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?

Such a boy is likely to want success in competition. If most potential competitors are red-shirted, the argument goes, yours should be too because otherwise he'll be competing against bigger stronger children, not get selected for teams, and so not get what he needs for long-term success.

Have to say, though, here school sports is arranged by age not school year, so red-shirting would be ineffective. My DS isn't skipped, but being one of the youngest in the year he played last school year in the "under 9" games rather than the "under 10" ones most of his classmates played in. You don't eliminate the advantage of being born in the best month, but it would get rid of the worst excesses.

It doesn't happen here. It is illegal to start school before 5 but you can start any day you like between your 5th and 6th birthdays. If your birthday is in the second half year you do longer in the first year. If you start at 6 you get put in the class you would have been in if you had started the day you turned 5 (most kids start on their fifth birthday or the day after). Ds6 is one day short of his schools cut off and ds4 will be one month over. Ironically due to variations in holidays they will both start on the first day of the second term. I will have to fight not to get ds4 held back a whole extra year but legally the cut off date is two months later than the one the school uses.

Okay that was mainly to get things straight in my head.

Social type sports are often done by school year y1/y2, y3/y4 etc but high school and competitive stuff is usually by age. And ethnicity is often a more telling factor than age in our more popular sports anyway. Ds6 will be ok, ds4 will be too small anyway.

Redshirting is very common in our area. 2 of the kids in my neighborhood with early June birthdays were held back a year before starting K, and the school district recommends holding back children with summer birthdays even though the cut-off is Sept 10. In our district, the redshirting is not being done for sports, but for academics. They make a huge deal out of making sure the kids are "ready" for kindergarten by requiring kindergarten readiness testing, and if a child is born during the summer they almost always recommend waiting a year regardless of the results.

It does set up a strange situation in the school, with each class having a wide range of ages. For example, in my sons' first grade classes, there will likely be kids who were born between June 2006 and early September 2007, which is a sixteen month age spread.

Sports other than the official middle school/high school teams are done by age, not grade, so redshirting isn't possible.

I don't think we have much redshirting around here, but there was no way we would even have put DS in the class he should have been in, much less the one after that. His birthday is six days past the cutoff, so the year he turned six he should have just started Kindergarten, but he skipped that and went into first grade. If we had had any reason to consider redshirting, that would have put him in Kindergarten at seven instead of first grade at six, which would have been insane. He's never been a sporty kid, though, so academics were our only concern.

With another grade skip under his belt, now he's going into 7th grade at ten, turning 11. He's taking up cross-country and track, but size isn't too much of a concern there, so it still works out.

But he would never have been the size of his classmates even if he hadn't skipped, so there is nothing we could have done even if we'd wanted to.

I love the ideas mentioned above, in countries that run sports by age -- the only improvement there would be to run sports by size! Of course, if a small kid had his heart set on football and had to wait years to be big enough for it, that might not be good.

Redshirting is common around here, if the anecdotes I hear are anything to go by. And for my DD8, it seems to be working in her favor. We skipped her to 4th grade, where she's around kids up to two years older. So far, that seems to be a better social match, and saves us from having to skip her twice.

Check with me in five years, when we see whether a second skip was needed anyway in order to keep up with her intellectual growth.

There is a good deal of red-shirting here in our area and most people are very upfront that it is for athletic reasons. I am not sure which came first though: the red-shirting for social reasons or the realization that having your kid start late would help them excel in sports.

My DS9 (incoming 4th grader) has a mid-August birthday and has been the youngest or near youngest in his grade in public school. DD6 (incoming 1st grader) has a late August birthday (two days ago) and will be the same.

Sports out here goes by either grade or age, depending on the sport.
DS9 is not a really sporty type (tall but beanpole thin and prefers legos and tetherball) so those that go by age are generally good for him but for the fact that, last year in soccer, while he was in third grade, there were some first graders on his team. When he plays basketball, which is by grade, there are kids that are 2 years older than him and are HUGE and often have about 30 pounds on him.

