<p>In my neck of the woods, a lot of parents hold their kids back a year so they begin kindergarten at age 6/7, rather than the traditional age 5. In some cases, the child is simply not ready for school yet. But more often than not, it seems the motivation is to give the child an extra year of maturity and thus an academic and/or athletic advantage over their classmates. My kids have had a surprising number of classmates who were a full year or even two years older than average. Just curious… is this a trend everywhere, or just in my area?</p>
<p>This trend is quite popular for some in my area. It’s called redshirting. 60 Minutes did a segment on it last year. I redshirted my daughter (she is now 17), everyone in my family thought that I was nuts and needed to have my head checked. It was one of the best decisions I have ever made.</p>
<p>If this is a “trend,” it’s about 15 -20 years old. No new news.</p>
<p>We see it a lot with summer birthdays. Probably not a new trend, but you might just be more aware of it now. I also see the opposite–parents getting their kids into kindergarten before age 5 because they think they are so bright and will be bored if they have to wait a year.</p>
<p>I am sure there are cases where holding kids back makes a lot of sense, but the downside (for people I know) is that due to the larger size of some older kids teachers sometimes expect them to be more mature than their peers. Sometimes they’re just bigger and their lack of maturity is part of the reason they were held back.</p>
<p>My D’s fifth birthday was one day inside the kindergarten cutoff date for our district. She was always going to be an outlier, either the oldest or the youngest in her class. We decided to “redshirt” also and did not regret it.</p>
<p>We have three boys with summer bdays. For kids born in the early to mid 90’s making a decision to hold your student a year prior to, or after, kindergarten was not uncommon. As any parent with multiple children knows they’re all different. Our oldest was gifted and had learning differences (although we didn’t know it at the time), and I asked both going into K and 1st grade about holding him a year. We were told he was very bright, would be bored, and would be a potential discipline issue (um, stereotype much?). But, first time parents we went along. S2 was a kid born ready. Classically a good student, never colored outside the lines, etc. Never questioned sending him once. S3 was bright but immature. It was hard to tease out what was maturity and what was personality. By then I knew all the independent work that came in 2nd grade. I was also tugging my oldest through the public school system, a square peg in a round hole. A more experienced parent by now I knew the greatest gift we could give S3 was time. I’ve never regretted it. I never heard the term redshirting until years later and frankly find it a bit offensive, but understand it’s not directed at people like us specifically. S3 is a rising Sr turning 18 this summer. He is older then some classmates and younger then others. </p>
<p>S2 had a friend who was a state ranked athlete, top of their class in middle school. He repeated 8th grade in a local private before high school. His brothers had all been highly recruited so his parents knew the game and this was a very strategic move. He ended up with an IB diploma and an early write to Yale as an athletic recruit. I believe the term redshirt fits here. I wouldn’t have done it, but he has worked very hard and academically deserves to be there as much as any other student so who am I to judge?</p>
<p>Not allowed in NYC. Parents who try to register their planned-redshirt kid late for Kindergarten find out that the kid is enrolled in first grade.</p>
<p>And our deadline is December 31. So kids can have up to 4 months of Kindergarten when they are still 4.</p>
<p>My kid has a March birthday so it didn’t affect us. But I think the deadline has to be somewhere, and redshirting gives a great advantage to more educated and wealthier families who 1) investigate the the possibilities, and 2) can afford to pay for an extra year of childcare/preschool. My kid was in a talented-and-gifted class in elementary school (and don’t get me started on the inflexibility of the current system whereby kids are tested at age 4 and there is a huge amount of prepping by families that can afford it) and 2 of the most advanced kids in her class had January birthdays and 2 had December birthdays.</p>
<p>My son went to kindergarten as scheduled by the county guidelines. I then worked with his teacher and the school guidance counselor, including testing, to assess if holding him a year would be in his best interest. The school left the decision up to us as his parents. We weren’t trying to sneak around any deadlines. We were honestly concerned he was not ready for second grade and worked with the school to help make our decision.</p>
<p>I have a late December baby and a late September baby in NYC (December 31), both of whom could really have used the extra year to mature but it was really, really frowned upon unless there were developmental delays, which they test for.</p>
<p>zoosermom, this year NYC will make it almost impossible to hold kids back. Before, there were big variations in policy between districts (and sometimes between schools, where individual principals set the policy), but every aspect of school admissions has been centralized and there are very few admissions decisions not made by the central administration. New rules eliminating redshirting were announced in April.
