Anonymous wrote:Friendly acquaintance posted a "back to school" pic of her son complete with his age (6.75 years) and grade (Junior First/ Prep First/ whatever your private school calls it). This little boy has a late fall birthday!!! He is going to be almost 8 years old when he starts first grade. Meanwhile, my child has a July birthday and I cannot afford private so he will be starting K right after he turns 5 and starting first right after he turns 6. He and this child are going to be almost 2 full years apart while in the same grade. I KNOW, it doesn't affect me in the slightest especially since he isn't even at my child's school. But it makes me so angry! My child is a little socially immature and I am worried he is not only going to be chronologically the youngest when he starts real school but he is going to be socially young for his age too, making it so much harder for him if his classroom is full of kids who are 7 when he is only 5. Ugh. Vent over. Side note- does anyone know if redshirting is as prevalent in public schools?

This is not about the kid redshirted, this is about your insecurity about you kid being too immature and you too cheap to give him the gift of a year. Your kid will be be behind and that's your choice.

Anonymous wrote:I feel like the adhd studies are making my head hurt. I think the younger kids are being over diagnosed and the older kids are being under diagnosed.
And I don’t understand the Finnish or Danish studies saying allowing liberal redshirting decreases the # of adhd diagnoses. Doesn’t someone still have to be the youngest? And won’t those kids still be at risk for adhd diagnosis? Or at least in the way the system is set up in the US without universal preschool or other school options for every single kid who is “not ready”?

There's not a lot of rationality in DCUM redshirting threads, but I'll try to answer this seriously, as somebody who has closely read these studies, and has also read many of the available studies on redshirting (such as they are). I also have graduate-level statistics training and a graduate engineering degree, so I'm reasonably well-trained in reading academic studies.

The people who are saying that the Danish ADHD study justifies redshirting are incorrect. That study does not do that, any more than the other ADHD studies are an argument for or against redshirting. However, that study is interesting in that it's one of the few large population cohort studies that did not find a relative age impact concerning ADHD diagnosis and/or medication prescription. This is interesting, because the link between relative age and ADHD diagnosis and/or medication prescription has been repeated across several other populations (Canada, US, Iceland, Portugal, etc.). These are generally studies across large cohorts and are for the most part statistically sound. The Danish study, for instance, covered nearly 1 million children for more than a decade.

The reason that the Danish study did not replicate the results across other populations is not known, but the researchers themselves, in their paper, posited two reasons: 1) That Danish schools have a high proportion of relatively young children with delayed school entry and 2) Denmark has relatively low prescribing rates of medication for ADHD to children. To quote their conclusion exactly:

In conclusion, we found that in most recent years the use of medication for ADHD in Denmark is not particularly affected by children's relative age in class. This may be related to the relatively low use of ADHD medication the country and the highly prevailing custom of delaying school entry for relatively young children.

You're right that somebody has to be the youngest, but what the researchers are positing here isn't about whether somebody is the youngest, it's whether allowing a high proportion of delayed entry has an ameliorating effect on later ADHD diagnosis. By implication, Danish schools tend to have broader age ranges in classrooms, and don't have rigid cutoff dates for entry.

The actual study is here if you want to read it, and some of the other studies are linked from this one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4277337/

FWIW, I have never read any statistically valid studies that show documented significant harm or long-term significant benefit from redshirting, but it's possible they're out there. I have read a lot of these studies and my conclusion is that the effect from redshirting largely seems to be neutral overall, and is also statistically fairly rare. In general I see nothing (no academic research, at least) to remotely validate the enormous amount of frothing and angst about the topic on DCUM. There is nothing that I've seen that solidly links redshirting to all of the outcomes DCUM posters claim will result one way or the other (positive or negative). Personally I have concluded that worry about redshirting is a stand-in for significant social anxiety, but I have no study to back that up, of course! I don't expect any amount of rational discussion will actually change minds because this isn't a discussion based in reason, for the most part.

Anonymous wrote:Is it really holding back, or mostly parents not letting go? I wonder.

You know. I think it is mostly parents doing what is right by their kids. I have two boys with June birthdays. One I sent to K when he was 6, and one I sent to K when he was 5. I didn't have to agonize over the decision at all with either child. It was very obvious.