DD6 is sporty. Because she missed the soccer cutoff by 18 days, she will play up in order to play with girls in her grade and skill level. Otherwise, as an incoming first grader who missed the cutoff, she'd be playing with kinder or pre-k kids. In basketball, she was the only girl that played so she played in a boys league. Her first year was on a kinder team-the boys were older but she still excelled. This past summer season, she played in a first-second grade league and it was totally different. Many of the boys she played against were 2-3.5 years older than her (due to her late birthday) and were HUGE. It was a problem.

The interesting thing I see here is that many parents hold their kids back in school but push them several levels higher in athletics (e.g. wanting their machine pitch rookie Little Leaguer to play up two levels or more to AA the next year) just to give them extra experience playing at a high level whether they are ready or not.

Does anyone else see this, too?

We had our DD play up in soccer just to allow her to be with kids in her grade.

I am not passing judgment on this environment out here. It just is what it is.

It's super common in my district. My two of my kids are young for the grade. They are 6 & 13 starting 2nd/9th(credit wise a sophomore) next week. They both have friends 2 years older in the same grade. My 6 year old has large number of friends already 8 and more than one turning 9 by the end of 2nd grade. It makes me a little crazy as most of them are doing it for the academics alone. The sports team stink here and the GT program is fairly competitive and the admissions test used are grade based. I know one family the child was sick and they gave it another year at home for good reason. They really believe the children will have better placement, grades, and college admission test scores later. Hmm… someone ought to show them the research on the topic.

It's rather annoying to listen to the parents talk about their kids results. It's not that impressive that your kid a year or two older than the norm for the grade can out score kids of the appropriate age for the grade. Mean while if I mention my young for the grade child out scored theirs I get a snarky response or look. Hence, I don't mention it. I'm guessing if the district would age base admission testing the red shirting would diminish greatly. Excuse the vent, I find the volume of redshirting super annoying. There are legitimate and valid reasons for some kids to go both early or late to school. Getting the edge in sports or academics isn't one of them in my book.

I've made the comment before that I think we have more in common with the parents of gifted athletes than just about any other group of parents.

I found that many people in NJ like to redshirt, girls and boys. Just to make sure their kids are in the top tier, even if they could handle K at the regular time.

There have been many articles written about it because these kids can drive in 10th grade, go through puberty before other kids, which can be awkward. Even the dating issues. If you have skipped girls dating redshirted boys in high school, that would make me uncomfortable. But how do you tell your kid not to date the 19 year old in your class because she is only 15. They are in the same grade.

Red shirting is very common in our school & district, too. My boys are young for grade, but even though they're several months from the cutoff there were only two boys younger than them in their elementary school grade.

I find it really annoying that other parents want to give their kid an "advantage" by making sure my kid is younger and smaller.

The thing is, I think the red shirted boys are uncomfortable about it, at least from what I've seen. They're forced to hang around kids younger than them in school, yet so much smaller. I don't think it helps them socially, at least not most of them-- they're awkward about being held back! And it certainly doesn't make them sail to the top of the class academically. I think it's just really misguided.

All sports around here are age based -- usually defined from Aug 1 to July 31 of whatever year. Still, redshirting is pretty common here, particularly for boys. It appears to be more for social/academic reasons. I have heard that some of the local option/charter schools actively discourage kids with late summer birthdays and guarantee them a spot in the following year K class.

Our school district has an October cutoff for K. All of my kids have winter birthdays and should theoretically be some of the older kids in the class. When my oldest was in K, there were only 2 kids who were younger than her in the class. My other two kids have ended up being in the middle.

Most of the time, redshirting doesn't seem to make much of a difference. Maybe because it is so common here it's the norm. The ones who puzzle me are the kids who have been held back, tested into the gifted program and then the parents complain that their kids could be doing more. Why not start by putting them in the correct grade?!

