Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Skipping/Red-shirting

Speaking with many friends in the last few years who are red-shirting their 5yo in order to make them the oldest in the class to bring such advantages as more confidence, larger size for sports, feelings of academic superiority and hence better performance, etc. and they are all spouting this "data" out of the book Outliers. (I haven't read it yet.)

What do parents of gifted children think of this seemingly popular culture of red-shirting K? Does being that much younger (especially if skipped) hamper you children's emotional/psychological well being, and make them any less likely to stand up for themselves, or be leaders? Is there any of this effect on home-schoolers who are accelerated, but probably don't really realize how much because they have a lot less contact with what average grade-age peers are doing?

DS5 just turned 5 this week and is starting K next week. So definitely NO holding back, more like "skipped by nature" as I call it since he was born early and only thanks to that doesn't have to wait another year to go to school. His fine motor skills are lacking but other than that, he's more than ready to go. He is not very sporty so he wouldn't be joining the teams no matter how long we'd wait. Academically we have no concerns. He will probably be one of the smallest kids in his class and probably the youngest one as well but we're not concerned. At least not at the moment.

I haven't seen an outbreak of red-shirting in our area, and I only know one family who held a child back - she was a friend of my older dd's in preschool. It wasn't an extreme case of red-shirting though - her birthday was literally 2 days before the cut-off date for our schools, and her parents didn't do it for academics, they did it for social maturity, and it's worked out ok for her. I have another friend in another state who purposely skipped her not-really-all-that-gifted dd ahead a year by starting her early in a private school and by the time she'd reached upper elementary and middle school she was very frustrated by social things that were related to the wide age difference between her dd and the apparently larger number of red-shirted kids in her area.

I don't really have much of an opinion on red-shirting since I don't really know personally any other red-shirted children and I haven't really seen any in my kids' schools - but - I can tell you that my EG ds is one of the oldest kids in his class (always) because of where his birthday falls. I was really frustrated when he was 4 because he was clearly ready (and beyond ready) for kindergarten "academics" but he was too young to start school and our district made no exceptions at that point in time. For him, in hindsight, being the oldest kid in class has been a really good thing. He's had a ton of times that he's been bored intellectually - but as most of us here have discovered with our kids, just bumping up one grade doesn't guarantee your child will not be bored. OTOH, socially it's been really *really* good for him.

I think the things that make a difference in helping kids learn how to stand up for themselves are only partly related to maturity while in school - another important side of it is how the school staff models for the kids and leads them into becoming independent thinkers, leaders, and socially aware.

polarbear

Red-shirting is not allowed in our state. K is not mandatory so if you bring your child one year late to register for K, they will put him/her in 1st.

When acceleration was on the table last year, I looked a bit more closely at average ages in classes and was stunned to learn that our area has a crazy high rate of kindergarten retention. One local district, where red-shirting is not common due to economic factors, retains over 23% of kindergarteners for a 2nd year, which obviously impacts the average age of classmates.

While the age of classmates was something we considered, it was such a minor thing compared to what he needed academically, (which i know won't be solved by the skip.) In my mind, at least, I have homeschooling as on option if there were to be too big of a misfit with peers... and since he had "no conversational peers", per his K teacher, I'm sort of hoping the acceleration might mean he will end up with more intellectual peers despite his younger age. We're too early in this to really answer your question, I suppose...

My younger DS is youngest in grade (makes the cutoff by 10 days) in a district where boys are routinely red-shirted. DS would be tiny for grade even had we red-shirted him; but he feels acutely the differences in strength and speed. On the other hand, I still feel we couldn't have held him because of academics; his placement isn't too bad (except for reading), but would have been unacceptable a year later.

My elder, youngest boy in grade and not red-shirted, is noticing the differences in size and strength as he enters middle school. Again, changing his placement a year ahead or a year back would be an unacceptably bad fit; he's asynchronous enough that it's going to be hard no matter what.

If other people didn't red-shirt their kids, my kids would in some ways fit better in the grades where they belong. Oh, well.

High-stakes testing is contributing to the red-shirting; the district is also likely to move its cutoff so that everybody in each grade is older.

DeeDee

This has been on my mind a lot lately as DS has a birthday that would make him one of the oldest in the class. He is not eligible to start K until he is close to his 6th birthday. He is almost 3 and has mastered all that is required for K in our state and a good portion of 1st grade just by absorbing information around him.

We are now pretty sure we are going to home school at his own pace and just tell people who ask that he is in the grade that his age would put him into... And put him in sports, extracurricular activities, etc if he wants to with age mates. Who knows what he will be like at 6?

As someone who spent most of elementary counting holes in the ceiling tile after finishing my work as the youngest in the class and telling my parents I hated school, I am hoping we can do better at home...

With a truly passionate sporty boy, I almost think red shirting might be a must these days.

DS is 2.5 and VERY obsessed with sports. He is definitely advanced at some things but it's hard to tell, compared to DD, who was reading fluently by this age. DS has a November birthday so here he's going to HAVE to be nearly six before starting K (DD was not quite 5.5). I think DS will be a big tall sporty guy who's still good at school. The extra year can only help him with the sitting and fine motor and graphomotor stuff (he does wayyyyy less art/drawing/writing than DD). But he'll fit in with most boys I think; most were six or turned six shortly into the year. If he ends up being as advanced at some things as DD is at language arts, we'll have to deal with that. But his passion now is sports so the law is actually good for him I guess!

Could someone explain this?