The only people that seem distraught by this are people who did not hold their kids another year for whatever reason (seems mostly financial), and are worried that they did the wrong thing by their child.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting is an athletic term applied to the keeping of an athlete out of college competition for a year in order to develop the athlete's skills and extend their period of playing eligibility. The term has crept into the early education field as the practice of postponing entrance into kindergarten of age-eligible children in order to allow extra time for socioemotional, intellectual, or physical growth. But there is a problem here: in athletics, yes, redshirting may be used to give an advantage to the team by keeping an older, stronger or more skilled player around longer. That concept simply DOES NOT APPLY to classes. Read the definition; the child's entry is being postponed in order to give the child a chance to grow up as needed. It will have little to no impact on your kid. Grades are not comparative or competitive in K, 1 or 2. And the research show that whatever early advantage slightly older kids might have washes out after a few years (usually by 5-6th grades.)
Don't worry about it. Your kid will be fine.

There was a study recently showing that advantages of starting school later sustain through HS and into adulthood.

citation please

http://www.nber.org/papers/w23660

Is it really holding back, or mostly parents not letting go? I wonder.

Anonymous wrote:Why don't we all just hold our kids back a year? Oh wait, then someone will want to hold their kid back another year, and then it keeps going on and on, and soon, we'll have 10 year olds in K, and 23 year college freshmens who still need their parents to talk to the professors about their grades, and negotiate their pay for their very first jobs.

Lol

My world bank and imf friends laugh so hard at this U.S. hold-back thing.

Wouldn’t it be better to hold back after middle school and get another year in or real material and a sport? Like the kids who go to boarding school and repeat year 9 or 10?

But 5 and 6 yos, jajajjaja

So the kid will turn 19 early on senior year of HS??

Anonymous wrote:or maybe the Danish study is inapplicable because the culture is NOT COMPARABLE to the US?

There's no silver bullet research. There's certainly no research showing redshirting hurts other kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like the adhd studies are making my head hurt. I think the younger kids are being over diagnosed and the older kids are being under diagnosed.
And I don’t understand the Finnish or Danish studies saying allowing liberal redshirting decreases the # of adhd diagnoses. Doesn’t someone still have to be the youngest? And won’t those kids still be at risk for adhd diagnosis? Or at least in the way the system is set up in the US without universal preschool or other school options for every single kid who is “not ready”?

The Danish study indicates it's just better to delay formal schooling (or let the parents liberally self-select to delay.)

Obviously the Danish study is inapplicable because generally schools in the US allow liberal redshirting and yet still have very high rates of diagnosed ADHD.

In the Danish study a much higher proportion of kids redshirted.

Damn I was 5 when I started first grade (October birthday, turned 6 soon after)

Eureka! The answer to wild success is to redshirt your kid no matter what, AND, get an ADHD diagnosis for meds and extra testing time! Ivy League sports and major here we come!

or maybe the Danish study is inapplicable because the culture is NOT COMPARABLE to the US?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like the adhd studies are making my head hurt. I think the younger kids are being over diagnosed and the older kids are being under diagnosed.
And I don’t understand the Finnish or Danish studies saying allowing liberal redshirting decreases the # of adhd diagnoses. Doesn’t someone still have to be the youngest? And won’t those kids still be at risk for adhd diagnosis? Or at least in the way the system is set up in the US without universal preschool or other school options for every single kid who is “not ready”?

The Danish study indicates it's just better to delay formal schooling (or let the parents liberally self-select to delay.)

Obviously the Danish study is inapplicable because generally schools in the US allow liberal redshirting and yet still have very high rates of diagnosed ADHD.

Anonymous wrote:I feel like the adhd studies are making my head hurt. I think the younger kids are being over diagnosed and the older kids are being under diagnosed.
And I don’t understand the Finnish or Danish studies saying allowing liberal redshirting decreases the # of adhd diagnoses. Doesn’t someone still have to be the youngest? And won’t those kids still be at risk for adhd diagnosis? Or at least in the way the system is set up in the US without universal preschool or other school options for every single kid who is “not ready”?

The Danish study indicates it's just better to delay formal schooling (or let the parents liberally self-select to delay.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Sigh. No one cares.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both situations.

If you don't care don't read and don't post. The headline was very clear. And speak for yourself. I care and agree with OP.

Because I was skipped ahead and did fine.
Because my son was held back due to developmental delays then skipped ahead and is fine.
Because my cousin was skipped ahead two grades and is fine.
Because my other cousin was held back one year and is fine.

IT WILL MAKE NO DIFFERENCE WHEN THEY ARE ADULTS.

You guys need perspective so badly. No wonder it's a political cacophony as well. Everything is so dramatic and nasty nowadays. Calm down.