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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Let children be where they are best suited for their own development -- not some arbitrary number/birthday.  It's not skin off your back if your child is advanced for his/her age.[/quote]
I agree.  It seems that many want to judge/criticize those who held their children back.  What's the big deal?  Why does it matter so much to them if there's a few kids in the grade who are 3-6 months past the cut-off?  It sounds like some of those will be kids who really do need the extra time for some reason, and most anti-redshirters claim they don't begrudge those decisions.  So what we're really talking about here are maybe 1-2 kids per grade where someone thinks the child shouldn't have been held back.  Why do you care so much about them?  Here are the only reasons I've heard:

(1) "Those poor children will be harmed by being held back!"  This argument is that parents who hold their children back are hurting them, because the child will be bored or his self-esteem will be damaged when he wonders why he's the oldest in the grade.  This argument doesn't make much sense to me.  I assume the parents of these children know their kids better than some anonymous poster, and the parents can best judge what's best for the child.  I don't see how anonymous strangers can predict how an unknown child's self-esteem will develop 10-15 years from now.

(2) "They will prey on young girls!"  This argument is that a boy who is held back at some young grade (K or 1st) will eventually be much older and more mature than his peers when he is in 12th grade, and will inevitably become some sort of sexual predator who will threaten my daughter.  I guess this argument presupposes that when a boy turns 19, he becomes some sort of suave Casanova who is irresistible to high school girls, or perhaps that at age 19 a boy experiences a sudden surge of hormones that makes him unable to control his urges.  Neither strikes me a true, and both strike me as insulting.  A boy who is a predator (and there are some out there) will be a predator no matter what his age, and a girl who is sexually active will be that way no matter how old the boys in her grade are.

(3) It puts my "right aged" child at a competitive disadvantage.  I rarely see any anti-redshirter write this explicitly, but I think this is the real reason driving a lot of the fear/anger.  Despite all the claims that redshirting is ineffective, that it doesn't matter after 3rd grade, and that it actually harms the older child, many parents are afraid it actually works.  And they don't want their own child born in the October-March range to lose the opportunity to be being among the oldest half of the class.  They worry that their sons will be less likely to be the smartest, most athletic, and most confident leaders of the class.  I can actually understand this (usually unspoken) argument; it makes logical sense.  But no one likes to say it out loud, because it shows they're just as crass and competitive as the mom who holds her child back for competitive reasons.

(BTW, before anyone accuses me of being some self-interested redshirter, I'll disclose that my child started school right on time, and is the fourth youngest in the grade.)[/quote]

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