Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We ultimately decided to send my August boy on time after some deliberation, and a few years in, I believe I would have really regretted redshirting. He's mature, a couple years ahead academically, and one of the taller kids in his class, so it's hard to imagine him a grade behind. As it is, he's bored in the classroom. If he was a different kid, I might not feel that way though.

Your son isn't old enough for the difference yet. My son (sept birthday) was great until 4th grade, then we saw issues. By 9th grade, I totally regretted not reshirting. He was just not as mature as the other kids! It's also not about your class, it's about the age of the other kids. if you have a kid 1 to 2 years younger, your kid will struggle. It doesn't matter how smart they are.

What? No. A child won't automatically struggle if he or she is the youngest.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We ultimately decided to send my August boy on time after some deliberation, and a few years in, I believe I would have really regretted redshirting. He's mature, a couple years ahead academically, and one of the taller kids in his class, so it's hard to imagine him a grade behind. As it is, he's bored in the classroom. If he was a different kid, I might not feel that way though.

Your son isn't old enough for the difference yet. My son (sept birthday) was great until 4th grade, then we saw issues. By 9th grade, I totally regretted not reshirting. He was just not as mature as the other kids! It's also not about your class, it's about the age of the other kids. if you have a kid 1 to 2 years younger, your kid will struggle. It doesn't matter how smart they are.

Anonymous wrote:We ultimately decided to send my August boy on time after some deliberation, and a few years in, I believe I would have really regretted redshirting. He's mature, a couple years ahead academically, and one of the taller kids in his class, so it's hard to imagine him a grade behind. As it is, he's bored in the classroom. If he was a different kid, I might not feel that way though.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Starting on time - the families didn't care that their child would be the youngest. Yeah Sure!

You: I know why people redshirt, and it's because they want their child to have an unfair advantage.
Various posters: Actually, the reason we redshirted is [various reasons that are not "we want our child to have an unfair advantage"]
You: Yeah sure.

But how come the "various reasons" only happen for kids born between June-September? Those "various reasons" apparently never occur to kids born in April...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

We're ending up with environments where parents of perfectly average children feel a need to redshirt them if their birthday is within three months of the cut off date, simply so they won't be labeled a bad child or a stupid child when the child is simply a perfectly average child.

I don't think that is why most people do it. My son has a late August birthday and is very, very bright. He is also tiny physically and immature emotionally. I redshirted him because I was concerned about him making friends and keeping up socially. Even a year behind, he is not exactly a social butterfly, but he does have some friends and basically fits in.

+1

We had our own reasons, but "didn't want our kid to be the youngest" wasn't on the list AT ALL. That is also true for all of the other families we know who have let their child wait a year to start K. Each had their own reasons, but not this.

We redshirted in our private school so our child wouldn't be the youngest by about 3 months.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Starting on time - the families didn't care that their child would be the youngest. Yeah Sure!

You: I know why people redshirt, and it's because they want their child to have an unfair advantage.
Various posters: Actually, the reason we redshirted is [various reasons that are not "we want our child to have an unfair advantage"]
You: Yeah sure.

Anonymous wrote:Starting on time - the families didn't care that their child would be the youngest. Yeah Sure!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Which is why most people don't do it. Its only privates around here and some higher SES publics.

And I always wonder about redshirting complaints from people who send their children to a private school. This is a school that you choose to pay a lot of money to, so that your child can go there! If you're so upset about its redshirting policies, why are you doing that?

I think parents who are new to the environment don't realize it's the trend.

Additionally, for me a lot of my frustration is based on Kindergarten now being inappropriate for the age of children who are meant to attend. We're not graduating high school seniors who are more educated. In fact, our colleges are saying they are having to provide more and more remedial classes. So what's the point of making the early grades age inappropriate if there is no long term benefit? If HS had become the new BA/BS, then I could perhaps understand. But it hasn't. It's gone the other direction.

There are more remedial classes because more people are attending college. Those people probably wouldn't have gone to college in the past.

That's one reason, yes. Even with that, however, we're not getting colleges saying how wonderful their applicants are nowadays. How well the overly-academic focus of the early grades is paying off. Because it's not. We're forcing our youngest children to perform at levels that are inappropriate and spend their days in classroom environments that are inappropriate, and at the end of the day our HS graduates are no better off than they were when Kindergarten was about learning how to share with friends and tie your shoes.

We're ending up with environments where parents of perfectly average children feel a need to redshirt them if their birthday is within three months of the cut off date, simply so they won't be labeled a bad child or a stupid child when the child is simply a perfectly average child. Additionally it makes the environment that much more toxic for SN children who even if redshirted are still being held to higher standards than are appropriate for the stated age the environment is intended to be for. No one, except the children who are gifted academically and socially, is benefiting. And even those children are being failed later in their education when the high standards they were held to in early elementary fall away to easily attainable average standards in later grades.

Agree on the kindergarten, but I think colleges are expecting more out of students than before too and employers expecting more of graduates. IT's a ripple effect. There are more graduate students these days as well and more jobs specifically for graduate students. I haven't found a lot of studies on whether or not college graduates are doing better than in the past. It's certainly harder to get into some of the highly selective colleges these days. This paper describes pretty well what trends people are seeing in the US population in terms of academics. http://www.livescience.com/37095-humans-smarter-or-dumber.html

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

We're ending up with environments where parents of perfectly average children feel a need to redshirt them if their birthday is within three months of the cut off date, simply so they won't be labeled a bad child or a stupid child when the child is simply a perfectly average child.

I don't think that is why most people do it. My son has a late August birthday and is very, very bright. He is also tiny physically and immature emotionally. I redshirted him because I was concerned about him making friends and keeping up socially. Even a year behind, he is not exactly a social butterfly, but he does have some friends and basically fits in.

+1

We had our own reasons, but "didn't want our kid to be the youngest" wasn't on the list AT ALL. That is also true for all of the other families we know who have let their child wait a year to start K. Each had their own reasons, but not this.

Anonymous wrote:

We're ending up with environments where parents of perfectly average children feel a need to redshirt them if their birthday is within three months of the cut off date, simply so they won't be labeled a bad child or a stupid child when the child is simply a perfectly average child.

I don't think that is why most people do it. My son has a late August birthday and is very, very bright. He is also tiny physically and immature emotionally. I redshirted him because I was concerned about him making friends and keeping up socially. Even a year behind, he is not exactly a social butterfly, but he does have some friends and basically fits in.

We're ending up with environments where parents of perfectly average children feel a need to redshirt them if their birthday is within three months of the cut off date, simply so they won't be labeled a bad child or a stupid child when the child is simply a perfectly average child.