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I'm guessing this is a fairly new phenomenon, as most of the questions I've seen are "My child just missed the cut-off date for Kindergarten, how do I get the school to let him/her enroll anyway?"
It seems that you could definitely run into issues in high school when a child (a boy, especially) is a year older than the other students. He'd be driving SOONER than his classmates (meaning he'd be the driver-by-default) and he'd be dating girls younger than him (consider the possibility of a relationship between an 18-year-old boy and an "under-aged" girl).
It's been going on for decades. My oldest daughter is about to turn 28, and it was the talk of mother's groups when she was a baby. I recall reading an article in Parent's Magazine about redshirting in the late 1980s.
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Originally Posted by lkb0714
I can only speak as a high school teacher. So I only see the "down the road" perspective on keeping them out of kindergarten another year.
I see NO downside to it at all. It is all benefit for all of the kids I have seen who were DELIBERATELY "red shirted". The additional maturity can make so much of a difference in high school. The RS kids are either just typical teens or "more mature", I have never seen an "immature" redshirt. That maturity can really pay off when it comes to work ethic and commitment resulting in better grades, and more extracurriculars. I know some of the very young kids miss out on internships opportunities because they cannot drive.
I have no idea if it is problem for elementary and middle school.
I have known people who did and did not redshirt with variable results. One of my good friends has three sons, all with July/August birthdays. They sent them all when they turned 5, and all have turned out very well. (Most of my friends have kids in their 20s and 30s now.) One friend red-shirted her daughter who got real antsy in high school to just graduate. She went to summer school and actuall did graduate with what would have been her calss had she not been red-shirted. I know a number of girls with July birthdays, including my younger daughter, who were sent at the regular time and did just fine, graduating in the top 10% of their high school classes and going on to college. I know of one boy who was redshirted who didn't do anything stellar in the areas above; I don't think he even went to college.
I don't know what you mean miss out on opportunities because they can't drive. My younger one did get her license a few months later than some of her friends, but we drove her everywhere she needed to be driven.
I truly don't think red-shirting has anything to do with work ethic, participation in extracurriculars, etc.
As for maturity levels, my experience with my kids' high school was that classes were pretty multi-age except for a few courses like "freshman PE", and some of the required courses for grade level.
you don't think the kids realize whats going on? i remember the kids who had "failed kindergarten" being gossiped about at that age. i was born right on the cut-off date and started kindergarten at 4. i always did very well academically but was behind socially. anecdotal and likely more correlative than causal, but quite a few of the smarter kids in my ap/ib classes were the younger ones.
on the other hand, graduating hs at 17 and college at 21 provided absolutely no benefit in life.
One thing to keep in mind is sports eligibility when your child reaches high school. In Pennsylvania the rule is, "A student shall be ineligible for interscholastic athletic competition upon attaining the age of nineteen years." I can't confirm but I would guess most states have a similar rule. There may be a few states that allow eligibility at age 19.
One thing to keep in mind is sports eligibility when your child reaches high school. In Pennsylvania the rule is, "A student shall be ineligible for interscholastic athletic competition upon attaining the age of nineteen years." I can't confirm but I would guess most states have a similar rule. There may be a few states that allow eligibility at age 19.
I believe the rule in Colorado is that it's OK if the student turns 19 during the school year.
One thing to keep in mind is sports eligibility when your child reaches high school. In Pennsylvania the rule is, "A student shall be ineligible for interscholastic athletic competition upon attaining the age of nineteen years." I can't confirm but I would guess most states have a similar rule. There may be a few states that allow eligibility at age 19.
And most sports not ran thru school go by birthdate, not grade. We know lots of kids who have to play with a grade older than them, simply because of their birthday- and it's especially unfortunate when it comes to try-out sports.
I guess I live in the only part of the country where the cutoff is December 31st. Kids starting Kindergarten in Sept with birthdays between Sept and December are all 4 1/2 turning 5. There was a period where redshirting was pretty popular but it seems to have died down a bit.
I do know a few people that had issues and regretted the decision to start their kids a year later. There is a big difference bewteen a 6 year old and a 4 year old. One friend's son in particular was miserable about "being with babies" He wanted to play Bakugan and Pokemon and the younger kindergarteners were still into Handy Manny and Dora. As he progressed further into elementary school things got better but he had a tough kindergarten year.
I have never heard of sports factoring into anyone's decision but I have to say that sports really aren't a huge deal here like I know they are in other parts of the country.
Entire status centered society is messed up. Parents mess their kids up with abstract nonsense early on, parents let teachers to mess up their kids, parents insist on the teachers, shrinks & drugs messing up their kids. Teacher & government insist on messing up kids with "education" and drugs for their own reasons. Ostentatiously, all the nonsense is done in the name of kids climbing up the status ladder more successfully than Johny. If parents failed to achieve their desired status perch they tend to terrorize their kids with "education" as no others. Corporations and governments could not be happier to have population of the predumbed, dependent rat racing drones. UNholy trinity of Parents, Teachers & Government robbed kids of their natural childhood and learning environment. All they learn is rat race, competition and zero empathy to the "losers". All made possible by "education".
Relying on the external measures & judges of their worth & "success" robbed kids of true independence and autonomy. Most never develop anything of that sort. Those who climbed the status ladder rip the benefits by crapping on those who stuck below, those in the middle keep on trying to move up or not to go down, those at the bottom gain 300 lbs, watch lots of TV and/or do drugs because there is nothing else to live for.
This is perfect - and exactly as it is. As in the good ol' notion of "truth".
But few want to hear about a reality THAT drastic. We're in the proverbial
"war of all against all", competing for crumbles until we bleed. Just because we smile at each other at bus stops, PTA meetings and in corporate teams and committees of all sorts - does not mean we have not been conditioned to want the guys next door (and their kids) to drop dead - so that we (and our kids!) can get ahead of them - and THEIR kids, respectively.
When you've got roughly 7 billions battling for crumbles, that "love thy neighbor" thing has a weird way of going down the drain.
But some people on these forums are still working on the epic project of convincing me that it is my own fault if I fail to see the wonderful sense of community floating all around us.
I don't think most of us do it for any bragging rights.
There are two types of "pushy" parents: the narcissistic kind - looking for bragging rights) and the "aware and scared" kind - who desperately want to prepare their child for the brutally competitive markets they will face. While the concept of "pushy" would need to be clearly defined before any decent dialogue were to result, I know I belong to category # 2.
I could not give a rat's___ about bragging rights (I would happily sign them all away); but I do lose a lot of sleep over the knowledge that my children will have to survive in brutal markets. This is a fact.
For that, I resent anyone who tells me I should not want to compare my children's performance with that of any other child. Seriously?
But their future employers should, when time comes.
Hmmmm....
Jeez, glad you don't live in my neighborhood! (JK) I'm not naive to think that there isn't some competition between kids, but for the most part my kids were more concerned with their own grades, not someone else's.
People hold their kids back for a few different reasons, but it's not generally to beat out the other losers.
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