I feel this way, as well. It's inherently rather selfish, and it's the first step on the slippery path toward...

College Admissions Mania!

Argh. Many of my dd's friends (8th grade) are taking zero hour Latin at the high school. For most it seems to be about that particular mania. Not to mention one of them is already taking SAT classes. So not ready to even go down this path.
Re: red-shirting, it is incredibly common around here (South), esp. for boys, esp. b/c of sports and seemingly every pre-k teacher's bias. I suspect that many of dd's friends will be driving long before her (she doesn't care).

Yes! I'm amazed at the number of red-shirted gifted boys. I think it's about a quarter in my son's classroom, and at least that number in my dd's classroom.

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?

Amazing.
When I was in high school, a student who started the school year at 18 had to attend the continuation high school instead, which was DEFINITELY not an advantage (think part-time schedules and day care with the eventual goal of a GED - that school didn't offer a diploma of their own).

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.

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.




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.

"It's not that impressive that your kid a year or two older than the norm for the grade can out score kids of the appropriate age for the grade... I'm guessing if the district would age base admission testing the red shirting would diminish greatly."

Jtooit, that is an interesting thought. The ACT and SAT could also norm the results by age, irrespective of what individual school districts choose to do. This may be a more equitable representation in terms of National Merit Scholarship, college admissions, etc?

[like]




Just sayin.

~ parent of a 13yo National Merit Commendee who barely missed the NMSF cutline.

I wasn't thinking in terms of ACT/SAT. It would be interesting to see both age/grade norms on them. Numats sort of gives you a look at comparing other talent search kids with one another. It's a bizarre little thing that goes on for us at least in my district. In testing for a disability or IEP qualifying issue, our district only uses age based norms. This was an issue for us last year with DD. They wanted to retest achievement because previous results had been grade normed. It was silly since it only brought her scores higher. When testing for GT placement they turn around and use grade based scoring, UH? So if my child is tested for a disability the scores are compared (in our case) to children usually a grade below her/him. In turn making my young for the grade kids look even more advanced.

I think using both might even give a better picture for us and the schools. A 99 percentile on an grade level achievement test is still a 99 when you age norm for my kids, but the redshirter's score might not look that way anymore. Maybe just maybe giving the parents some perspective. My kids have not been harmed by the current policy. If there were limited seats as in many districts and they were bumped my a child 2 years older because of red shirting, I would be annoyed to say the least. It's gotten to the point in my district when I am listening to parents of these redshirted kids complain when they don't make the cut. It's gross listening to it. They wouldn't even be close if they went to school at the appropriate age. I get looked at by them like I must be hot housing and have a secret recipe I'm not sharing with them.

There are absolutely times a child should be kept home another year. I am no more pleased with places that don't allow holding back when needed than I am with those that allow holding back to the extreme for nothing more than an edge over classmates.

Exactly.

Redshirting is so popular around here and I am a vocal advocate against this practice. I hate it so much it makes my blood pressure rise to dangerous levels. My son's TAG program is full of older boys who did well enough on the OLSAT and reading comp to get into the program. But they do not learn like gifted learners and the gifted kids suffer.

I think the practice is so short sighted. These kids get in trouble more in school and over the long term, they do not do as well.

Yup!

Is it possible that some were redshirted because of asynchronous development? Maybe when they got to kindergarten age, someone looked at them and said they're not ready (socially), wait a year.

Before DS started kindergarten one of his gymnastics teachers told me she thought we should wait a year before putting him in school, that he just didn't seem ready socially. And a close relative told us he thought we should have DS repeat kindergarten because of his not-so-great social skills.

Needless to say, we didn't follow any of this advice (he would have been even more bored than he was!) But take away the academics, and DS certainly looked like a kid who wasn't ready for school and a prime candidate for redshirting.

What is really gross is listening to the parent of a red-shirted child bitching that all those immature kids (kids 16-17 months younger that hers but, you know, supposedly age-appropriate for grade) are ruining school for her child, what were their parents thinking!

