Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+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.

Why do you assume those of us unhappy with the inappropriate developmental standards are not reaching out to the schools, school board, and anywhere else we can?

Do you assume the people on the politics section of the site complaining about everything under the sun are also not attempting to make changes?

It would be more honest if you just said "These people make me uncomfortable and I wish they would shut up." Or you could not read the thread.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So it DOES come down to not wanting your child to be the youngest in the class. It always comes through in the end on these threads

I think the point PP was trying to make is that by redshirting, rather than the youngest child in a class being the youngest by 12 months, the new youngest child is now the youngest by 18 months.

And while these families might not have minded a 12 month difference, they now see an 18 month difference and say "No way!" and so they redshirt, too. And on and on. Now suddenly K is for students who are 6 yo at the beginning of the school year. Rather than this being a decision made by the school or by education experts, it was driven by parents who worried that their child was too short or too shy or too disadvantaged in some other subjective way.

So when people say "My decision has no impact on other kids!" they are being short sighted. They are changing things for other students, other families, and the teachers.

Again, can you point to the legitimate, well-conducted studies that show evidence for this belief? An opinion piece from Slate does not count as a well-connected study.

Redshirting is a hot topic. A PhD could make their career with proof that redshirting has caused national kindergarten standards to shift. Why do you and the anti-redshirt posters not have evidence for your theories?

I don't think you could prove decisively that redshirting has caused standards to shift, or that it was the standards shift that has increased redshirting. I also don't think it's a coincidence that we see increasing redshirting and increasing age-inappropriate standards at younger grades, but who knows which is the chicken and which is the egg.

I don't blame the parents who redshirt. I'm against redshirting in general, but that doesn't make me against the parents who are making a particular decision for their child. I am against developmentally inappropriate standards, and I think increased redshirting makes it less obvious that we have a problem. Schools don't see parents who redshirt as making a statement about the standards of the grades their child is in, but rather as saying their child is somehow developmentally behind other children. I have no evidence, but my anecdotal experience says the majority of redshirted children are not at all developmentally delayed, they're just young kids for whom the current standards of the early grades are inappropriate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So it DOES come down to not wanting your child to be the youngest in the class. It always comes through in the end on these threads

Nope. The only people who say they don’t want their kids to be the youngest are the anti-redshirters.

23:37 was just pointing out that the PP was a jerk.

This is totally illogical. Our kids ARE the youngest if we didn’t redshirt.

To further clarify - we are saying we would like them be the youngest by one year but not more than that.

+1. My daughter started PK3 in DCPS at age 2 (Sept. bday) and it's been fine. She's now a 2nd grader. I don't mind her being the youngest in a 12-month range--she has a couple of friends a year older, and she'll just have to work hard to keep up with older kids physically and academically. What would be a little tough is if she were the youngest in an 18 or 24-month span. This is all hypothetical though, as I only know one kid who is redshirted (and only missed the cutoff by a few days, so he's still basically 12 months older).

Missing the cut off is not redshirting. We have several friends who missed the cut off including my child. Some of us went private to start them and some waited a year.

PP might have meant to say “made” the cutoff by a few days.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So it DOES come down to not wanting your child to be the youngest in the class. It always comes through in the end on these threads

Nope. The only people who say they don’t want their kids to be the youngest are the anti-redshirters.

23:37 was just pointing out that the PP was a jerk.

This is totally illogical. Our kids ARE the youngest if we didn’t redshirt.

To further clarify - we are saying we would like them be the youngest by one year but not more than that.

+1. My daughter started PK3 in DCPS at age 2 (Sept. bday) and it's been fine. She's now a 2nd grader. I don't mind her being the youngest in a 12-month range--she has a couple of friends a year older, and she'll just have to work hard to keep up with older kids physically and academically. What would be a little tough is if she were the youngest in an 18 or 24-month span. This is all hypothetical though, as I only know one kid who is redshirted (and only missed the cutoff by a few days, so he's still basically 12 months older).

Missing the cut off is not redshirting. We have several friends who missed the cut off including my child. Some of us went private to start them and some waited a year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+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.

I think I see things other people don’t see when they don’t have such a young kid who went on time, so that’s why I am choosing to speak out.
For example, if we said you couldn’t play HS sports after a certain age that could help stop sports redshirting. But the high schools care about winning, they don’t care about it being more difficult for younger kids. (To be clear, I am aware that kids who are really good at sports can compete against and beat kids well over a year older than them - I just don’t think that’s the majority of kids).

It depend on the sport. If we held our child back, he would not be able to compete senior year as he would miss the age cut off for swim.

This is just a real question - there are age cut offs for Swimming in Hs? It goes by age and not grade like other Hs sports? I’m not asking about club swimming outside of school - but the actual high school swim team.

Not sure about high school as we aren't there yet, but the high school teams are only about 2-3 months and most kids are doing club swimming. My kid has an early fall birthday so if we started him a year later he would not be able to summer swim (if he does it) with the summer swim team being 19 as it goes by ages.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So it DOES come down to not wanting your child to be the youngest in the class. It always comes through in the end on these threads

Nope. The only people who say they don’t want their kids to be the youngest are the anti-redshirters.

