Anonymous wrote:DD is in 4th grade, she’s a summer birthday sent on time, so she will be 9 all year. She’s done well in school, very social, no big issues. DH and I were both fall birthdays and gifted and often bored, so that factored heavily into not holding her back. We are ok with her being smart, but fine if she’s not “gifted” .

However, our neighbor who is die hard redshirting, obviously held back her summer birthday kid. She’s over a year older than my daughter and they are in the sane grade.

The mom won’t shut up about how “gifted” her kid is (she’s definitely smart) and goes on and on about how bored her kid is. She also got on her kids teacher to develop a different curriculum just for her kid because she’s “so smart and so bored”. I feel so bad for her teacher.

I bite my tongue, but she keeps talking about it. I’m tempted to point that her kid really should be in the grade above… also she’s die hard redshirting due to social issues and ironically, her kid is so awkward. The extra year did her no favors.

If she wasn’t so condescending, always spouting off about “the gift of time” because of redshirting… and acting like only poor people who can’t afford to send their kid to another year of preschool, are the ones that send their summer kids on time- I’d continue to ignore her, but I’m over it… how would you respond?

Anonymous wrote:My 6 year old is one of the oldest girls in first grade not by redshirting (which isn’t allowed we live in nyc and it’s calendar year so if you have a Dec birthday you are the youngest. She’s bored in first grade and brings her own books to read during downtime. Shes smart yes but I know a lot of it is being an older girl. She has a friend in the same boat and the two of them share books etc. it does even out as kids get older I hear. Plus it will suck to be one of the first girls to go thru puberty.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Intelligence tests are normed by age, down the the month, so a held back/redshirted kid could still legitimately test as gifted. But yes they do tend to be over-identified.

Here is an anecdote for all the people who insist that redshirting is not perceived by children as being held back and that redhirted kids never ever get made fun of for being held back. At some event I overheard a group of about half a dozen kids in the 5th grade who went to different schools discussing who among them was the oldest. When an early summer redshirted girl aas determined to be the oldest, another laughed at her and said "you got held back!"

Folks, kids KNOW.

Only you know you nut

Nope, kids definitely notice the old kids in the grade.

And? The kids don’t care who is the oldest or youngest. Their deranged parents care.

Kids who are too old for the grade often get made fun of unless they are the top of the class academically. It's a gamble to hold your kid back from starting kindergarten on time. You're betting on that extra year to make them appear smarter, but if the kid is average or worse, then you've created a new problem. Kids will make fun of the slow kids regardless of age, but the held back slow kids get it worse. I remember well my DD's elem had some really vicious young-for-the-grade bullies who picked on a redshirted girl who was behind in reading. You're doing a disservice to your kid if you don't factor that in your decision to delay kindergarten. I've seen the "social reasons" backfire enough times to make me very skeptical of the redshirting benefits

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Intelligence tests are normed by age, down the the month, so a held back/redshirted kid could still legitimately test as gifted. But yes they do tend to be over-identified.

Here is an anecdote for all the people who insist that redshirting is not perceived by children as being held back and that redhirted kids never ever get made fun of for being held back. At some event I overheard a group of about half a dozen kids in the 5th grade who went to different schools discussing who among them was the oldest. When an early summer redshirted girl aas determined to be the oldest, another laughed at her and said "you got held back!"

Folks, kids KNOW.

Only you know you nut

Nope, kids definitely notice the old kids in the grade.

And? The kids don’t care who is the oldest or youngest. Their deranged parents care.

Kids who are too old for the grade often get made fun of unless they are the top of the class academically. It's a gamble to hold your kid back from starting kindergarten on time. You're betting on that extra year to make them appear smarter, but if the kid is average or worse, then you've created a new problem. Kids will make fun of the slow kids regardless of age, but the held back slow kids get it worse. I remember well my DD's elem had some really vicious young-for-the-grade bullies who picked on a redshirted girl who was behind in reading. You're doing a disservice to your kid if you don't factor that in your decision to delay kindergarten. I've seen the "social reasons" backfire enough times to make me very skeptical of the redshirting benefits

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Intelligence tests are normed by age, down the the month, so a held back/redshirted kid could still legitimately test as gifted. But yes they do tend to be over-identified.