You get enough of those (I also live in an area where red-shirting is very popular amongst higher socio-economic categories), and they do make the younger kids look immature, skew the perspective of teachers and parents on what age appropriate development looks like (hint: ADHD diagnosis rates amongst young for grade kids), and increase the pressure on other parents to red-shirt too (HK is totally right about this being strike one in the college admission wars).

This leaves the age appropriate kids whose parents can ill afford to keep them at home in an even worse position in their grade cohort, as they are now starting behind even more.

And then some @&#^% actually change public policy based on this... because having as early a cut-off as possible gives a state an edge in NCLB results. Another 100 years of this and kids will have to turn 18 by July 1st in order to start K .

Put me in the "seeing red" category.

The school district in the superZIP next door does that. Any child that looks like he/she might mess up their perfect NCLB scores gets a strong recommendation to delay entry in K.

That's cheating.

That's the point.

Oh, no, wait, it is to make sure that all children are mature enough to have a good experience in K...

Sorry!

Does anyone know how gifties do in Finland with school starting at 7?

Isn't it quite lock step? No acceleration? Someone here mentioned it once.

I looked it up and you can start your kid early. And they can accelerate. It seems more fluid but then they have a small population. I went to Helsinki and you can do the city tour in half a day, which includes a church built into a rock.

I haven't read all the responses yet. I'll go back and do that in a minute. I do live somewhere where red-shirting is the norm. My son with an April birthday (so 5 months before the Sept.1 cutoff) was the only child I knew born that month who was sent to school on time. Boys are routinely enrolled a year later here. It's pretty common for kindergartners to be turning 7 by the end of the year.

I eventually, not only sent my son on time, but he ended up skipping 1st grade. It means that his acceleration was a bit more radical then we planned on it being as he's a whole 2 years younger than many of his classmates. It's been interesting, but nothing that would convince me we made a poor decision.

I'm not a proponent of red-shirting. When I did my research on early entrance, grade skipping, ect. I encountered a lot of research about late entrance and retention of students. Most of the research shows no advantage to holding kids back. There can be some early advantages in early grades, but those in large part disappear by 3rd grade. There are even studies that show poor outcomes for students who are older in high school, including higher drop out rates.

So over all I think the practice has very little good going for it despite the dozens of anecdotal evidence everyone in my town regurgitates. However, I do see the appeal. Red-shirting is so common here. So the kids get to kindergarten a year older and are ready for more advanced school work. The teacher finds herself teaching more advanced concepts in kindergarten and soon kindergarten is much more academic. Next thing you know it's too academic and a poor fit for a child sent on time. When you see what's being taught and can't imagine your child being ready, of course you hold them back.

I think the answer is to hold our schools accountable, to move able and ready students forward, and to ensure that our teachers are prepared for our sent on time kids.

As a parent who has made unconventional educational decisions for my own child I cannot in good conciseness say that another parent shouldn't do the same. If waiting a year is what feels right to to that parent for that particular child then I support them in doing what they need to do.

Maybe that's what it all evens out by third grade really means...

I would say that this describes at least 1/2 the kids in my oldest child's full time gifted program. It could be why the full time gifted program was such an awful fit for my kid.

What's really crazy to me is that not only is red-shirting the norm here. But preschool starting at age 3 or even earlier is also the norm. So many kids entering kindergarten are not only older, but also have 3 years of school under their belt.

So I remember trying to explain to someone that we needed to look at ways to better engage my son who was reading at a 4th grade level in K. They looked at me and said, well most our students start K already reading.

Well duh. They've had 3 years of school. Mine had had none.

I do not understand the starting K at 3 and having 3 years of school at k. They just repeat K for 3 years? What is the point then?

I suppose if most the kids started K at 6 plus after 2 or 3 years academic pre-K then they would be reading to some extent. Here kindergarten (3 to 5) is very non-academic and nearly all kids start school on their 5thbirthday or day after and very few kids start school reading.

