excels in math and sports. He can compete athletically with children 10 months older and in math he is doing 1st grade work. I am not giving him another year of prek because he is slow or isn't athletically inclined.

I am only doing bc my child did not like being younger and hated hearing all year long how he was still 4 while others were 5 most of the year. Also, the director at his current school is strongly pro redshirting and suggests it for boys, even April. Actually, she doesn't use any month as a cutoff. Lastly my son never did a full-day and he isn't ready for a full-day yet. He's also very innocent and kind/gentle- he doesn't hit or name-call and he's very compassionate.. so I didn't think I needed to worry about him turning into a bully. He usually helps younger children or new children and his teacher said she thought his citizenship skills were his strongest attribute. She said another year would improve his fine motor skills and give him another year to play and mature (he is a class clown and doesn't sit still).  As a mom, it makes me feel good to know that if there is a bully in the class, he/she likely won't be older than m child and won't be able to hurt him/her.

Although most of the children significantly older were kind to my child- two were cruel. My child had rocks thrown at him and had his hair cut during craft-time. He was called names and so on. My child tried to fight them and did well with the one but the age advantage was just too much. I realized I don't like aggressive kids with power over my kid. I'd rather my child be older. I don't have to worry about my child being mean and if he ever is- I will discipline him bc I will not tolerate a bad boy! Trying to raise a good church-boy here. ;)  His morality and character are even more important to me than his intelligence or athletic ability. I noticed the older aggressive children influenced my child to be slightly less nice/kind and I didn't like the effect it had on him. We prayed about it and I got him to forgive the children but I could see it was hard for him to hold back.

My concern is with our new school community - a mother commented my child was fast and good at soccer- she then said her son was born in November and how she wished she could have sent him earlier and she lamented he had to wait a while year to go to school. Her son was not very physical and had trouble even using the playground equipment. She then asked me what month my son was born in and I said May. She then said, "Oh so he must have turned 4 in May then? She was just pressing the issue even though it was apparent I wanted to end the conversation.

I don't want to share everything I just shared on this post with new parents or even new friends. I'd rather other parents just not ask or def not grill me about it. How can I do this? How do I do birthdays? I like having big birthdays and I still want to proud when my child turns 6, 7, 8, etc thoughout his school career. Should I try to hide his age or just have a short quick answer ready? I was thinking of saying we might move back to a state I grew up in- which now has a 31 July cutoff. I thought about mentioning my son was bon early by csection (true).

I just really don't want to go into this long explanation about our personal experiences. At the same time I don't want other parents to think ill of my child or me. Some people are very opposed to redshirting.

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