<p>Momma, i was more than happy my kid wasn’t able to get his license until the summer before Sr. year even though it meant I had to drive 60 miles every day to bring him and pick him up at his school in rush hour traffic on an interstate. I would have been a nervous wreck for two years instead of just one!</p>
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I know someone whose sons’ boarding school told parents to hold their kids if born after March! So the norm at that school was age 19 for high school graduation!</p>
<p>Sept 1st is our cut-off, and S1 and S2 birthdays are in late August and S3 birthday is in late July. Since their birthdays were before the cut-off, I sent them. There were no problems except for the fact that instead of being 12 months younger than their oldest classmate, they were sometimes 16 months younger. However, that hasn’t stopped them. S1 was valedictorian, and S2 will be valedictorian this year (and S3 is in the top of his class.) I believe if I had held them back they might have been bored. The only one I considered holding back was S2 because he didn’t interact as well when he was in preschool. My husband and I decided that this was not because of immaturity but because of his personality. We figured it would be better being the youngest in the class and not the “leader” rather than the oldest. I am happy with our decisions. </p>
<p>My sister who has a son with a June birthday wished she held him back, but mostly because she felt that he would have done better at sports. Since my kids aren’t very athletic, this was never a consideration for me.</p>
<p>Some of Momma-three’s perspectives and argument appeal to me because quite frankly, some of the parent and teachers who push “redshirting” do it for the wrong reasons.</p>
<p>Like in other parents’ experiences, I had to deal with a toxic teacher when Lake Jr. was a Kindergartener. Like Jack Nicolson said in ‘A Few Good Men,’ I’m a pretty fair guy, but I got quite indignant when the kindergarten teacher, who clearly had a ahem…leisurely…approach to classroom instruction, suggested holding Lake Jr. back (mid-year B-day, by the way). We refused, and told the principal that we would not agree unless some intellectual or emotional issue was discovered. The teacher tried to use a vague explanation of “maturity” as her justification. Sorry, in my judgment she was just lazy. And this was in one of the highest rated districts in a state known for excellent public and private schools. LakeJr.'s schooling has gone on with no significant problems, he’s always related well to all types of classmates and social settings, performed well in his high school’s STEM cirricula, and has thus far been accepted to an Honors College program. His kindergarten teacher promptly retired after his class moved on, LOL. Look, different kids have different needs, but let’s not run off the cliff with this redshirting idea.</p>
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<p>Sorry, I got distracted while posting. Totally get it that some kids aren’t ready academically, socially, whatever, and thus SHOULD be held back. It just get’s a little crazy when you hear about parents holding kids back JUST because they didn’t want them to be the youngest/smallest.</p>
<p>There were seven year old’s in my son’s kindergarten class in Northern Virginia. There were kids who came to school with that missing teeth grin that I always associated with second grade on the first day of kindergarten. It just doesn’t seem fair to send your 7 year old to kindergarten and then spend the whole year whining that Grayson is bored. Maybe that’s because he belongs in second grade. For the record, I don’t like the idea of a twenty year old high school boy wanting to date my fourteen year old daughter. That just strikes me as creepy.</p>
<p>IMHO, holding back a kid for perceived lack of social immaturity when the child is reading at or above the grade level of his/her birthyear is not necessarily the best for all kids born in the latter half of the year. </p>
<p>Most of my cousins…including the cousin who ended up graduating from Caltech and is now running a successful Engineering tech firm and I would have never forgiven our parents for doing that…even if we were slightly socially immature compared to the rest of our same birthyear cohort. </p>
<p>In my case, this would have been much more the case if I had attended an academically mainstream high school considering my own observations of teacher friends’ HS classes and heard from college classmates/colleagues who attended such high schools. Their assessment: “teen socialization/normal high school experience” in many parts of the US is wildly overhyped, mythologized in US pop culture, and is a poor preparation for adult life. </p>
<p>Then again…despite being among the youngest in my birthyear cohort, I ended up enjoying my college years and had no problems excelling academically…or socially. </p>
<p>Ironically, despite being among the youngest…I was often thrust into the “older brother” role whether it is serving as an academic tutor to older classmates or in the case of a visit to a friend’s college campus…calming down a group of mostly 19-20 year old tearful homesick college freshmen on his floor as a 17 year old freshmen during fall break. </p>
<p>Also had a few 14-17 year old college classmates who you’d never guess were that young unless they told you and showed you their ID documents once they knew you well enough. Moreover…they were all quite extroverted and had no problems taking on leadership roles over mostly/exclusively older aged peers. </p>
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<p>Incidentally…the only 19+ seniors at my high school were super-seniors or super-super-seniors who were left back once for failing to complete all of their academic requirements on time to graduate with their incoming freshman class and/or started school “late”. They were far from being academically at the top and were disdained by most classmates. </p>
<p>Most of the girls would have avoided them like the plague for those reasons alone…assuming they had the time/inclination to date considering they were just as singularly focused on elite/respectable college admissions or bust like most of us.</p>
