Reply to My son's kindergarten class has several 7 yr olds in it.

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]And I think that if everyone sent their kids at the same time, you'd actually see a greater spread. Parents generally decide to hold kids back because they're concerned that their kids would be outliers in a classroom full of age-mates.[/quote]

I'm the poster you quote, and we will just have to agree to disagree. Like some of the PPs have mentioned I know many people who hold their kids back for "the gift of time", to "be a leader" and MANY of them "because that is what you do with boys here". I do know a few people who have held their children back for various developmental reasons and I'm not sure it was a good thing in those cases either. [i]For the people I know[/i], it led to their children being diagnosed with various issues (ADHD, dyslexia, dysgraphia, HFA) at a later age than they probably would have been diagnosed earlier if they had been sent on time.

I don't deny that parents should have options, but I think that this is not an option without consequences for the children and for their classmates.[/quote]

Again, my question has been how do the classmates suffer?  I don't see it.  (And my DC is the classmate in these scenarios).  I'd rather have her in a class where everyone's basically ready for the work.  And the kids who are beyond ready for the work at these schools are usually way beyond ready so the "gift of time" doesn't move those given it to the head of the class.  At best, it just lets them be competent from the start rather than begin school poised for failure.  And if that kid does soar later, it's not because he's a year older.  It's because he's gifted or talented.

Sounds like the phenomenon you're seeing (and I'm not -- but I'm certainly willing to believe you that it exists) is parents who think that one year's delay will transform their kid from slightly behind the curve to master of their private school universe.  Not happening.  (Which is part of the reason why I don't see much validity to the notion that this practice puts other kids at a competitive disadvantage.)

It would be interesting to do a study to figure out whether early redshirting ends up being highly correlated with a later gifted/LD diagnosis.  At ages 4-7 it could be difficult to separate asynchronous normal development from a GT/LD situation.  That said, it's not clear that accurate diagnosis of kids in the latter category would have happened any earlier had they not been red-shirted.  
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