Anonymous wrote:Obviously it's a problem. There are posts all the time, pages and pages, year after year.

Parent who want others, "to just get over it" don't want to face it. They know it's wrong.

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If you could only redshirt for documented reasons then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Then talk to your elected officials (for public school) or school administration (for private school) about changing the laws/rules.

+1. I have never understood how worked up people get about this but if you feel so strongly about redshirting, reach out to your school board and demand change.

They can’t because they don’t have any legitimate reasons to change the policy. They just like to be busy bodies and judge other parents. If it wasn’t redshirting it’d just be something else.

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If you could only redshirt for documented reasons then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Then talk to your elected officials (for public school) or school administration (for private school) about changing the laws/rules.

+1. I have never understood how worked up people get about this but if you feel so strongly about redshirting, reach out to your school board and demand change.

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting does have implications by middle school - all the kids I know who are redshirted (of about 10, only 1 is special needs - I’m sure there are more from other elementary schools I don’t know) occupy spots in the gifted/advanced courses. They are all physically more developed and dominate sports.

These discussions tend to focus on kindergarten/first grade. Just wait until older years. I have a daughter with a June birthday and my sons friend in the next grade is also a June birthday but red-shirted so they are a full 2 years apart in age despite being only a grade apart. High School is going to be interesting.

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Anonymous wrote:
If you could only redshirt for documented reasons then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Then talk to your elected officials (for public school) or school administration (for private school) about changing the laws/rules.

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Anonymous wrote:We aren't talking about Special Needs. We are never talking about Special Needs when we vent and red-shirting. It isn't about you. Special Needs parents, stop making it ALWAYS about you.

I guess you are classifying anyone with a medical condition as “special needs”? How do you know which kids are “special needs”?

I know which ones are NOT when they say they didn’t want their kids to be the youngest & then they show up at kindergarten orientation asking to confirm what high reading level books will be available for their kid and how to make sure they’re challenged academically.

Not all medical issues would affect reading abilities.

When you hear hoofbeats, look for horses not zebras.

We delayed K for our DC with a medical issue. It doesn’t affect reading ability. No one at the current school knows about the medical condition but knows he is a little older. I wonder how many judgemental parents like you are making incorrect assumptions about our motivations.

If you could only redshirt for documented reasons then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

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If you could only redshirt for documented reasons then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

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I have no dog in this fight because my girls have spring birthdays and we never considered redshirting them and they'll generally fall in the middle of the pack one way or the other, but you are complaining that parents who choose to redshirt their child based on what's best for their child should be considering what impact their decision has on children they don't know? That seems crazy to me. How is a parent supposed to know what the make up of their child's class will be before they even start school? How should they know that there will be other children with late summer or early fall birthdays whose parents did not redshirt them and that those children will (purportedly) be negatively impacted by the redshirted child? I am neither pro nor anti redshirting, but I am pro doing what parents think is best for their child. To accuse them of being short-sighted because they should have considered the impact on the other students and families, who they don't yet know, is just rude.

It's not rude. It's acknowledging that decisions you make for personal reasons nonetheless may have an effect on the public. In fact, Kant's categorical imperative (basically: what if everybody did this?) explicitly addresses the ethics of this kind of decision-making. For example: what if everybody redshirted because they didn't want their children to be among the youngest in the class? Which is pretty obviously different from: what if everybody with a child with a serious illness redshirted their child?

I personally don't care - I was always the youngest by over a year, my older kid is among the oldest in a public school where redshirting is minimal, and my younger kid is the youngest by over a year. I'm just saying that there are actually well-known ethical implications.

Um, if everyone redshirted then kindergartners would just be a year older. So what's your well-known ethical implication here exactly?

Well, if all kindergartners were a year older, then everybody would be starting at 6 instead of 5. So that's already something. But then, of course, somebody would still be the youngest, so then if everybody redshirted, then everybody would be starting at 7 instead of 6...