Opps. Meant to say 3 years of academic pre-school.

Need to proofread before hitting submit.

Hmm. In a situation like this, one needs to probe them for a definition of reading. I suspect that their definition is something like, "Can sound out one-syllable words like cat and sat and stop and recognizes a few sight words," as opposed to "stopped sounding out words long ago and reads books alone."

He's in 6th grade now, so we are long past those days. =)
It was frustrating at the time, but we did end up getting the changes we needed to see.

I have heard that sending them to K and then skipping 1st is a better strategy than skipping K or doing early entry. 1st (and 2nd) seem such wasted years anyway, they don't learn much at all.

Whereas we were never going to, here in Lake Wobegon, where ALL the children are above average, and boy-- parents are VERY determined to keep it that way. (SO grateful to that kindergarten teacher who told us to homeschool and NOT enroll DD in kindy.)

I figured it out when the ONE other child we knew who was actually reading-reading was in "the top reading group, just like my N" during Kindergarten (oh, and N was redshirted-- surprise!) according to a close family friend.

Uhhhh.. yeah-- "top reading group" was the one that knew the phonemes completely, apparently, and was working on decoding skills and sight words using Dolch cards. This was an excellent fit for N. Not so much for P, another child who was "reading going in."

This other child was reading Beverly Cleary novels. Mine was well into Harry Potter. You know-- sustained silent reading-- for hours. Unprompted. The books that N would not be tackling until FOURTH GRADE (or beyond).

Neither of the two genuine readers was redshirted. The other child is a rather sad story, I'm afraid. No, she didn't "even out" by third grade... but by high school, she has definitely tuned out and has taken an "opting out" path. It makes me so sad to think of that child.

I have heard that sending them to K and then skipping 1st is a better strategy than skipping K or doing early entry. 1st (and 2nd) seem such wasted years anyway, they don't learn much at all. [/quote]

Interesting

Can anyone point to research comparing these approaches or have experiences to share about early entrancing? I would've thought that early entry might be less disruptive than skipping a grade in terms of friendship development and continuity, but then again depending on social skills and maturation (physical, communication, emotional..) I can see how it could work the other way around. I'm also curious to hear about boys and girls experiences with acceleration and retention models. I've heard more parents of boys talk about concerns related to kindergarten readiness than parents of girls, but feel like I know just as many busy, creative and motivated girls. Just curious - starting to explore options for DS3.5 for next year.

I very much believe that it depends on individual circumstance, too-- BUT-- I see an awful lot of parents locally doing it merely because of pop culture references to research (like in Outliers), and because everyone ELSE does it.

There are certainly children who aren't ready at five.

But then the question ought to be-- ready for WHAT?

No guarantee that such children will be MORE suited for it at 6 or 7, either, if you see what I mean.

I thought the evidence supported early entry as a sound option?

Having had a daughter be devastated to be left behind in preschool when her peers went to K (many of them less ready on all fronts), Who then did some K at the allotted time, and THEN skipped. I so SO wish she could have just gone to K when she was ready and avoided the skip. She's lost her entire cohort of friends and had to start from scratch every single year since she was 4.5 yrs old, it's not been ideal at all.

I am reading "Teaching your children well" and it talks about accepting your child and they will reach success wherever their path lies. But I think that really doesn't always happen and how do you help your child become a lower income person, who may never be able to buy a house in a good neighborhood or support a family. 50 years ago, blue collar workers had great union jobs and could buy nice houses.
I feel very lucky that my kid has the IQ and talents she has, she has plenty of options. I don't know what I would do if she didn't. I know that I would want to give her as many options as possible. If that meant redshirting, I probably would. I am trying to accelerate her, so I am not accepting of the situation based on her needs.

