Reply to A shy 7yr old with an April birthday

Forum Index » Elementary School-Aged Kids

Reply to "A shy 7yr old with an April birthday - 2nd v. 3rd grade"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]An April birthday is in the middle of the year, there’s no way he is the youngest in the class. I have heard of people redshirting kids with September or late August birthdays, but not April. If he is already ahead of the curve academically, he will be bored. And what kind of message does it send that he has to do second grade again because he is shy? He has to keep repeating it until you’re satisfied he plays enough sports at recess? This is just his personality! Let him be who he wants!! He will make new friends in a new place. Sitting through another second grade year is definitely going to do more harm to his self worth and I can’t see anything positive coming from it. [/quote]

April is a common redshirt month now. I have May kids and they are the youngest and have many kids who are over 12 months older than them. [/quote]

I am so curious where people think the line should be drawn. I personally know March redshirted kids. I'm in a moms FB group where more than one mom has asked about redshirting January and February kids and people are validating it as a normal choice.

To be transparent, I'm the PP with a late July girl that went on time and to my knowledge, she's the absolute youngest in her grade. I'm not ANTI redshirt, but I'm not pro-redshirt in the way that many people use redshirting - solely to have their child to be the oldest or "give them the gift of time" (that one is particularly irritating). Certainly there are cases for redshirting - learning disabilities, behavior issues, extreme immaturity - for those that are within a month of two of the cut off. But perfectly typical children that are born 5-6+ months before the cut off (ours is 9/1)... that is just WILD to me and I would be embarrassed to have such little faith in my kid to do this to them.

Is my non-redshirted July kid the smartest in her class? No. But she's smart and works hard. Is she the most mature kid in her grade? No, but pretty close to it. Respectful and responsible. Is she the most talented? I have no idea. Luckily she's in an activity where her actual birthdate matters, not her grade, so she's on an even playing field there. She's even one of the tallest for her grade. Have faith in your kids and send them and know IT'S OK for them to not be the best. [/quote]

I personally think barring a legit disability that requires a doctors note, it should be within 1 month of the cut off. Make it a little harder to do this. My kids are May and there are kids 18m older on their class who were redshirted for sports or the extra boost. It just creates a very uneven playing field and makes the spring/summer kids appear behind or immature when they are being compared to 7 year olds in K. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics