I also think you underestimate the number of parents doing this. When I was a kid, it was pretty rare and usually done at the suggestion of a pediatrician or a psychologist involved in the child's care. Now, it's an absolute phenomenon of the middle and upper classes. "Everyone" is doing it. I predict that by the time we are looking at kindergarten for my son, 1/3-1/5 of his pre-K class will be staying back a year even though they qualify for K per the deadline.
And you're considering private school, right? Or at least charters/magnets?
You're right about it being a middle/upper class phenomenon.
So that means that the private schools and the schools in wealthier districts will have more redshirted kids, i.e. kids who do better on standardized tests and kids who play better and sports. And where do you think that leaves the poorer school districts, where kids *have* to start on time because mom can't stay home another year or they can't afford another year of child care? The gap between the good schools and the poor schools will widen even more.
Just curious but at what point does it stop making a difference? If you live in a school district where is it prevalent then aren't the kids now in with their peers?
Just curious but at what point does it stop making a difference? If you live in a school district where is it prevalent then aren't the kids now in with their peers?
Except it won't be equal--because it's about $$$ too.
Studies (I'll try to dig it up) show that 'red shirting' in poorer communities tend to lead to more HS drop-outs (because the age you can drop out is based on age, not the # of years completed)--so a 16 year old who has 1-2 more years can be convinced to suck it up, a 16 YO with 3-4 more is more likely to drop out.
I can afford (I hope) to hold my kid back and put her in a good preschool if she needs it...my neighbor may not be able to afford to (a year of childcare extra? ouch)--which puts the poor kids in a community (who are already at a disadvantage) at a greater disadvantage.
Just curious but at what point does it stop making a difference? If you live in a school district where is it prevalent then aren't the kids now in with their peers?
Except when it comes to state funding, competition, merit based scholarships, the gifted program, debate teams, essay submission, etc.
So yes, wealthy side of town over here has no issues getting funding for all the fancy shit because their 10 year old second graders are acing all the standardized testing. They're also snapping up all the VFW scholarships, winning the 100 yard dash athletics scholarships, and trouncing the shit out of the broke town's debate team.
Just curious but at what point does it stop making a difference? If you live in a school district where is it prevalent then aren't the kids now in with their peers?
Except when it comes to state funding, competition, merit based scholarships, the gifted program, debate teams, essay submission, etc.
So yes, wealthy side of town over here has no issues getting funding for all the fancy shit because their 10 year old second graders are acing all the standardized testing. They're also snapping up all the VFW scholarships, winning the 100 yard dash athletics scholarships, and trouncing the shit out of the broke town's debate team.
The kids in broke town just need to learn that life isn't fair.
Post by cattledogkisses on Jul 9, 2012 17:05:06 GMT -5
Re: redshirting for sports reasons
The state I grew up in had a maximum age cutoff for high school sports (IIRC, it was 19). I knew a few people in high school who couldn't participate in the spring sports season of their senior year because they were too old. I wonder what effect it would have on redshirting if something like that was widely implemented.
My boys have September 17th and 13th birthdays. Cutoff here is September 30th. We are also discussing moving to another state in the near future and the cutoff where we want to be in September 1st.
I am a special ed teacher/reading specialist so as a parent I have some background. The CST wanted to put my twins in kindergarten 2 years ago and have them go to Transitional Primary for this year. That was holding them back as they would be starting 1st grade this upcoming school year. We opted to keep them in preschool an extra year and start kindergarten this past school year. Their kindergarten teachers this year told me that we did the right thing and they would have really struggled if they started at 4 turning 5 a week later.
CST suggested that we keep our small guy an extra year in preschool. He is an a full day autism class and we don't know if he'll be in developmental kindergarten *like the twins did* or in an autism class for kindergarten. He is a step behind his peers now so we felt it would give him a chance to mature and gain additional skills.
I am confident that the decisions we made were best for the boys. All 3 of my small ones have PDD_NOS and Apraxia. The twins have learning disabilities and an unknown genetic syndrome *we are waiting for the test results but the geneticist last week said there was something genetic going on* and our youngest has a 16p11.2 duplication.
On the other hand, a friend of mine held her son back with a July birthday and he will be 6 starting kindergarten. She did it so he would be better at sports. That pisses me off.
How does that work? Do they intentionlly flunk 9th grade - but then I wouldn't think you'd be ahead on anything as you'd have to re-take subjects.
you just go in as a 9th grader. you have to retake 9th grade english, but every school has a different curriculum so it isn't going to be the same. Math you just go where you belong same with foreign language so if you took Spanish 2 and Geometry your 1st 9th grade year you come into new prep school taking Spanish 3 and Algebra II
Wow. I would have flipped out at that age if someone told me I had to do an extra year of school - and I liked school. At that age, you're trying to progress to the next thing, whether it be drivers license, graduating high school, going to college.
I take it the prep schools don't have a problem with kids taking the same grade again, for no good reason?
If the whole goal was to trick a college into thinking I was smarter than I was, I would have felt like I was cheating, and that the prep school was in on it. I guess I'm just a public school kid, through and through.
