Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Kindergarten redshirting on 60 minutes tonight

My DD6 started kindergrten two weeks after she turned 5. She has an August burthday and out cutoff is january 1. She is now in a first grade class of 15 children. 8 of the children in her class were red shirted and turned 7 before January and one was held back and just turned 8! I was pretty annoyed when I found out that the town we moved to has an unwritten rule that you must red shirt any child born after September first. Making my dd the youngest. So, even though she is pretty athletic, I don't sign her up fir soccer beacuse in first grade soccer, she is playing against older boys and I don't think it's safe and it makes her feel bad about herself because she can rub as fast and when she collides with someone, she is always the one to go flying accross the field.

BUT I have to say, it is so nice that she has several older girls to play with and even though she is the youngest she is the best reader in the class and doing well in math. So, I figure I have to remember to tr
eat her like she skipped a grade and remember that she may lag behind in areas like speed.

I only wish my older DD9 could have the same opportunity to interact with and learn with children who are closer to her maturity than her age. It really is not fair that I cannot choose that for my April baby.

@ Monetfan- my dd7 was the youngest in her kindergarten class-A summeR birthday with a September cut off- in a school district with a lot of red shirting- the school district had a full day K option only- she was emotionally spent every day- often would fall asleep on the 2 block drive home. She Was also the tallest and did not understand she was a year or more younger than everyone else-because she was bigger- she had a crappy teacher and at the end of the day she was not emotionally ready for moving to 1st grade. academically she was ready- but that is not always the most important thing. She knew another kid who was repeating Kindergarten that year and she begged us to let her repeat the following year. That was not the only reason we did it but It was the best decision we ever made- her confidence is incredible now when she was so insecure being the youngest. Our decision was not based on the other kids and competition it was based on her needs. I was the youngest in my class and hated it.
My gifted ds was sick in 2nd grade- very very sick and is also a summer birthday one of the youngest in his class- he repeated 2nd grade because he missed so much school. We did not know what his treatment was or if his gifted mind was going to recover- yes it was that bad. We found out his diagnosis in end of March of 2nd grade and without knowing what his recovery would look like and since his brain was affected- we petitioned for him to repeat- even though there was no academic reason for it- far from it( and switched schools for a fresh start). It took over a year to recover and now 2 years later his brain is back to what we thought it should be- he is blowing through the academics but is in the right peer level- he is not the oldest but he is a leader and one of the oldest. We did not hold him back to gain academic advantage- we did it to help him heal and to help him. Once again- best decision we could of made. Yes we did them both at the same time and switched schools- the old school was a horror story in itself. It would not matter if he was in 3rd, 4th or 5th right now- he would blow through whatever curriculum was presented but he fits with the friends he has there.( yes he tests in the top percentilesin the standardized tests in the grade he should be too) We found a school that will accelerate to his academic needs- he knows he needs it but he wants to stay with his friends for another year and work on his own. I figure by the time junior high hits his quirks might not be so well received and he will be ready to move. The school recoginzes that he needs GT more than another kid in the school( quote from the gifted teacher) so to say because he was redshirted he should not get gifted enrichment- you don't know why a kid was held back and it sounds like you want to make sure you kid does not get outperformed by one that is a little older- or why else would you care? You are sounding like one of those competitive parents yourself- why forbid a child like my son the gifted pullout he qualifies for and deserves.
Why not let a kid play sports if they are over 18? Who is it hurting? I was a gifted athlete and the youngest in my class- I beat all the older kids- if you are good then playing against the older kids does not matter- it just makes you better and unless we are trying to coddle our kids it is called reality.
Sorry but this really hits a nerve for me because there are so many assumptions and most parents don't redshirt to try and compete with our seriously gited kids. Most of our kids are in a completely different academic world than the kids that are red shirted to give them a little advantage- who cares if they do- it is their right!
I could care less how my child is reading compared to the next kid- whether they are older or younger- it is how they are progressing in their own growth.
Not everyone is looking for their child to be The Little Prince but instead find the right emotional, academic and social balance for their child.
Sorry if my son's debilitating illness that caused him to repeat a grade to heal would not meet your standards for a gifted program- or my very tall daughter should not play basketball her senior year because it might- just might give them an advantage over your child from getting to be the Little Prince. Trust me my decisions about their school and academics have nothing to do with anyone else but their needs and refuse to let my kids be a Little Prince or Princess in the first place.

In our rural public school almost all five-year-olds with spring and summer birthdays are redshirted. It did not matter that my son could already read at a 5th grade level when he started kindergarten at 5. It did not make any difference that he could easily read and follow the instructions on a third grade language arts worksheet and do mental math or that he really wanted to learn something new. None of that mattered.

If kids are not redshirted at 5, teachers recommend putting them in T1 after finishing kindergarten. T1 is a year in between kindergarten and first grade. It does not matter if they make what would normally be a passing grade on an end of year first grade test when they just finished kindergarten like my son did when he took the test to see if he could skip first grade.

I have heard that kids are redshirted so that they will be better able to compete in sports. Sports is everything here.

My son did look small compared to some of the boys in his kindergarten class who were a year and a half older, and he was bullied by some of them, but now that he is 13 he looks the same age as his 16 year old friend. He is also taller than his friend.

It should be a parents choice . That being said, so should early entry be a parents choice. Most schools will not allow a child to enter kinder a year early. What is the difference between the two?

I am not in a red shirting happy district. I do have a friend who red shirted their son in another suburb. He is in first grade and will turn 8 in April. There was no academic, health or maturity issues. He is small in stature, that is why he is held back. They also held back their daughter. She will be 6 in June. She will start kinder in September. Again, no issues just wanted to keep the kids at the 2 school years apart I guess.