23:37 was just pointing out that the PP was a jerk.

This is totally illogical. Our kids ARE the youngest if we didn’t redshirt.

To further clarify - we are saying we would like them be the youngest by one year but not more than that.

+1. My daughter started PK3 in DCPS at age 2 (Sept. bday) and it's been fine. She's now a 2nd grader. I don't mind her being the youngest in a 12-month range--she has a couple of friends a year older, and she'll just have to work hard to keep up with older kids physically and academically. What would be a little tough is if she were the youngest in an 18 or 24-month span. This is all hypothetical though, as I only know one kid who is redshirted (and only missed the cutoff by a few days, so he's still basically 12 months older).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents who are competitive enough to worry about whether other kids are redshirted don't send their kids to Montessori schools.

I just think it is “rich” that the pro redshirters are calling the anti-redshirters competitive.

It's true, though. Anti-redshirters are upset that their children are at some imagined competitive disadvantage - although, paradoxically, many also pay lipservice to believing that redshirting impairs development. It's never been clear to me whether this is just a lack of logic or a cynical attempt to pretend that what they believe is in their own self-interest (no redshirting) is also in the interests of the children who would otherwise be redshirted.

They're the ones doing the comparing, not the redshirting parents. If everyone just made decisions based on what's best for their own kid, and didn't worry about what everyone else was doing, there would be none of this ridiculousness.

DP. I totally agree with this assessment. It also matches what I see IRL. People who talk about being against redshirting tend to be the most competitive parents.

You can see it here too. No normal parent goes and digs out and memorizes the relative ages of kids in the classroom. That is... something else.

No normal parent reads the bulletin boards in their childs classrooms?

Do you not remember your child's classmates names either? When you're playing on the playground after school, and a classmate announces she is turning 6, do you immediately wipe your memory so you don't accidentally know a creepy amount of information about the child?

When my kids are invited to birthday parties I try not to read the full invite in case age is mentioned and I also try to avoid looking at the cake (just kidding)

Anonymous wrote:Kids are curious and naturally find sameness and differences amongst one another. Birthdays/are are a natural topic of discussion for kids. Have you ever driven a carpool? Kids know who is the tallest/fastest/oldest/youngest/who has the most siblings/dogs, etc. As they get older information about age becomes more relevant to them for different reasons - academically, physically, and socially.

There are some competitive parents who find out ages and don’t hesitate to share that info with other parents but my experience is that kids already know.

I’ve chaperoned two class outings where the leader innocently asks for ages at the start of the program (“so, you are all 8 and 9?”) and kids, being literal little creatures, make sure to point specific ages - at one gathering they all pointed to one child and said no, he’s x age (older)! Not to be mean, just to give a correct answer to the leader.

Yes but there is no stigma to it unless parents provide one. Just facts, like eye color and hair color. I am seriously worried about struggling kids who were held back then facing a parent backlash because no one can myob around here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents who are competitive enough to worry about whether other kids are redshirted don't send their kids to Montessori schools.

I just think it is “rich” that the pro redshirters are calling the anti-redshirters competitive.

It's true, though. Anti-redshirters are upset that their children are at some imagined competitive disadvantage - although, paradoxically, many also pay lipservice to believing that redshirting impairs development. It's never been clear to me whether this is just a lack of logic or a cynical attempt to pretend that what they believe is in their own self-interest (no redshirting) is also in the interests of the children who would otherwise be redshirted.

They're the ones doing the comparing, not the redshirting parents. If everyone just made decisions based on what's best for their own kid, and didn't worry about what everyone else was doing, there would be none of this ridiculousness.

DP. I totally agree with this assessment. It also matches what I see IRL. People who talk about being against redshirting tend to be the most competitive parents.

You can see it here too. No normal parent goes and digs out and memorizes the relative ages of kids in the classroom. That is... something else.

No normal parent reads the bulletin boards in their childs classrooms?

Do you not remember your child's classmates names either? When you're playing on the playground after school, and a classmate announces she is turning 6, do you immediately wipe your memory so you don't accidentally know a creepy amount of information about the child?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents who are competitive enough to worry about whether other kids are redshirted don't send their kids to Montessori schools.

I just think it is “rich” that the pro redshirters are calling the anti-redshirters competitive.

It's true, though. Anti-redshirters are upset that their children are at some imagined competitive disadvantage - although, paradoxically, many also pay lipservice to believing that redshirting impairs development. It's never been clear to me whether this is just a lack of logic or a cynical attempt to pretend that what they believe is in their own self-interest (no redshirting) is also in the interests of the children who would otherwise be redshirted.

They're the ones doing the comparing, not the redshirting parents. If everyone just made decisions based on what's best for their own kid, and didn't worry about what everyone else was doing, there would be none of this ridiculousness.

The redshirted parents compared enough to hold their own kid back and it wasn’t a decision that was in a vacuum without effect on making other kids younger for the grade.

Anti redshirters may be competitive but not competitive enough to hold their own kids back.

Juuuuuuuuuust competitive enough to complain on the internet. Got it!

