In our area, some keep their kids in high school until they are 20 years old. Red-shirting to the extreme? Attempting to contrive an advantage?
I see this as particularly concerning. What happens they child becomes rebellious as a later teen? They are legal adults and the parents have very little control. Parents are making this decision when they have a sweet complaint 5 year old not a mouthy disrespectful teen. Not to mention the advantage seems to go away around here by midway through Elementary school for academics anyway.
We had the opposite of red shirting with DD10 - she's a late November birthday (and here the cut off is calendar year) so she started KG when she was still four. She was very, very sensitive, shy and emotionally not really ready. I felt very stuck though because she was already way above grade level and I couldn't imagine holding her back and creating an even bigger gap.
Now, though, I'm wondering if we had done exactly that - held her back to allow for some emotional maturation - and then accelerated her once she started school - maybe that would have been better? I guess we'll never know.
In district that would never have been seen as red shirting. The kids are starting k at 6 and some turning 7 in K. We had this dilemma as well. We sent two early and will never really know if it was the right thing to do. They both were turning 5 during K. Our school seemed so against Elementary school acceleration, I wasn't willing to take the risk. My dd6 is going to 2nd with 8 years old and a few 9 by the end of the year.