My step-niece has a June Bday and her Bio Mom opted not to red shirt her, she ended up doing badly in K b/c she wasn't ready and had to repeat it. She now hates school because she's embarrassed to see her friends from her first K year (she's in 3rd and literally has told her Dad this) I'd 100% err on the side of red shirting to this. Better to start late, then repeat and have the label of "failing".
With a JUNE birthday? When on earth is your cut off? This is what we are talking about. There's no reason to red shirt a kid with a spring or summer birthday.
In NY, the cut off date was (is?) December 1. I have a May birthday. No way would my parents have considered not sending me to kindergarten when I was 5.
I knew a few people with fall birthdays who were redshirted, which seemed to be more at the discretion of the parents. Other than people who had repeated a year, the oldest person in my class probably turned 18 in September or October of our senior year. There were a few people who didn't turn 17 until late November. That's about it.
That's the way it was for me too. If you were 18 before January of your senior year, it meant you had stayed back at some point.
Isn't there a danger that some of these really older kids are just going to be embarrassed at some point? I'm thinking this could do real harm to them and that rather than helping them, it could cause them to drop out because they're the only kid in their glass with a mustache, y'know?
It might not always be a plus to be more mature than your classmates.
I was held back because my Bday was a week before the cut off and as a teacher my Mom's experience was that kids that had that extra year did better. It meant her staying home another year and with it financial sacrifices but it was 100% the right decision for me and I'm glad she did it. She did the same for my brother whose Bday is the day before the cut off and it saved him, he is still not the most mature guy and he definitely needed that year.
Post by cookiemdough on Jul 9, 2012 20:01:40 GMT -5
My mom was a teacher and had me tested to start school even though my late September birthday caused me to miss the cut-off. It was fine for me. I had plenty of friends and did well academically. I am not sure what an extra year would have done for me.
My mom was a teacher and had me tested to start school even though my late September birthday caused me to miss the cut-off. It was fine for me. I had plenty of friends and did well academically. I am not sure what an extra year would have done for me.
You would uave been older, therefore at an academic advantate and more mature. Duh.
Well I guess I could have taken 4 AP courses instead of 2. Actually probably not...another year wouldn't have made me like science. : ).
*snip* Isn't there a danger that some of these really older kids are just going to be embarrassed at some point? I'm thinking this could do real harm to them and that rather than helping them, it could cause them to drop out because they're the only kid in their glass with a mustache, y'know?
It might not always be a plus to be more mature than your classmates.
studies show that kidss in low income areas who start later are much more likely to drop out. A 16 YO kid who can legally drop out may be convinced to struggle through for another 20 months of school. A 16 YO kid who can legally drop out (and get a job, assuming there is one) is going to be harder to convince to suffer through 3.5 more years--that's forever at that age.
My oldest is a Sep 19 baby and one of the youngest in her class. We sent her with the expectation that if.we needed to we would hold her back. It wasn't the case as she is reading at a 1st grade level in K. My 3.5 year old is a Dec 16 baby and so far she will go when she is.4 turning 5. I am pretty sure I won't be able to stop her from getting on the bus. Lol. But we will take the teachers and admins advice when.we get there.
The school we are sending ds to in the Fall for pre-k (which is a private school) has a pre-first class, where kids they don't think are ready for first go after kindergarten, and then they aren't doing k at an older age. I don't know if it is a good thing or not but feel it probably is.
I was held back because my Bday was a week before the cut off and as a teacher my Mom's experience was that kids that had that extra year did better. It meant her staying home another year and with it financial sacrifices but it was 100% the right decision for me and I'm glad she did it. She did the same for my brother whose Bday is the day before the cut off and it saved him, he is still not the most mature guy and he definitely needed that year.
How do you know it was the right decision? You may have been fine.
My mom was also a teacher. My birthday was a month AFTER the cutoff, and she had me tested and sent me to K.
It saved her a yr of payimg for preschool and they needed the money because I had an infant brother.
I am glad she sent me. i LOVED being the youngest because everyone thought I was super smart and skipped a grade. It was certainly a boost to my ego.
I may have been fine but knowing myself and my strengths and weaknesses I doubt it.
when i was in school, it was uncool to be 2+ years older than the average age for your grade (unless the person was developmentally delayed or something similar). sure you're the best player on the team, but you're 20 when everyone else is 17, so you should be better, and by the way, you should be in college!
when i was in school, it was uncool to be 2+ years older than the average age for your grade (unless the person was developmentally delayed or something similar). sure you're the best player on the team, but you're 20 when everyone else is 17, so you should be better, and by the way, you should be in college!
This! There was someone who graduated with me who was 21 when he graduated and he wasn't developmentally delayed. He failed 5th, 6th, 7th grades. He wasn't learning disabled just lazy. He went on to get a master's in college and is doing quite well for himself now but you would have never guessed it when we were younger.
Those parents who are red-shirting for sports reasons, their 16 year old freshman is going to stand a lot better chance of making the baseball team than your 14 year old freshman.