Now you’ve got it. I can’t even complain IRL because my friends do it. But having a young for the grade kid, I experienced things others might not have experienced and often barriers can be invisible to those who don’t face them so I do speak up online.

What specifically has your child experienced?

My child is the correct age for grade, but the youngest in her grade by a few months. She attends a school where redshirting is rampant, and has a late summer birthday. The age range in her class is about 18 months. Not only is she the youngest, but there is a gap. The next youngest child is a couple months older than her, and then another gap and then finally a more even distribution. The youngest quarter of the kids in the class span 6 months worth of birthdays, leaving 3/4 of the kids in oldest 2/3rds of the age range. There are more redshirted summer birthdays than correct age for grade summer birthdays.

In the younger grades, this meant when my child was behaving in age appropriate manners, her behavior stood out as "immature" because when you're 5, 6+ mos of development for an average child can make a huge difference. The academic and behavior standards were geared to the older cohort of kids, since they were the majority. The younger kids were expected to keep up and reach that standard as well.

In K and 1st, when writing samples were put up on the wall, my child was well aware that her writing was not nearly as neat as the children who were a year, a year and a half older than her. And having almost no close in age peers meant seeing very few other samples of children at a similar level. The same held true for other situations.

Fortunately, these extreme differences close up fairly quickly. While a 6 mos gap at 5 years old is large, it can often be developmentally invisible by 7. It was still obvious the class was geared to the older children, because they were the overwhelming majority, but the differences were less obvious to the kids so there were fewer instances of the youngest children being called or treated like "babies" by the oldest kids.

By 3rd grade, for my child, you couldn't tell a difference at all. And not redshirting has been fantastic for my DC. She has grit like you wouldn't believe because of being in such an uneven environment her first few years, and working hard to meet a standard that was usually above her ability. If she'd been a particularly easy to discourage child, we probably would have seen negative results from this instead of positive, but fortunately she took on the challenge rather than internalizing the gap.

When you have classes that are inappropriate for the age range they are supposed to teach, some parents are going to respond by setting their children up for success and getting their children as close as possible to the age that the class is geared for. Schools need to either modify their curriculum so it's age appropriate, or change the age ranges so they're getting the ages they want to get. Parents shouldn't be left doing this on an ad hoc basis. It just privileges the well off because they're the ones who can afford to keep kids home for an extra year. And it penalizes the less well off, because their kids are being held to an inappropriate standard that's being reinforced by the growing tendency towards redshirting.

Kids are curious and naturally find sameness and differences amongst one another. Birthdays/are are a natural topic of discussion for kids. Have you ever driven a carpool? Kids know who is the tallest/fastest/oldest/youngest/who has the most siblings/dogs, etc. As they get older information about age becomes more relevant to them for different reasons - academically, physically, and socially.

There are some competitive parents who find out ages and don’t hesitate to share that info with other parents but my experience is that kids already know.

I’ve chaperoned two class outings where the leader innocently asks for ages at the start of the program (“so, you are all 8 and 9?”) and kids, being literal little creatures, make sure to point specific ages - at one gathering they all pointed to one child and said no, he’s x age (older)! Not to be mean, just to give a correct answer to the leader.

By late elementary school, how do you distinguish between kids who were redshirted and those who were held back? I always assume that if there is a year ahead birthday party in my child's class that the child was held back or was really behind and couldn't start elementary school on time. But we are in DC publics where redshiting is rare.

I'd never talk about it with my child because I wouldn't want her to apply any stigma to a child who repeated a grade. My brother repeated 3rd grade and didn't face any stigma for it, at least none he ever talked or compalined about. But if parents are so hyper focused on age, I could see this being an issue for a child repeating a grade.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+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.

I think I see things other people don’t see when they don’t have such a young kid who went on time, so that’s why I am choosing to speak out.
For example, if we said you couldn’t play HS sports after a certain age that could help stop sports redshirting. But the high schools care about winning, they don’t care about it being more difficult for younger kids. (To be clear, I am aware that kids who are really good at sports can compete against and beat kids well over a year older than them - I just don’t think that’s the majority of kids).

It depend on the sport. If we held our child back, he would not be able to compete senior year as he would miss the age cut off for swim.

This is just a real question - there are age cut offs for Swimming in Hs? It goes by age and not grade like other Hs sports? I’m not asking about club swimming outside of school - but the actual high school swim team.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+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.

I think I see things other people don’t see when they don’t have such a young kid who went on time, so that’s why I am choosing to speak out.
For example, if we said you couldn’t play HS sports after a certain age that could help stop sports redshirting. But the high schools care about winning, they don’t care about it being more difficult for younger kids. (To be clear, I am aware that kids who are really good at sports can compete against and beat kids well over a year older than them - I just don’t think that’s the majority of kids).

It depend on the sport. If we held our child back, he would not be able to compete senior year as he would miss the age cut off for swim.

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.

They are older, not necessarily smarter. Kids who are held back start to figure it out. We were with friends this weekend and the child was confused by my child's grade/birthday compared to his. His parents held him back. He was 2 years younger and taller than my kid and very self-conscious about it. Parents who think the kids don't know, well, they do know.