<p>Our experience is that it is very dependent on the child, but that it is all but impossible to tell at the age of 4 whether or not a child would be well served by an extra year in preschool. One of our three has a birthday a week before the cutoff. Although his 4yo preschool teacher thought he would be fine academically, she also noted that the kids in the 4+ class (kids who were either red-shirted who just missed the cut-off) would (in her words) eat him alive. We waited and I felt like I was giving him the “gift of an extra year”.</p>
<p>I am still not sure it was the right decision. He certainly felt a bit funny about being the oldest in grade and hearing that he should have been a year ahead. I still remember him coming out of the K being upset that it was not more than it was. It certainly did not help him with his study skills, because he was far ahead in academics. He also had a grade in elementary and early middle school that was just not a good fit for him. While he found his niche, it was not always easy. On the other hand, I am not sure he could have handled college a year earlier. That being said, I don’t know if it was his age or the process of getting through four years of high school that made the difference. </p>
<p>Five years later, my youngest has a birthday about a month before the cutoff. He was the youngest of 3 and mature for his age. I sent him to 5 day a week preschool at age 4 and he was fine. He was very bright, but unlike his older brothers, did not enter K reading. There are many kids that are fully a year older than him. He has a great group of friends. Unlike his brothers, he has turned out to be the athletic one and is one of the better players in his grade for his sport. If he was a grade behind, he would definitely be the top. However, part of his love for the sport comes from the kids he plays with and the coaching he has received. The year behind did not and many kids quit his sport. Thus, he may not be playing if he had waited. Academically, he is a bit immature, but in some ways is much easier to deal with because he is younger. I have to say that the people I knew with boys with summer birthdays were sending their sons to school on time. If I had been friends with the parents of the kids that ended up waiting, I am not sure what I would have done. </p>
<p>For both boys, it is very strange to think about what they would be like if we had made the opposite choice. I think the outcome would not be that different, in that kids are who they are. But I think their day to day experiences might have been very different.</p>
<p>Wow! this thread brings back memories. What a very difficult decision that was. I remember receiving registration forms for my son, filling them out and submitting them, only to be told that I should consider “holding” him back for a year (early September birthdate). I asked “why”, answer “because boys aren’t usually ready when girls are”, my reply:
“why did you send me the registration forms then”? I remember asking opinions from relatives, friends, co-workers, etc. etc. Responses were about 50/50 with most of the “hold him back” crew giving responses like: you don’t want him to be the smallest, you don’t want him to be the youngest, etc, etc. reasons that I didn’t consider exceptionally valid, but i did worry about starting him out with a “disability”… Finally, I asked the day care he attended if they did screening tests, they did, and their response was that he was ready for school. 12 years later, he was the valedictorian of his HS, attended top 20 college, and is about to graduate law school. I guess he was ready. </p>
<p>What I find really odd is that there is now a movement in this area to start PRE-K (4 year olds) in the schools. The idea, to better prepare the kids for K… that will (or so they say) result in higher test scores down the line (NYS).</p>
<p>I started school when I was 4. I could read, but I was very small for my age, ( I had been a premie) shy & had gross motor delay which was probably the biggest factor to negatively impact whether I fit in or not with older& bigger kids.</p>
<p>I never did catch up, & the only time that I started to feel that I fit in, was when I was enrolled in a class the fall of the year that I “should” have graduated.</p>
<p>I always wonder about the other end. I wouldn’t want my children to get married and have children before they are settled in life. Graduating high school at 17/18 means graduating undergrad at 21/22. If they are thinking 4 years of grad school and one year of employment inbetween we are talking 26/27 before they are settled into a career, and probably 30 before they settle down and are ready to have children.</p>
<p>Add two years and we are talking people in their 30s. I’ve seen a bunch of people on the dating advice websites that hit their mid 30s and haven’t really dated yet, but time is running out for having children. They would give anything to have that year or two back.</p>
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<p>One of the things that parenting taught me is that whether or not a kid enters K reading is mostly irrelevant. My husband and I, as well as our firstborn, all entered K reading. Our secondborn did not, and initially I was concerned about this. Secondborn grew up to have the highest SAT scores (even with recentering taken into account) and highest college GPA of any of us.</p>
<p>D has an October birthday and went to kindergarten twice, once at her pre-school (starting at almost 5 y.o.) and again at her K-12 program (starting at almost 6). She was academically well ready for first grade when she switched schools and my concern at the time was that her K-12 kindergarten not be a full repeat and bore her. Of course as mentioned above the typical kindergarten program is very different than back in my day and has to cover so many levels of ability that my worries were unwarranted. </p>
<p>The main reason for our decision was not to give our daughter any kind of edge other than allowing her to be on track physically with her peers. My husband and I were both quite late to hit our growth spurts and it made a huge difference as to how I viewed my world during high school. Late middle and high school are hard enough without being the little kid surrounded by almost-adults. I believe that we made the right decision - even being in the older half of her class D was one of the last kids go through puberty.</p>