The program just proved to me how silly the age-based requirements are for school. School readiness should be based on other factors, not age.

DH, DS8 and I all watched the program. I asked DS8 if he thought we made the right choices with him and his schools (he was effectively accelerated twice, now doing 4th grade work at a base level). He said we made the right decisions.

I think that probably any parent wants what they perceive as best for his child, but this redshirting has become a sort of epidemic with mediocre evidence to support it. I think a lot of parents are misled and swayed by peer pressure, unfortunately. But I did like Gladwell's comment about how if everyone does it, there will be no benefits. So will we now see twice redshirted kids to get that leg up?

My daughter, like my son, has a spring/summer birthday but we lived in the city when she was five and nobody redshirted. She started reading before kindergarten but not as early as my son and she never took an IQ test. I was a single parent and couldn't afford it. I think she might be gifted. She was bored in school and didn't care about grades. Her social life was more important and her friends were usually a little older. I think it would have been a mistake to hold her back also. If she was bored when she was kept at her grade level I can't imagine what it would have been like for her if she had been redshirted.

My birthday is after the cut-off date for a lot of schools. I was usually the best reader in my class even though I was one of the youngest kids in class. I can't imagine what it would have been like to be held back a year.

I made the mistake of telling people in our small town what I thought about the redshirting policy and they didn't like it.

bgbarnes, what I am is frustrated and bitter, not competitive. One of the excuses I have gotten from my son's school as to why acceleration will not be allowed is that he is already so young for his grade, there are already several kids a year or more older than him in grade, and that it would be even worse if he were skipped a grade. My son's birthday is early spring, we live in Texas with a 9/1 cutoff, and yet he is the youngest boy in his grade. It's ridiculous.

I know that there are times when a child should be held out for another year, especially in times of medical issues like with your son or in cases where there are actual learning or developmental issues. I said in my post that I don't want children pushed to school before they are ready- but for some, how do we know until they are in school? What the parents or even the teachers *think* will happen might not. It just seems crazy that we don't even let the kids try, for heaven sake. And as others have mentioned, it's just one more way for the poorer children to be further diadvantaged.

And I guess I've also run into the competitive parents too often to think that the legitimate delays exceed the frivolous. I know anecdotal doesn't trump scientific, but... For example, when my son first started school I was approached by a mom who I later learned thought that I had held my son back because he could read so well. She started talking to me about how she agreed with me about holding boys back, that she had held her son back to gain an edge, but that he wasn't reading as well as she'd hoped and she was wondering what program I'd used? I must have looked at her like she had 3 heads, and I couldn't even respond because at that point I was quite naive about schooling issues and didn't know what the heck she was talking about. Long story short, where I live, this redshirting nonsense is all about gaining an edge, making their kids appear smart by pitting them against those 1 year younger, and planning ahead for the all important football years.

I'm sorry if my post offended you. I know there are times when children need an extra year, but I really can't believe that 15% do (the most recent estimate I've seen).


And on edit, in case I wasn't clear (and I'm sure I wasn't!): The reason I care is that redshirting indirectly hurts advanced students in those instances where the range of students' ages is used as an excuse to justify refusing acceleration. Fairly common reason given, from what I've been able to determine.

The blond woman from the segment said she wants her son to have advantages, though she doesn't want the other children to be disadvantaged.

My birthday is at the end of October. Back in the day, I started school early- you made the cutoff, so you started. I was always the youngest and shortest kid in the class. I was socially immature- probably average for my age, but compared to my classmates, not as mature.
Academically, it was no problem but it wasn't until college and medical school that I caught up socially.
My son has an October birthday too. When his preschool suggested we wait a year, we did. He's small for his age, so it's not like he will be a star football player in high school. It made alot of sense for us to do that. If he had an August birthday, we wouldn't have done that.
I think if he were a grade ahead now, academically it would be fine but socially it would be harder. I also think for boys that the physical part is very important- if you are the shortest, slowest boy at running, it really can affect your self-esteem.
He is more mature than some of the kids, his handwriting is excellent, etc. I think it is for him b/c we waited. I think it can make a huge difference for alot of kids to wait.
Supposedly a fair number of Chinese immigrants in our area lie about their kids' ages (if they are babies) when they come over, to give them that advantage.
I can see it makes a huge difference in our elite swim team. Kids who are bigger get better coaching and get into the harder workouts, which feeds into them getting even better, etc. It really is exactly as Malcolm Gladwell outlines in his book, Outliers. I suspect it is also true for redshirting and academics.

This is a really interesting issue, wish I would have seen that show. Fortunately, not many people in our area redshirt. I only know of one and he had an August 15 birthday (our district has a Sept. 1 cutoff), and I really think it was more to get him on par developmentally/socially with his classmates rather than to gain some sort of advantage.

I'm curious, though, did the show offer any research that demonstrates either an academic or sports advantage in the long run, say by high school? Or was it just focused on the parents' belief that there is such an advantage?

My perspective on this comes from my kids' birthdays, neither of whom I redshirted, BUT DS8 was born Sept 4 and DS5 was born May 30. So, DS8 was 6 just about his entire kindergarten year and DS5 will be 5 until the last week of school. Right now, this age difference seems significant, although DS5 has had no problems in K, but by the time they are in high school I feel like that difference will have faded. Sometimes now I wish DS8 had been born a week earlier so that he could be in 3rd grade now instead of 2nd, but honestly at age 5 he would have struggled alot socially (especially since we had not yet recognized his SPD and the related behaviors).

So, I just wonder if there have been any demonstrated benefits of redshirting beyond elementary?