[Kindergarten</a> ‘Redshirting’ Gets Tougher in N.Y.C., With Repercussions - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/kindergarten-redshirting-gets-tougher-in-n-y-c-with-repercussions/]Kindergarten”>Kindergarten 'Redshirting' Gets Tougher in N.Y.C., With Repercussions - The New York Times)</p>
<p>oldmom, I just don’t agree with the policy. But what do I know? Nothing.</p>
<p>Being so young was never a good thing for my two late kids.</p>
<p>One of my good friends in elementary school was held back in fourth grade. He went from being one of the bottom students in the grade to doing great all the way through high school. It’s definitely one of those things will benefit some students, just as being able to skip a year will benefit some other students.</p>
<p>WIsh I had done that with S (summer birthday). It was o.k. in public elementary school he attended…but when he switched to private HS, he was definitely the youngest–many were almost two years older than him. They were physically and mentally advanced compared to him. Now I’m sure he would have benefited with the gift of time…</p>
<p>If it’s a trend, it’s a really old trend. Cut off in Michigan is December 1 for kindergarten start, but most people who have kids born in the summer hold them back. Especially boys. My youngest has a summer birthday and most kids in his class were at least a year older but it certainly didn’t harm him.</p>
<p>On the other hand, some of those held back had problems in high school socially. They turned 18 before their senior year and were definitely ready to cut the apron strings. A lot of the boys were held back in order to give them a physical advantage for sports and I didn’t see where that helped them either. Our high school football coach did that for his two sons. They certainly didn’t become stars, and suffered both academically and socially.</p>
<p>I had only heard of it in terms of sports-so that those held back would be on the choice teams. I had not heard of it for academics. But the starting age for schools vary so much by district what would be “redshirting” in one city would be the regular start year in another, and a kid beginning a year “early” in Seattle would be on time elsewhere. So I figure what works for each family should be the norm, not some arbitrary calendar date.</p>
<p>My youngest started “early” because she was more than ready for K. If she was a week younger, even testing in would not have been an option. She has done very well in school-holding her back would have been a terrible decision. She has a kid in her class who is two years OLDER because HIS parents thought he was not ready to start school “on time” emotionally or academically. He too, is doing well, and he’s exactly where he needs to be.</p>
<p>The only time we’ve had a problem was in a class where the kids made it their mission to circle and attack any “new blood”. There were a couple of kids who spent the entire school year telling our D that she was in the wrong grade. Reason #452 why we’re glad to have left that pack behind.</p>
<p>In any case, the whole thing isn’t new at all, though I don’t get the sports reason. What if your big, redshirted kid grows up to be a chess player and not a football player? Whoops.</p>
<p>My son has a summer birthday and our school district highly recommends to hold boys with summer birthdays back by one year. We did not and as a result all boys in my son’s class were a year older. We had a lot of issues because of this, because he was always compared to boys who were a year older. I say it is school district’s fault. If they don’t want younger kids, then they should change a policy. I have to admit though that part of the problem was probably a sever case of ADHD my son has (he could not sit at his desk until he entered 5th grade).</p>
<p>My daughter has November birthday. She went to private Kindergarten at the age of 4 (almost 5) and entered 1st grade of public school (in different district than my son) at the of age 5 (almost 6). Some kids in her class are almost 2 year years older than her. So far there are no issues (she is in 3rd grade), teachers love her and they even commented to me that they did not know she was younger than everyone else until I mentioned it (even though she is the shortest in her class).</p>
<p>It’s very common here to wait a year to start kids with summer birthdays (our cutoff is September 1). Once in a while you’ll see a late winter/early spring birthday child who starts late, and there are always a couple kids who repeat kindergarten. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I wish I had waiting a year to send my July birthday daughter, who is now a junior, to kindergarten. Throughout school she had many kids in her class who were a full year or more older than she was. She will definitely be doing a gap year.</p>
<p>My last post, post #2 was late and it just occurred to me that 3 of my very successful friends were redshirted. They are on their mid-late 40’s. They are originally from OH and from a college town, and come from a highly educated family. They are considered outliers by New Haven standards. </p>
<p>The reason why I decided to keep my dd in nursery school an extra year was because everyone else at the well heeled school followed the trend and the director felt it would be best for her. It was a very new concept to me & it was definitely a leap of faith. My family told me that I was going to ruin her…I’m glad I didn’t listen to them.</p>
<p>A lot of times, kids selectively skip.
My friend (who’s in 8th and going ti Lawrenceville next year) took physics c and is taking calc ab but taking all other classes regular (well honors but at her grade level)</p>
<p>So I believe it doesn’t matter what your grade is as long as you’re on a comfortable pace.
As for age, its usally more comfortable for a younger student to be with older students than vice versa because idk about about other schools but at my high school the upperclsssman dont hesi t ate to give me their advice and I dont hesitate to help them in math/sci.</p>
<p>I know this is a bad way to end this post, but yeah…</p>
<p>Our 17 year old son has an early Sept. birthday and our cut-off in So. Cal. was Dec. 1 (changing to Sept. 1 now). As the youngest of 4, he was more than ready, however there are kids in his class who are almost 2 years older. It has not been an issue over-all as he has done great both academically and socially. The only place it had a small impact was that when he started looking at college soccer programs as a sophomore and junior, he had not grown yet. He was showing up to camps and playing against transfer students who were full-out men with beards, while he was still the 98# weakling. He finally took off the end of his jr. year and is now physically very competitive. It all worked out and he did earn a place at his first choice college, but I think that physically, he was at a definite disadvantage because of his age. I would not change a thing in his case as I think he would have been bored if we had waited. </p>
<p>His twin brother/sister who are now 28 have July birthdays, and I do wish we had held them back. As the “first” kids, I don’t think they were as ready, and they were both physically on the small side. Our son especially had problems with maturity and may have done better with an extra year under his belt before kindergarten. As first time parents, we were still raw! A lot comes into play in this decision including the kid’s personality, birth order, size, etc.</p>