My point is that I understand the perspective of parents that feel the need to red shirt, just as I feel the need to accelerate my kid. I am trying to provide every advantage for her based on her needs. So that she has options to live the life she wants to live.
Where I am from the lower SES are not redshirting nor can they afford to do so. It's the same families that will have trust funds for their children to buy a house that are redshirting around me. They are complaining endlessly about their children not getting into GT or being boastful about it when they do. I see many of them as hostile towards the parents like myself with truly gifted children. They will share their child's score and if I turned around to share my child's score they are annoyed by it. They seem to need for their children to be #1 all the time. The opposite of what I have been trying to find - a place where my kids have to work hard to achieve. My children represent what they are trying to make their child. They are under the illusion that raising gifted children is a cake walk. They really seem to think I have a secret I am not sharing with them. My kids got basic play preschool and off to school they went. I wasn't teaching and hot housing or in the case of these families paying for a tutor before kindergarten to do it.
It's the overall negativity, whining, and attitude that grosses me out. I have a friend that redshirted her child. The child had significant health issues and they wanted more time to sort them out before school. Personally, I am not against it as whole. The folks that grate my nerves are people that would likely grate them either way. I don't think they are as whole doing their children a favor. The research I have seen it doesn't look good for these kids in the end.