Here is an anecdote for all the people who insist that redshirting is not perceived by children as being held back and that redhirted kids never ever get made fun of for being held back. At some event I overheard a group of about half a dozen kids in the 5th grade who went to different schools discussing who among them was the oldest. When an early summer redshirted girl aas determined to be the oldest, another laughed at her and said "you got held back!"

Folks, kids KNOW.

Only you know you nut

Nope, kids definitely notice the old kids in the grade.

And? The kids don’t care who is the oldest or youngest. Their deranged parents care.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She sounds like she’s insecure about her decision and also about her child. “She’s so bored” is usually a euphemism for the kid who acts out and other kids are annoyed by them lol. Classic adhd behavior if we are going to dcum diagnose.

Since she’s going on and on about it, seems like she wants advice - at least mention the option of moving her child back ahead to her correct grade. To be honest though, I think the real issue here is likely her child’s misbehavior and social rejection, that her low self esteem can’t allow herself to name - she has to call it boredom. Feel bad for this family.

Completely agree on the insecurity and droning on about giftedness is as tiresome as it gets. Still, other than asking (nicely, not nastily) if she’s considered moving ahead a year since the child is *so* bored. The gift of time was, perhaps, helpful when the kid was 5 but now is a hindrance that she’s mentioned frequently, so…

It won’t matter and she’ll keep saying the same stuff forever. So just know that you made the right decision for your own kid and make that your mantra as you grit your teeth for the 47th time.

My parents put me in school early — not on time, but actually early. By middle school, they said they regretted it because I was emotionally younger than my grade level peers. In reality, I was academically advanced, but was a bit of an oddball. Still am. An extra year at home at 5 wouldn’t have made me any less goofy at 52. My parents made the right decision for me.

Anonymous wrote:She sounds like she’s insecure about her decision and also about her child. “She’s so bored” is usually a euphemism for the kid who acts out and other kids are annoyed by them lol. Classic adhd behavior if we are going to dcum diagnose.

Since she’s going on and on about it, seems like she wants advice - at least mention the option of moving her child back ahead to her correct grade. To be honest though, I think the real issue here is likely her child’s misbehavior and social rejection, that her low self esteem can’t allow herself to name - she has to call it boredom. Feel bad for this family.

Anonymous wrote:
OP,

Autism screams out at me from your description of this neighbor's child. There must be some twice exceptionality there (meaning high IQ with some sort of learning disability or special need).

I say this because I have a gifted, learning disabled kid. He has ADHD and ASD, plus some learning disabilities. Also he has a high IQ. He has never fit in: when he was redshirted, on the advice of his pediatrician, he was academically bored but socially it was only a tiny bit better. We skipped him ahead again, because I realized that socially he would never completely fit in, so it was better to keep him challenged academically.

My point is this: please don't be too offended by this parent. Maybe internally she's deeply worried about her child, and she's trying to figure it out. Whatever her parent is doing or not doing, consider that this child, unlike yours, will always have a harder time because she has a neurodivergence that will not go away. My son is in college now, and just as intellectual and socially awkward as before. He won't be able to network or befriend people like normal people do. It will impact his professional and private life.

Your kid is lucky - she is bright and socially attuned. Keep in mind that she has much higher chances of success in life than my kid or your neighbor's kid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Intelligence tests are normed by age, down the the month, so a held back/redshirted kid could still legitimately test as gifted. But yes they do tend to be over-identified.

Here is an anecdote for all the people who insist that redshirting is not perceived by children as being held back and that redhirted kids never ever get made fun of for being held back. At some event I overheard a group of about half a dozen kids in the 5th grade who went to different schools discussing who among them was the oldest. When an early summer redshirted girl aas determined to be the oldest, another laughed at her and said "you got held back!"

Folks, kids KNOW.

Only you know you nut

Nope, kids definitely notice the old kids in the grade.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Intelligence tests are normed by age, down the the month, so a held back/redshirted kid could still legitimately test as gifted. But yes they do tend to be over-identified.

Here is an anecdote for all the people who insist that redshirting is not perceived by children as being held back and that redhirted kids never ever get made fun of for being held back. At some event I overheard a group of about half a dozen kids in the 5th grade who went to different schools discussing who among them was the oldest. When an early summer redshirted girl aas determined to be the oldest, another laughed at her and said "you got held back!"

Folks, kids KNOW.

Only you know you nut