Reply to How to “redshirt” in DC?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kid (boy) is a late September birthday and the top of his class academically. You have no way to tell at 1 how your kid is going to be in school…[/quote]

+1.  It would have been a disaster if we redshirted DS who would be so bored.

My bday is in Sept and I was always the youngest in the class.  No issues.  Did very well in school when I started and all subsequent years.[/quote]

I'm really glad you had a good experience. I feel like there's no truly optimum option for my kid with a summer birthday. She's super smart but shy and a little anxious. Redshirting didn't feel like it made sense because she was academically very ready for kindergarten and already reading on her own. But socially and emotionally I do think she could have used another year of preschool -- she's probably socio-emotionally a bit immature for her age and when you throw in being youngest that starts to look really obvious. So it didn't feel like any solution was an obvious choice.

DC ties your hands. I guess we could have tried to redshirt her in PK but at that time it didn't occur to us -- she was 3 and seemed about as mature as other 3 yr olds at the time. It wasn't until the summer before K that we started to see the merit in another year of PK but by then she was in the system "on time" and was clearly academically ready.

It is what it is. We do our best to support her and give her what she needs. Some teachers are better than others both in terms of providing appropriate academic challenge and recognizing that she is a little behind other kids in stuff like emotional regulation. I'm sure it's not easy for them either.

If we could afford private I'd probably just do that because it's probably the only way to get her what she really needs both academically and socio-emotionally. But we can't so here we are.[/quote]

My kid has a mid-September birthday who is not redshirted.  This past year if it was possible to have a class with one grade lower levels of social and emotional support and a grade accelerated academic work (I.e. K level staffing with 2nd grade content) it would be ideal.  Thankfully our 1st grade teacher was awesome and worked a lot on social-emotional growth with them.  We accept that no collective system can ever be ideal in every instance and every way and just make the best of it.  If they were not academically ready then I think we would have a better argument to redshirt.
[/quote]

This is of course true and also gets to the heart of why parents redshirt and why it's such a hot button topic for some: it is hard to watch your kid struggle. You want to set them up for success. Redshirting feels like a concrete thing you can give them -- an extra year of preparation.

But also watching your kid struggle sometimes is inevitable and redshirting won't change that. Struggle is learning. Learning is the point.[/quote]

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