Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why aren't the rules the rules? Why isn't the deadline hard and fast?

The cut-off in our area is September 1st, and DS was born September 9th. At first, we were somewhat relieved that he would have to wait till he was almost 6, but in the months leading up to his 5th birthday, it was very clear that he was ready for K and that waiting another year would drive him crazy. So we had him take an early entrance and he passed with flying colors, so he started kindergarten right before he turned 5. So technically, we didn't follow the rules either. Why? Because if we had just blindly followed the guidelines, he would be bored to tears. He's now 8 and in 3rd grade, reading at a 5th grade level, gets his work done early, and his teacher still has to find extra work to give him. I can't imagine what it would be like if he were in 2nd grade. The bottom line is that not one size fits all. If we had a child who made the cut-off, but had not been ready for K, we would have held him or her back. Kids need to be grouped by ability, not age. Just because a child misses the cut-off does not mean that he or she isn't ready for K, and just because a child makes the cut-off does not mean that he or she is ready for K. It all boils down to the individual.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why aren't the rules the rules? Why isn't the deadline hard and fast?

The cut-off in our area is September 1st, and DS was born September 9th. At first, we were somewhat relieved that he would have to wait till he was almost 6, but in the months leading up to his 5th birthday, it was very clear that he was ready for K and that waiting another year would drive him crazy. So we had him take an early entrance and he passed with flying colors, so he started kindergarten right before he turned 5. So technically, we didn't follow the rules either. Why? Because if we had just blindly followed the guidelines, he would be bored to tears. He's now 8 and in 3rd grade, reading at a 5th grade level, gets his work done early, and his teacher still has to find extra work to give him. I can't imagine what it would be like if he were in 2nd grade. The bottom line is that not one size fits all. If we had a child who made the cut-off, but had not been ready for K, we would have held him or her back. Kids need to be grouped by ability, not age. Just because a child misses the cut-off does not mean that he or she isn't ready for K, and just because a child makes the cut-off does not mean that he or she is ready for K. It all boils down to the individual.

Anonymous wrote:Why aren't the rules the rules? Why isn't the deadline hard and fast?

Anonymous wrote:

Clearly that PP is over the top, but I don't follow your logic.
Your redshirted kid is "reading above grade level for first grade - even though he should be in 2nd grade"
So he would be doing great in 2nd grade - on grade level and at the appropriate age. So in what possible sense did you do what's best for your child? Unless you consider what's best to be ABOVE the rest of the class, instead of exactly where he should be.

Work on your reading comprehension. That is not what she said. She did not say he was doing "great".......she said he was reading above level--she didn't address other issues.

Clearly that PP is over the top, but I don't follow your logic.
Your redshirted kid is "reading above grade level for first grade - even though he should be in 2nd grade"
So he would be doing great in 2nd grade - on grade level and at the appropriate age. So in what possible sense did you do what's best for your child? Unless you consider what's best to be ABOVE the rest of the class, instead of exactly where he should be.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I shun all redshirters, parents and children alike. The situation has gotten COMPLETELY out of hand, and nothing will change until these people are made to feel like social pariahs. In my experience almost ALL normal parents feel this way, but they'll only say it when the redshirt family isn't around. So congrats on your gigantic 7 year old kindergartner.

"

My son is a May child. He is 7 and in first grade. He went through Infants and Toddlers for speech and OT and now he's reading above grade level for first grade - even though he should be in 2nd grade.

Are you faulting me for doing what's best for MY child?

If that's the case, then I say - AS AN EDUCATOR - that you have absolutely no goddamn training to "evaluate" my child.

Furthermore, if you're an example of "normal," I'm glad to be a pariah in your eyes.

Good luck with your own kids, genius. I'm sure you're a stellar parent.

Clearly that PP is over the top, but I don't follow your logic.
Your redshirted kid is "reading above grade level for first grade - even though he should be in 2nd grade"
So he would be doing great in 2nd grade - on grade level and at the appropriate age. So in what possible sense did you do what's best for your child? Unless you consider what's best to be ABOVE the rest of the class, instead of exactly where he should be.

Are you saying he's going to turn EIGHT in first grade? That's crazy.
My son is also in first grade. He will turn seven in April. I can't imagine him having an eight year old sitting in class next to him.

I shun all redshirters, parents and children alike. The situation has gotten COMPLETELY out of hand, and nothing will change until these people are made to feel like social pariahs. In my experience almost ALL normal parents feel this way, but they'll only say it when the redshirt family isn't around. So congrats on your gigantic 7 year old kindergartner.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I shun all redshirters, parents and children alike. The situation has gotten COMPLETELY out of hand, and nothing will change until these people are made to feel like social pariahs. In my experience almost ALL normal parents feel this way, but they'll only say it when the redshirt family isn't around. So congrats on your gigantic 7 year old kindergartner.

"

My son is a May child. He is 7 and in first grade. He went through Infants and Toddlers for speech and OT and now he's reading above grade level for first grade - even though he should be in 2nd grade.

Are you faulting me for doing what's best for MY child?

If that's the case, then I say - AS AN EDUCATOR - that you have absolutely no goddamn training to "evaluate" my child.

Furthermore, if you're an example of "normal," I'm glad to be a pariah in your eyes.

