[...] Easy Answer to Redshirting Problem [...]

Our district will not let parents hold their children back for any reason.

In districts and schools where it is allowed the child has to be significantly behind for it to even be an option.

Redshirting allows kids that aren’t ready but aren’t necessarily going to be way behind to be given another year to be ready developmentally. In places with very late cutoff dates it allows the child to be the same age as their classmates should they ever move or when they go to college. Sending your 17 year old off to college (not even old enough to go to the Dr by themselves in many states) is an issue also.

Sara you said the school doesnt let parents hold the kids back. Is it up souly to the school then?
My son was held back in first. He was already a little older than his classmates, like by 6 months or more, it was the best thing for him. I dont care if hes older than his classmates. Its about his ability to do the work.Plus hes kinda small for his age so you cant look at him and tell hes older.
The final decision was up to me weather he was held back or not.

I am amazed that no one seems to have a negative experience with red shirting. Everyone who admits they’ve done it also announces how pleased they are with themselves for doing so. Maybe we should just wait on school until they’re all ten, since anecdotal evidence would suggest that the later they start, the better.

But there is an imbalance here. If you regret not waiting, you can always repeat a year (there should be no stigma, really. They’re small children). But if you regret waiting… oops, too late?

There is very little evidence that redshirting is helpful and some evidence that it can be harmful.

Around here I see the opposite of red-shirting. There are several private Kindergartens that will take young 4-year-olds so that they can be moved on to 1st grade at a younger age. Why would a parent do that? I had someone point out to me that those families with two working parents would be paying for daycare either way. If they pay for these early private Kindergartens and then prematurely push their kids into 1st grade, then their daycare costs would be cut significantly earlier because their kids would only need before and after school care. I sometimes wonder if all the push to get kids into full day Kindergarten as soon as possible has more to do with the cost of childcare and less to do with the need for early education.

Here’s a negative experience for ya. My brother was held back in 3rd grade and he became extremely resentful. For the first few months of his second year, he fought tooth and nail against any attempt to make him work. It was probably because of the stigma, but also because of the idea that he’d be stuck in school for One Whole Year longer than everyone else. To a 9-year-old, that’s devastating.
.
Why is it called redshirting? That’s a little disturbing. In geek circles, a ‘redshirt’ is someone who dies.

Re: the origin of the term: “Taking its name from the practice of curtailing college athletes’ participation in order to lengthen their period of eligibility, “redshirting” has become a popular option for parents of kindergarten-age kids [...]” (todaymoms.com)

Our cut-off is September 1 and I must admit I see parents attempting to get their September children into the grade above them because they are “so much smarter than their peers.” I also see a lot of children with summer birthdays struggle (socially and emotionally as well as academically) because they are younger than everyone else. As we get older, the difference of a few months makes less of a difference, but in those early years, there is a big difference between almost six and just turned five. But regardless of when we have the cut-off, someone will be the oldest in class and someone will be the youngest, and there is always a risk the oldest will be too advanced and the youngest will be behind. It is just difficult, given the enormous disparity in cut-off dates from state to state, to discuss this without relying upon anecdotes. And, of course, the people who chose to redshirt or whatever the opposite of redshirting would be called, are happy with their choice. It seems like all the bad stories you hear are from parents who ended up going along with what their school system suggested they do (be it starting a child in school too early or too late) and I suspect a big reason for this is because school systems are not set up to accommodate the needs of individual children, and when they won’t let parents take matters into their own hands, this means some children suffer.

(Lisa, you mentioned studies which showed that redshirting was detrimental, can you provide some links to those studies?)

Where we live, the cut off date is 8/31. Both my older kids have summer birthdays and they both started school at barely five and the youngest in their classes. They’ve had no problems both are academcially advanced. My third child has a December birthday and will be starting K next week… and turning 6 in a few months. The only isue I’ve had with that is that in the middle of school year he was way too advanced for his play based preschool class (I don’t mean academically) in the arena of social skills. He simply wasn’t willing to show up and attempt to play with kids who couldn’t share or use their words. He finally told me he was sick of being hit and trampled and having things snatched away from him and having other kids disrupt story time. It was agony for both of us, so I pulled him out.

I agree, mbaker, but I’ve seen situations where kindergartens were MADE TO BE more “academic” to fit the needs of older entrants (who were already reading, for example). The only reason these children were “redshirted” was hothousing – another weird term but basically people want to give their children a “boost” academically beyond just “doing well” and are happy to have them bored with younger kids, if the perception becomes that their child is gifted academically!

It becomes (is becoming, this is not everywhere but certainly where I am) a vicious circle basically. These parents will demand that schools up the ante curriculum-wise to match their supposedly gifted (but actually older) children.

Now, please don’t get me wrong. I certainly understand cases where a child is just not ready! I absolutely believe most cases of this are warranted. BUT there are some I’ve seen that just are not. It’s done purely for hothousing “gifted” kids – even if likely unconciously on the part of the parents. They just want to give their child (often an only) a perceived edge.

Has anyone considered the otherside of this issue? What about advancing kids who are ready/need it. I nearly failed kindergarten because I entered able to read/write/count/etc but they wouldn’t move me up into first grade even those all this was apparent inside the first month. I was bored and acted out. Luckily my teacher recognized this as the reason for my misbehavior and passed me on anyway.

So many schools won’t hold kids back or advance kids. I find it absolutely ridiculous children aren’t evaluated before entrance to school and at the end of every year to determine placement.