For my PG DD, who entered K at 4, discovering that a good half her classmates were entering K at 6 worked in her favor-it meant at least a couple of other kids could read and therefore the teacher was used to having them do AR and read independently instead of doing the boring phonics lessons. She was STILL the most advanced in the room, but she at least wasn't the only one who had her own packet of math pages and her own book in her chair pocket.

I will say, though-the fact that she was 2 years younger than most of her classmates (she'd been early entered and was only born 8 weeks before the cutoff date) did play into deciding to homeschool-because PE and the playground were total nightmares for her. She was just plain too little and too young motor-skills wise to keep up, and the PE teacher had the attitude that she should just be able to keep up with 6.5 to 7 yr olds as an older 4/young 5 yr old. DD spent a lot of PE classes in tears, furthering the PE teacher's perception that she should never have been allowed to enter early in the first place.

I also noticed, when DD did the EXPLORE last year, just how BIG the kids were. She was taking it at 3rd, in a Duke TIPS area where almost no 3rd graders take it, and was a young for grade 3rd grader, and in talking to the parents, a lot of these "gifted" kids were a year older than expected for their grade.
She still scored very, very high compared to 3rd graders-or 8th graders, for that matter.

DH was just telling me how he thought the best grade for DS would be kindergarten, but one in which he could learn 4th+ grade material. Academically he was "ready" for kindergarten long before he was 5. Socially and emotionally (and maybe physically), not so much.

I decided against signing up for a local homeschool PE class, in part because he'd be grouped with the 8-18 year olds (eek!) instead of the 5-7 year olds. I suppose I could have asked to redshirt him, but decided it wasn't worth it.

In our (smallest school in the) district there would be 4-6 classes in each grade level. The odds of being in the same class with a particular friend from the year before are low. No one from preschool went to the same school. It's not a possibility that even comes up on my radar.

We were making the decision for a boy, but even for a girl there are age-based differences in interests and maturity (and politics! Save me from girl politics!). I know quite a few H and PG kids and there are very few who really blend with older kids. My children, for example, talk sophisticated talk, but really are spot on developmentally. I figure that the older they are when they have to blend with older kids, the better they'll be able to. K is also very different from 1st here. Both are wildly academically inappropriate, but K has half a day of play, the teacher expects the kids to be learning to sit still, etc. It's just more relaxed and fun, whereas 1st is lots of serious sitting at desks. Given a choice, I'd choose to do K and skip 1st. Likewise, skipping a year of preschool (fun play) for a year of boring inappropriate academics is not something I'd choose for my kids. I have to qualify this, though, they're more than a year ahead, always have been, and we use 100% play based preschool.

Jenna, I've got this impression from avidly reading every K/1st skip thread on here over the last few years, I'm not sure what search terms would help. Maybe a new thread asking for ideas and experiences?


Same way you prepare any child for adulthood. Teach them to be kind and good, help them earn how to make good choices, gather information, make decisions, communicate with experts.

Tallulah - it's fine if EVERYONE gets a new cohort each year, it's normal then. In our case we are talking about small schools (no more than 2 classes, with a culture of keeping kids somewhat together as well, classes do get mixed up, but not that much, and also most kids feed from the same preschool). So in each case DD has been new/alone in a cohort who have been together for increasingly longer periods of time. This year, yr2, those kids would have mostly known each other through preschool, K & yr1. And they mums all did their getting-to-know-you in preschool/K too. It's very different to a large school where everyone is fully mixed up every year.

In our case DD HAD friends in preschool, that she got along well with (who were no doubt gifted), she was ready for school when they were, and she was devestated to be left behind. If she could have just gone with them she would have been in the same classes, and would not have needed an immediate skip, the whole rigmarole she's gone through would have been sidestepped by simply starting school when she was ready, with her self selected friends... Yes she'd probably still be looking at a second skip later (as she is now) but her last 2-3 years could have run a lot smoother for her.

