Anonymous wrote:

I was 19 as a sophomore too!! Just crazy to think of still being in high school at that age. I work at a high school now and the kids that are 19 years old or "old" 18 year olds as seniors are just miserable. Really, they are too old to be in a place where they need to raise their hand to use the restroom. You need to think of the whole picture. If you want to redshirt your march birthday kid you need to have him evaluated first for any special needs.

Why do you know how old each high school senior is?

Our preschool recommended redshirting our March boy and I thought it was crazy. They said he was immature for his age. I did not do it, but starting in about 2nd grade I started to regret it. Every year I ask his teachers "do you think he is immature?" and several teachers have said no, but I can see from the social interactions that he would just be in a different place. Of course this is in private school, where half of the boys have been held back and the youngest kid in the grade was born at the beginning of May. So he doesn't have a lot of peers already.

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Anonymous wrote:This actually pisses me off as the parent of an August baby that you think putting a kid a year and a half older in her grade (without diagnosed special needs) is acceptable.

WHY? I have a September child and could not care less kids are that much older. I wanted my kid the youngest vs. oldest. If my kid can hold their own with kids that much older, especially academic, I'm very proud of him.

It's not about you and what you are proud of, it's about your child. And it's about having 20 year olds in high school with 13/14 year old freshmen.

A kid with a March birthday, who started kindergarten at 6 instead of 5, will graduate from high school having just turned 19. So no, it's not about that.

DP, but March to June isn't "just" and I went on time and turned 19 as a *sophomore* in college.
I don't like the rules, but the rules in the DMV area seem to be you can hold your kid back for a whole year if you choose.

OK. The kid will graduate from high school at 19 years and 2 months. Which is 10 months (5/6 of a year) less than 20 years.

I was 19 as a sophomore too!! Just crazy to think of still being in high school at that age. I work at a high school now and the kids that are 19 years old or "old" 18 year olds as seniors are just miserable. Really, they are too old to be in a place where they need to raise their hand to use the restroom. You need to think of the whole picture. If you want to redshirt your march birthday kid you need to have him evaluated first for any special needs.

I was a college junior at 19, but I had classmates who were 21 due to the cutoffs in their state. It all worked out fine for us all.

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Anonymous wrote:This actually pisses me off as the parent of an August baby that you think putting a kid a year and a half older in her grade (without diagnosed special needs) is acceptable.

WHY? I have a September child and could not care less kids are that much older. I wanted my kid the youngest vs. oldest. If my kid can hold their own with kids that much older, especially academic, I'm very proud of him.

It's not about you and what you are proud of, it's about your child. And it's about having 20 year olds in high school with 13/14 year old freshmen.

A kid with a March birthday, who started kindergarten at 6 instead of 5, will graduate from high school having just turned 19. So no, it's not about that.

DP, but March to June isn't "just" and I went on time and turned 19 as a *sophomore* in college.
I don't like the rules, but the rules in the DMV area seem to be you can hold your kid back for a whole year if you choose.

OK. The kid will graduate from high school at 19 years and 2 months. Which is 10 months (5/6 of a year) less than 20 years.

I was 19 as a sophomore too!! Just crazy to think of still being in high school at that age. I work at a high school now and the kids that are 19 years old or "old" 18 year olds as seniors are just miserable. Really, they are too old to be in a place where they need to raise their hand to use the restroom. You need to think of the whole picture. If you want to redshirt your march birthday kid you need to have him evaluated first for any special needs.

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Anonymous wrote:This actually pisses me off as the parent of an August baby that you think putting a kid a year and a half older in her grade (without diagnosed special needs) is acceptable.

WHY? I have a September child and could not care less kids are that much older. I wanted my kid the youngest vs. oldest. If my kid can hold their own with kids that much older, especially academic, I'm very proud of him.

It's not about you and what you are proud of, it's about your child. And it's about having 20 year olds in high school with 13/14 year old freshmen.

A kid with a March birthday, who started kindergarten at 6 instead of 5, will graduate from high school having just turned 19. So no, it's not about that.

DP, but March to June isn't "just" and I went on time and turned 19 as a *sophomore* in college.
I don't like the rules, but the rules in the DMV area seem to be you can hold your kid back for a whole year if you choose.

OK. The kid will graduate from high school at 19 years and 2 months. Which is 10 months (5/6 of a year) less than 20 years.

Anonymous wrote:Ugh, as the mom of a young 5 year old who we are starting in school at the appropriate time, I am SO SICK OF REDSHIRTERS. It started in pre-K -- there were enough kids redshirted that my child's preK-4 class was literally 50% 5 year olds who had already been through that class before. They were really disruptive and I can just see it getting worse in late elementary/early middle school, for example when their hormones hit super early compared to the rest of the class. Just awful. Start your kids on time.