<p>I agree I don’t think reading is necessary either. In the 60’s, reading was used as an indicator of school readiness. I also had not been in preschool, so there weren’t a lot of other options.</p>
<p>My oldest was also a premie, even earlier than I was. She started reading when she was 3, but when I toured the local kindergarten, the teacher suggested I find another school that would be more suitable. Class sizes didn’t allow much flexibility in classroom management.</p>
<p>I did find a coop 5’s program that was for students who werent quite ready for kindergarten. It was great - half day, 4 days a week. What I ultimately found for her, for the next year, was a private school with mixed age classrooms. She entered a class that spanned three grades. I anticipated that they would consider her in the youngest category, given her personality & size, but they decided she seemed more like a 1st grader. But with two full time teachers who had worked together for years, each with about 14 students apiece & a full time aide, the classroom worked well for her. She stayed in that situation for two years. The next year the school expanded to a much bigger building & she had a new teacher
who she stayed with for 3rd-5th grade. The mixed age classroom combined with consistency in the teacher was very positive for her. I was very disappointed when I wasn’t able to get that same situation for her sister, even though her school also had some mixed age classrooms.</p>
<p>I think my son could have benefited from a more flexible situation. He was young, small, but he was reading and doing math, and he was sharing and working well with others, but he didn’t have a handle on the neatness, handwriting and coloring within the lines type of behavior. My oldest is 10 years older and her kindergarten was much more relaxed. When the last came along, there was much more about following rules, sitting still and strict academics. That was tough for him at that age.</p>
<p>I firmly believe that reading early is not very important. When D was a pre-schooler I read to her a lot, but she never showed any interest in learning to read for herself. If she had tried to read, I wouldn’t have discouraged her, but I deliberately did not attempt to steer her into learning to read. Many fellow middle class moms around us at the time were working hard at getting their kids into reading and other skills that I expected to be taught at school. My concern was that D was bright and would be at too much risk of being bored at school without my heightening the risk by teaching her things beforehand!</p>
<p>D started school in a half-day kindergarten setting in a high-poverty community. She didn’t even start learning to read at school until first grade. Nowadays, she’s a top-2% student in a very competitive suburban high school. It’s still not her style to break a sweat over schoolwork, and I suspect she could easily have been valedictorian if she’d actually wanted that.</p>
<p>While reading is not necessary for kindergarten readiness, a child who can read well is going to be bored if held back an additional year. When DS3 was in kindergarten the rest of the class was working on books with just a few words per page. He was reading lengthy books at home all the time. When I asked the K teacher if she could pull some books from the library for him that we more at his level, she said, “If you want him challenged, take him to the library.” (But she did manage to express a big concern to me that he asked for help at recess spreading cheese on his crackers.) Anyhow, reading should not be looked at as the big thing for kindergarten readiness, but it should be considered if a child reads early when it comes to redshirting.</p>
<p>I asked DS this morning if he had any regrets about being one of the youngest and he said he had none. Then he surprised the heck out of me by saying, “I’m not really the youngest, I have friends who are six months younger.” I wondered how that was possible given that the cutoff date would make that impossible and then realized that a lot of kids at his school came over from other countries and states during the course of their education. So in an urban area, as the years go by, the age range shifts as kids enter the system from other places.</p>
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<p>That sounded like my experience with Catholic school in first grade and from what I heard from younger kids…their kindergartens as well in a working-class neighborhood in early 1980’s NYC. The first one I attended was notorious for kicking out kids who couldn’t conform to their strict regimen…including yours truly. Then again, they kicked out another kid several years earlier. The second one I attended was much more laid-back and allowed me to thrive in a nurturing environment that was almost the polar opposite of your stereotypical Catholic school.* </p>
<p>Ironically…both that older kid and I ended up attending the same NYC specialized HS and going on to respectable colleges. He excelled at Annapolis…I excelled at a top 25 LAC as a scholarship/FA student. </p>
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<li>Family sent me because it was widely by neighbors as being academically stronger and safer than the local public school at the time. The latter was only relative as it meant the bullying was by fists/stones rather than by knives.</li>
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<p>Exactly the opposite Cobrat. The less flexible school was a NYC public school in a good area in he 2000s. The more flexible was private in the 1990s. There seems to be a drive to catch up these days. Although it’s not clear to me what they are catching up to.</p>
<p>You do realize that to some extent this is a socioeconomic issue, right? In our first community, when eligibility rolled around for Kindergarten it was a “phew! no more scrambling to find child care during the school day!” or “now I can get a part time job!” issue. This was the community were I really only knew 1 red shirted child. In my current community (where a neighbor, whose first born has a July baby, told me proudly: “I knew on the delivery table that he wouldn’t start kindergarten till he was six”) most families have a stay at home parent at least until middle school and having a child stay home a year longer has almost no impact on family economics, with the exception of the $100-$200/month for a preschool or MDO program. And we have tons of red shirted kids.</p>