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My oldest turned five in late September. He needed to be five by an earlier cutoff to start Kindergarten, so he'll start next year, and turn six soon after. We didn't redshirt, he just didn't meet the age cutoff. Where we are, the child must be five by the beginning of September to start kindergarten. He wasn't.
By your estimation, were he to have been born a week later, keeping him out of school would be, among other things, immoral and inethical, as well as put him leaps and bounds ahead of his peers, developmentally.
This is all nonsense. Early childhood development doesn't work that way. A year's variability in age doesn't categorically correlate with huge gaps in development across the lifespan. Being a year older doesn't magically guarantee enhanced academic performance, and it certainly doesn't ensure a lifelong financial success trajectory. Development is a spectrum. You are assuming your child will automatically be leaps and bounds ahead of classmates in terms of intellectual ability and/or maturity based solely on numeric age, which certainly isn't a given.
There can be situations, usually medical or developmental, where redshirting is preferable, but I wouldn't keep a child who is developmentally ready for Kindgergarten electively. For me, it would have been great to start my son this fall (well, were it a normal school year...virtual kindergarten wouldn't provide any dramatic benefit to what he already gets in our educator-filled home, TBH)...but it wasn't allowed. Voluntarily keeping a child who is ready to be in school and meets the deadlines to start out of school is of no benefit to the child. It's also really not putting them at the kind of insane lifelong advantage that you project, either.
Last edited by TabulaRasa; 12-22-2020 at 07:46 AM..
I always heard it was good advice to buy the cheapest house on a nice block.
Wouldn't it also be good advice to be the youngest child in a class? You learn more from your peers.
As long as you can keep up, yes. It means you start college a year early, too, basically, and are done with college a year early, or have an "extra" year to add, say, a teaching certificate, or to take a gap year off at some point, or do a double-major, or whatever. A little more flexibility, and still be "on time" with your age group at graduation.
I'm surprised an October birthday would allow your son to even start school at 5.
My son has a July birthday but we put him in his regular class. He was by far the youngest person in his class. Many boys were up to a year old than he was which didn't help. He did fine academically but socially there were challenges.
There is nothing "morally" wrong with holding your son back especially because an October birthday is very late.
I'm surprised an October birthday would allow your son to even start school at 5.
My son has a July birthday but we put him in his regular class. He was by far the youngest person in his class. Many boys were up to a year old than he was which didn't help. He did fine academically but socially there were challenges.
There is nothing "morally" wrong with holding your son back especially because an October birthday is very late.
The Colorado cutoff date is October first; where were the other kids with birthdays in July, August and September and earlier if your son was "by far the youngest" in his class? Did they distribute kids to different classrooms based on birth date?
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I started school in New York State. The cut off for Kinder was in December, so I was 4 when I started Kinder. I was born in October.
Then, in middle school we moved to Texas where the cut off was September 1, and even back then redshirting was done. So in some cases, I was 2 years younger than my classmates. I did fine academically, but socially was hard. I was at least a year younger than any of the others, and as I said, in some cases 2 years younger.
OP - the thing about red shirting is, usually kids who aren't ready for K are redshirted. Giving them the advantage of another year won't skyrocket a child who's not ready for K to bounding over the peers a year behind. That child will still be somewhat unready for the challenges of school structure. So you don't have to worry that the very precocious children are going to be held behind. The opposite. It gives those who would struggle a LOT, a chance to just struggle a LITTLE.
If you are afraid of giving your own flesh and blood "unfair advantages" in life then why not give away all your possessions and move into a homeless shelter? Or drop him off at an orphanage and see if he sinks or swims?
As parents, it is our job to keep our kids safe and healthy to the best of our abilities. It is NOT our job to boost their egos or make them more popular among their peers.
OP, I can't believe you don't know how utterly ridiculous that ^^^ sounds. Seriously? Your kid will become Einstein simply by being red-shirted?
I thought you were joking when you wrote that, but apparently not. Eeek.
And I can't believe you're still trying to argue this. "I have such high morals that I don't want my kid to be red-shirted." There are lots of valid reasons not to want your kid to be red-shirted, but "morality" isn't one of them.
That is kind of crazy. When my husband was young, he did kindergarten from 4 to 5 and he had problems with it. My mother-in-law and father-in-law felt he was not as mature as the other children in his age group. The teacher agreed. So they held him back I think that’s what they call it we never had kids. So he repeated kindergarten he was six no maybe he was 5 to 6. He had one of those middle of the school year December birthdays. So he could flip to either grade.
It didn’t give him an advantage. But he was caught up with his grade level. When he started first grade he was as mature as the other first graders. That’s something you have to take into consideration to regardless of what age your child is if they aren’t ready to go to school, they aren’t ready to go to school.
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Seriously? Your kid will become Einstein simply by being red-shirted? 
There are lots of valid reasons not to want your kid to be red-shirted, but "morality" isn't one of them.
Solly says — Be nice!