I want my child to be a good person. But I was talking about the ability to have and support a family. This is a reality in today's world. When I left school, I went out and worked, supported myself and was able to buy a home within 5 years. Actually I bought 2 homes, but I worked on Wall St. My brother bought a home within a few years of working. Most of my friends were similar in their ability whatever profession they chose. How many people coming out of school find themselves in similar circumstances. I have one nephew that bought a house when he got married, because they used the wedding money and made their own wine and cupcakes, in lieu of wedding cake. The reception was fun despite inability to drink the wine. The cupcakes were pretty bad too. But they bought a house.
My other nephew, in mid 30s, has a nice job, based on his abilities, non-gifted. He has benefits but it would be hard to buy a house. Luckily his father is a surgeon and helps him get a new car, and he has a small trust fund so will be able to buy a house. I am sure most of the people on this site did not have parents that had trust funds to buy their homes. They all had jobs that provided enough.

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.

I agree, Jtooit. That's what we see, as well. The parents who are low SES (and could use any "advantage" thus conferred, theoretically) are the kids going into full-day kindergarten as early as the school will allow... because they are scrambling to cobble together adequate childcare that they can afford.

The ones redshirting are MOSTLY doing it because they want their kids to "out-compete" the other children. These are 5 to 7 year old CHILDREN, and they have parents who want them to "crush the competition" somehow... That. is. just. sick.

My children represent what they are trying to make their child.

Yes-- though they don't really understand what it is they are wanting. Not really.

I understand your perspective and yes, it is annoying that they resent the fact that their child isn't gifted. But I am too lucky with my kid that I will not fault them. I do not know what I would do in their place.
And I did not mean from a SES that they come from. I am talking about the average IQ scale that they come from. What they could achieve isn't an option for their kid. And you really don't know how much they have to give their kids as many people are living just within their means.
I just wanted to add the perspective that I am glad I do not have to redshirt but I do not know what I would do if I were them.

I don't either-- it would be awful to be in that position in a place where it was normative the way it is here.

I'm not sure all the brew-ha-ha over this is warranted - it seems a bit silly. My child is practically red-shirted as he misses the cut-off by 3 days. So, basically, he usually turns a year older on the first day of school. So, for example, he turned 7 on the first day of 1st grade. But this a district that is kind-of big on it - they STRONGLY encourage anyone with a child born July or August (I've even heard as early as May and June) to wait a year. They really push it on the parents saying you can always skip but you can't go back (in reality I don't see any skipping though - at least not yet). So it's not uncommon. Anyway, they kind-of make the parents feel like their red-shirted kid will have an edge. And maybe in some ways; but, the reality is it just doesn't pan out that way. Maybe with sports? Not sure b/c I do not have an athletic kid but so far the sports are all done by age so it doesn't seem to matter. Also, the testing (at least things like the WJ, and OLSAT, etc are all compared by age not grade. The olsat is even broken down by three month increments. An acquaintance of mine made a bit of deal about my kid being old for the grade - her daughter was born in May, mine in September but her daughter would be in the next grade up .... She seemed a bit resentful but I don't see what I could have done - there still is an age gap of 4 months... My second son is born in the spring and I am not all resentful that any of his peers born in the fall will have some sort of advantage because they will be a year behind. I mean the cut-off has to fall somewhere! Her kid was born in the spring and mine in the fall. I also feel that it really hasn't conveyed any big advantages. My kid is 2e and is still the smallest boy in the grade even though he is a year older (and that REALLY causes some problems - these kids are soooo big!) And most kids turn the same age within the next 3 months or so anyway. It actually seems to cause problems b/c my kid is in-between and when he does well or is deemed "gifted" then it's because he is older (at least in the eyes of people like the friend of mine who came off annoyed about it) - well, older doesn't matter on the WISC IV or on the OLSAT or even on the achievement tests because they are all normed by age. So, I have come to realize it's not really all that to be worked up over. I actually have come to feel that my kid's birthday causes more problems than advantages. If he were born squarely in his grade I think things would be easier in many ways. If your child is truly gifted, I just don't see a red-shirted kid affecting your kid at all. People here do buck the system and still seem to make the decision based on what is really best for their child and that is totally fine with me. For those parents that think they are really getting a BIG advantage somehow I think they may be a bit disappointed. I guess what I am trying to say is that ultimately it doesn't make the big difference people say it does. But that's just my experience. I don't resent people holding their kid back anymore than I resent people grade skipping their kids... mostly, involved and caring parents know their child and his or her struggles - they see how easier or hard things are, etc... We're all just doing our best to make sure our children have positive educational experiences and healthy self-esteems.