That 14 year old freshman would have the same hard time (theoretically, anyway) making the team against a 16 year old junior, so I'm not sure that's a huge deal. And I don't worry about 7 year olds playing against 9 year old - they'll be doing the same thing after school when they get home, unless we're going to start forbidding our kids to play with anyone who's not their exact age.
I do think it's an issue academically though. I think the older kids have an advantage earlier in their career but I worry that they'll be burnt out on education later in their career - or feel weird that they're so much older than other kids in their class.
Most of all, it seems to me that the easiest way to know whether your child is ready for kindergarten or not, is to send the kid to kindergarten. Odds are that they'll catch up. If a kid is going to be devastated at being held back in kindergarten - isn't red shirting the same thing? I would think the child being held back from going to kindergarten while all his friends go probably feels like he failed.
Sandsonik, I think there is a difference between running around with a couple of your neighborhood friends and the torture of dodge ball in the school gym.
when i was in school, it was uncool to be 2+ years older than the average age for your grade (unless the person was developmentally delayed or something similar). sure you're the best player on the team, but you're 20 when everyone else is 17, so you should be better, and by the way, you should be in college!
This! There was someone who graduated with me who was 21 when he graduated and he wasn't developmentally delayed. He failed 5th, 6th, 7th grades. He wasn't learning disabled just lazy. He went on to get a master's in college and is doing quite well for himself now but you would have never guessed it when we were younger.
I must be old because it was the same for me. I graduated high school in '89. It was more bragworthy to be younger, not older. There were only a few kids who were 2 years older than everyone else. I remember one time when we were in like 4th or 5th grade that a kid figured out that so and so would be 20 by the time we graduated. And the kids laughed and laughed. So and so never made it past 10th grade. Wow times have changed. I don't have kids so I didn't realize this was so common.
I'm also afraid of how this will affect and color what is age-appropriate. DD is the height of kids 2 years older and teachers at her school (who don't know her) mistake her for 6 all the time and treat her as such, and she just can't deal.
I would hate to see those developmental expectations put on all 4 yr olds all day because they are constantly being compared to older children. And I think at some point the schools need to tell parents "no" and take a good look at their own cut-offs.
And I'm with whoever said in my day it was better to be younger than older. As a kid I used to assume the older kids in my class had been held back and weren't as smart as the rest.
I was the youngest in my class, and really I did okay. I had some maturity issues at times, but academically, I was mostly fine (except when my immaturity affected my ability to be responsible about school...). But overall, fine. The difference then compared to now is that yes, there were kids roughly a year older than me in my class, but there were also kids who were w/in a few months of my age. Our birthdays were spread out throughout the whole year.
Because of redshirting, if I send Scarlett (whose birthday is 6 days after mine), the kid closest in age to her will probably be 6m+ older. That's barely even a peer at the younger ages, and that is what concerns me. Jackson is one day past the cutoff here in TN, and he is far from the oldest in his class. In his preschool class, he was one of the youngest - there were four or five kids who had October and November birthdays and then there was a jump and around Feb/March we started attending parties for kids turning 6.
If things were like they were when I was younger, I would absolutely send Scarlett if she was ready at 4 turning 5. But in our current district? It will be hard to do that b/c I don't want her to have to grow up sooner b/c the kids in her grade are all 6-18m older than her. She won't have peers in her class, and I know that even with kids relatively close in age to me in grade school, I distinctly remember times where I still was wanting to play dolls/barbies and my friends had moved on. The other thing that concerns me is her going off to college before she turns 18, b/c that was a time I really struggled. If we do end up sending her at 4 turning 5, we will encourage her to not go and take a year off to travel/volunteer/etc.*
*Of course, this may all be moot b/c everyone keeps telling me the cut off date is moving here. I probably should have pre-emptively red-shirted Jackson! {totally kidding - but that is what I wonder about - if they move the cut off to August 1 and we're already redshirting March birthdays for a 9/30 cut off date, does this mean that Nov/Dec/Jan will just start redshirting? JESUS!}
My son started K at 4 (10 days before the cutoff) when we lived overseas, which was not an issue for me because I knew we were planning to move back to the States within the year and I was planning on him repeating K here. We didn't move back, he didn't repeat K and he'll be 15 starting his junior year. He does not like being the youngest (also by a mile) of his group, even though driving is not really the issue, since he and his entire group of friends have that mentality of "why should I learn to drive when you can drive me places AND pay for the gas?" (different issue). But even at 15 I still see developmental differences between him and his peers when it comes to impulses and judgement. There is a little part of me that regrets starting him so early, but no matter when or where I started him, once I started him, I could not have held him back. He's pretty stellar academically, and would not really have been a candidate for holding back. Like most of the rest of the parenting decisions we make, it's all a crapshoot.
You are describing my SD. She's 15 and starting 11th grade. She won't turn 16 until December. Her big thing though is not wanting to take drivers ed because it is going to be all freshmen and she's too cool for Freshmen.
I don't think you can win. No matter what choice I make, I'll always wonder what if.