You don't have to agree with Kant, you know. If you want to decide that it's ethical to do something that would have terrible effects if everybody did it, because not everybody is going to do it, that's up to you. The point is that there's been a lot of thought about the public implications of private decisions. It's not a topic that can be dismissed by calling it rude.

Terrible effects? So it would be a terrible thing if everyone started kindergarten at 6? Because your logic is flawed - if everyone redshirted then the age distribution would be exactly the same, the kids would all just be one year older. The school system wouldn't change its cutoff, so people could only redshirt once, so you wouldn't have kids starting K at age 7. Also, for the last time, because my flight is boarding and you seem unable to grasp some pretty simple notions, no one called the topic of redshirting rude. You need to work on your reading comprehension and your logic.

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I have no dog in this fight because my girls have spring birthdays and we never considered redshirting them and they'll generally fall in the middle of the pack one way or the other, but you are complaining that parents who choose to redshirt their child based on what's best for their child should be considering what impact their decision has on children they don't know? That seems crazy to me. How is a parent supposed to know what the make up of their child's class will be before they even start school? How should they know that there will be other children with late summer or early fall birthdays whose parents did not redshirt them and that those children will (purportedly) be negatively impacted by the redshirted child? I am neither pro nor anti redshirting, but I am pro doing what parents think is best for their child. To accuse them of being short-sighted because they should have considered the impact on the other students and families, who they don't yet know, is just rude.

It's not rude. It's acknowledging that decisions you make for personal reasons nonetheless may have an effect on the public. In fact, Kant's categorical imperative (basically: what if everybody did this?) explicitly addresses the ethics of this kind of decision-making. For example: what if everybody redshirted because they didn't want their children to be among the youngest in the class? Which is pretty obviously different from: what if everybody with a child with a serious illness redshirted their child?

I personally don't care - I was always the youngest by over a year, my older kid is among the oldest in a public school where redshirting is minimal, and my younger kid is the youngest by over a year. I'm just saying that there are actually well-known ethical implications.

Um, if everyone redshirted then kindergartners would just be a year older. So what's your well-known ethical implication here exactly?

Well, if all kindergartners were a year older, then everybody would be starting at 6 instead of 5. So that's already something. But then, of course, somebody would still be the youngest, so then if everybody redshirted, then everybody would be starting at 7 instead of 6...

You don't have to agree with Kant, you know. If you want to decide that it's ethical to do something that would have terrible effects if everybody did it, because not everybody is going to do it, that's up to you. The point is that there's been a lot of thought about the public implications of private decisions. It's not a topic that can be dismissed by calling it rude.

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Anonymous wrote:We aren't talking about Special Needs. We are never talking about Special Needs when we vent and red-shirting. It isn't about you. Special Needs parents, stop making it ALWAYS about you.

I guess you are classifying anyone with a medical condition as “special needs”? How do you know which kids are “special needs”?

I know which ones are NOT when they say they didn’t want their kids to be the youngest & then they show up at kindergarten orientation asking to confirm what high reading level books will be available for their kid and how to make sure they’re challenged academically.

Not all medical issues would affect reading abilities.

When you hear hoofbeats, look for horses not zebras.

We delayed K for our DC with a medical issue. It doesn’t affect reading ability. No one at the current school knows about the medical condition but knows he is a little older. I wonder how many judgemental parents like you are making incorrect assumptions about our motivations.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We aren't talking about Special Needs. We are never talking about Special Needs when we vent and red-shirting. It isn't about you. Special Needs parents, stop making it ALWAYS about you.

I guess you are classifying anyone with a medical condition as “special needs”? How do you know which kids are “special needs”?

I know which ones are NOT when they say they didn’t want their kids to be the youngest & then they show up at kindergarten orientation asking to confirm what high reading level books will be available for their kid and how to make sure they’re challenged academically.

Not all medical issues would affect reading abilities.

When you hear hoofbeats, look for horses not zebras.