This was my experience, too. In a k class at a religious school, 8 out of 19 kids were red shirted (mostly boys). My child with a January birthday seemed younger, smaller and academically behind. The older kids were more boisterous and, because there were so many of them, typical kindergarteners didn't fit in. These kids dominated PE and recess and the younger kids were pushed around.

Anonymous wrote:My goodness there are a lot of slow kids on DCUM.

Yeah, I know. It's not just DCUM though. My SIL, a retired doctor, in another state held back her DD. There are slow upper class children all over the country.

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Anonymous wrote:This actually pisses me off as the parent of an August baby that you think putting a kid a year and a half older in her grade (without diagnosed special needs) is acceptable.

WHY? I have a September child and could not care less kids are that much older. I wanted my kid the youngest vs. oldest. If my kid can hold their own with kids that much older, especially academic, I'm very proud of him.

It's not about you and what you are proud of, it's about your child. And it's about having 20 year olds in high school with 13/14 year old freshmen.

A kid with a March birthday, who started kindergarten at 6 instead of 5, will graduate from high school having just turned 19. So no, it's not about that.

DP, but March to June isn't "just" and I went on time and turned 19 as a *sophomore* in college.
I don't like the rules, but the rules in the DMV area seem to be you can hold your kid back for a whole year if you choose.

My goodness there are a lot of slow kids on DCUM.

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Anonymous wrote:This actually pisses me off as the parent of an August baby that you think putting a kid a year and a half older in her grade (without diagnosed special needs) is acceptable.

WHY? I have a September child and could not care less kids are that much older. I wanted my kid the youngest vs. oldest. If my kid can hold their own with kids that much older, especially academic, I'm very proud of him.

It's not about you and what you are proud of, it's about your child. And it's about having 20 year olds in high school with 13/14 year old freshmen.

A kid with a March birthday, who started kindergarten at 6 instead of 5, will graduate from high school having just turned 19. So no, it's not about that.

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Anonymous wrote:This actually pisses me off as the parent of an August baby that you think putting a kid a year and a half older in her grade (without diagnosed special needs) is acceptable.

WHY? I have a September child and could not care less kids are that much older. I wanted my kid the youngest vs. oldest. If my kid can hold their own with kids that much older, especially academic, I'm very proud of him.

It's not about you and what you are proud of, it's about your child. And it's about having 20 year olds in high school with 13/14 year old freshmen.

I have a kid with a September bday and will be 6 this month (is in 1st grade due to later cutoff at her school). Luckily redshirting isn't done much if at all in current school that I know of, but it would bother me if lots of people started doing it. The reason I'd be bothered is because you then have quite a large age range, which could make the task of differentiation more difficult for the teacher. I think this could affect the classroom experience, particularly for kids on the younger side like mine, since I can't imagine teachers are able to differentiate well with such a large age range.

I'm sure there'd be other drawbacks with widespread redshirting, although the difficulty with differentiation is the only one that comes to mind.

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Anonymous wrote:This actually pisses me off as the parent of an August baby that you think putting a kid a year and a half older in her grade (without diagnosed special needs) is acceptable.

WHY? I have a September child and could not care less kids are that much older. I wanted my kid the youngest vs. oldest. If my kid can hold their own with kids that much older, especially academic, I'm very proud of him.

It's not about you and what you are proud of, it's about your child. And it's about having 20 year olds in high school with 13/14 year old freshmen.

Ugh, as the mom of a young 5 year old who we are starting in school at the appropriate time, I am SO SICK OF REDSHIRTERS. It started in pre-K -- there were enough kids redshirted that my child's preK-4 class was literally 50% 5 year olds who had already been through that class before. They were really disruptive and I can just see it getting worse in late elementary/early middle school, for example when their hormones hit super early compared to the rest of the class. Just awful. Start your kids on time.

It's not redshirting with a March birthday-- it's just holding him back. If you really don't want to send him to K, I would suggest homeschooling for K then starting him with his peers in first grade so he won't be 1.5 years older than kids who started on time.

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Anonymous wrote:Too old.

I don't understand why so many people are doing this.

It means that when my kid goes on time, there are kids in the class that could be a year older than my kid. I don't like it at all.

Yes, and? This is going to happen even if everybody goes on time, unless schools start instituting half-year grades.

If the OP redshirted her kid with a March birthday and there was a child from PA, NY, etc.. who transferred with a Dec birthday on time, you do realize the kids would be 21 months apart in age in the same grade. Their cut off is Dec and 4yr olds start K in those states and many others. The fact OP wants to send a kid that is 6.5yrs old into his first day of K is pathetic.

THIS!!! Of course there will be a year span in the grade. It is people like OP that create 1.5 year spans and that is ridiculous and not fair to the summer birthdays. It shouldn't even be allowed to hold back a March birthday!!!! If the child ends up having special needs or issues those will be there regardless of what year he goes to school.

OP- Send your kid. It is RIDICULOUS to hold him back. Lots of Kindergartners have trouble sitting still.