Good luck with your own kids, genius. I'm sure you're a stellar parent.

Anonymous wrote:I shun all redshirters, parents and children alike. The situation has gotten COMPLETELY out of hand, and nothing will change until these people are made to feel like social pariahs. In my experience almost ALL normal parents feel this way, but they'll only say it when the redshirt family isn't around. So congrats on your gigantic 7 year old kindergartner.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I shun all redshirters, parents and children alike. The situation has gotten COMPLETELY out of hand, and nothing will change until these people are made to feel like social pariahs. In my experience almost ALL normal parents feel this way, but they'll only say it when the redshirt family isn't around. So congrats on your gigantic 7 year old kindergartner.

I guess this explains the nasty looks for my 99th percentile DS who went to school on time. And the utter shock when his b-day party invitations go out in March.

Ummm, not really. People know how old kids in their classes are. Do you not? If so I'm sorry that your 99 percenter is stuck in an overcrowded class with no sense of community so you don't even know the ages of the other kids. How unfortunate.

Anyway, he must be getting nasty looks for some other reason...

I'm a different poster, but just wanted to say that kids don't always know ages.

My kid was the youngest in the class with an August birthday and was also the tallest. He was in the highest reading and math pullout groups in K and first grade. People just assumed that he was older because of his height and academic groupings. Every year when the birthday invitations went out, people were surprised that he was actually months younger than their kids. Parents would always comment to me that they had thought we had held him back since he was so much more mature than the other kids and they'd had no idea he was actually the youngest.

I understand your point but many of us really do know the age of our kids classmates as we talk to their parents and know from them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I shun all redshirters, parents and children alike. The situation has gotten COMPLETELY out of hand, and nothing will change until these people are made to feel like social pariahs. In my experience almost ALL normal parents feel this way, but they'll only say it when the redshirt family isn't around. So congrats on your gigantic 7 year old kindergartner.

I guess this explains the nasty looks for my 99th percentile DS who went to school on time. And the utter shock when his b-day party invitations go out in March.

Ummm, not really. People know how old kids in their classes are. Do you not? If so I'm sorry that your 99 percenter is stuck in an overcrowded class with no sense of community so you don't even know the ages of the other kids. How unfortunate.

Anyway, he must be getting nasty looks for some other reason...

I'm a different poster, but just wanted to say that kids don't always know ages.

My kid was the youngest in the class with an August birthday and was also the tallest. He was in the highest reading and math pullout groups in K and first grade. People just assumed that he was older because of his height and academic groupings. Every year when the birthday invitations went out, people were surprised that he was actually months younger than their kids. Parents would always comment to me that they had thought we had held him back since he was so much more mature than the other kids and they'd had no idea he was actually the youngest.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's really bothering me about a lot of the anti-redshirting parents is that there reasons for being against redshirting have nothing to do with how it harms the redshirted child, but rather how it harms THEIR child. My son has an August birthday, and I saw absolutely no reason to redshirt him, as I felt he was ready and that holding holding him back would just make him bored and stunt his development. I also didn't want to delay his entry into the real world for no good reason. Not wanting him to have an unfair advantage over his classmates was NOT one of my reasons. If I thought that redshirting him would have benefited him somehow, I would have done it. As parents, it's our job to do what's best for our child, not other people's children. If you're against redshirting because you think it affects the redshirted child, then I'm all ears, but many of these parents made it clear that they felt redshirting would negatively affect their child, and didn't say anything about how it would negatively affect the redshirted child. If you don't think redshirting has any negative affect on the redshirted child, then it is selfish for you to be against it. If you feel like other parents redshirting puts your child at a disadvantage, you also have the option of redshirting. To sum it up, if you're against redshirting, you have to think of ways in which it negatively affects the redshirted child, and if you don't think redshirting has any negative affects on the redshirted child, you have no reason to be against it.

See, but see so many redshirting has a negative impact on my child's education. For me it is not about disadvantage vs. advantage it is that so many redshirts shifts the dynamics of the kindergarten classroom enough that your average 5 yo will struggle. With large class sizes and only one teacher there can only be so much differentiation. Plus it can shift teacher expections because they get use to having more mature children.

No good teacher is going to change the standards just because of how other students are performing. If your child, personally, is doing well and meeting all the standards, that should be all that matters. The teacher wouldn't say, "Well, I know that you meet all the standards for your grade lever, but because everyone else did even better, I'm going to give you low marks anyway." But if your child does have a teacher like that, that teacher should be fired. The curriculum should be the curriculum and it's very unprofessional to change it just the students do better or worse than expected.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I shun all redshirters, parents and children alike. The situation has gotten COMPLETELY out of hand, and nothing will change until these people are made to feel like social pariahs. In my experience almost ALL normal parents feel this way, but they'll only say it when the redshirt family isn't around. So congrats on your gigantic 7 year old kindergartner.

I guess this explains the nasty looks for my 99th percentile DS who went to school on time. And the utter shock when his b-day party invitations go out in March.

Ummm, not really. People know how old kids in their classes are. Do you not? If so I'm sorry that your 99 percenter is stuck in an overcrowded class with no sense of community so you don't even know the ages of the other kids. How unfortunate.

Anyway, he must be getting nasty looks for some other reason...