Also, I just want to add that yes some parents can be a bit competitive here and there and about certain things (and all of see our child is a certain light) but at the end of day I don't think I have ever seen the kind of extreme competition Howler Karma is talking about... so, maybe if that were the case around here I'd be more resentful but I really think most parents just love and want their kids to have positive fulfilling experiences and the kind of extremism Howler sees is a bit of an anomaly but I could be naïve, I guess.

Is IQ related to income where you live? Where we've lived and among the people we know it isn't at all. In fact, a kid dropping out of school to do a plumbing or cabinetmaking apprenticeship is more likely to own a home early than one sticking at school for another decade. And that advantage never goes away, because they've rented out that first house and bought another and rented that and are onto a 3 bed SFH by then, with all the passive income and equity that provides, while the smarty pants highly educated ones are left trying to buy a house that will fit a couple of kids with no equity and barely any downpayment.

Look at investment backers compare to college professors. The bankers aren't as intelligent, but earn way way more. Or stockbrokers vs doctors.

Don't know where you live but one, it is really hard to get trade apprenticeships these days and dropping out of school counts against you. Cabinetmaking? I grew up in an petrochemical town and familiar with trades and unions and things have really changed. And it helps now to go to a Community College program and get an associates degree in automechanics. The computer diagnostics require training than just having a wrench and getting under your car. And it is very competitive to get into these jobs. But the hourly wage isn't as competitive as you think now. And yes, if someone is willing to buy a home in a neighborhood where they can fix it up, rent out some rooms to boarders, deal with the hassles, they can do that. Anyone can do that. But you have to live under the circumstances.

I see exactly what Howler is seeing in my area. I do believe these parents feel they are helping their children. The ones that are really annoying will be in any venue. They are the 1-uppers in life and I truly try to avoid them.

Having children from 6 to 20 years old, I have seen this play out over the years. In general, they don't seem to get the results that lead to their decision to redshirt. We all have an aptitude limit. They falsely believe holding their children back is going to change that fact. Truly average is not going to become gifted by redshirting. In my area, these same parents are helicoptering over every moment of their children's lives. I know they believe they are helping, I just don't. I don't think they are teaching their kids how to achieve on their own or how to take care of themselves later as adults. It's a general theme in the environment and I think hurts the kids long term. The real impact is not on my children. It's on their children. The only issue I had was initially it took the school a while to see I wasn't one of them.

My district uses CogAT, Olsat, and State achievement testing all grade normed. I know CogAT and Olsat offer age norming, but my district specifically uses grade normed results. My dd6 has 9 year olds in her 2nd grade & my DS13 has kids turning 16 as freshman. It's not the kids right on the line of cut offs. I don't know in my mind that I see that as redshirting. These kids are 18 months to 2 years past the cutoff. At the end of high school, I am not seeing these kids excel. Given the numbers in my school, these are not all kids that had some other issue going on.

Ultimately, the parents aside, I feel for these kids. They have so much pressure on them from the parents and they are being taught that being #1 comes first and foremost. The parents believe you gotta be the best. Our circle of friends are the goofy lets go splash in the mud type of parents. I am thankful I have found sanity amount the parents I have befriend. Parents that understand that raising gifted children is not as easy as some believe. I never even thought about my kids being gifted when I had them. I just hoped for them to be healthy and not have to many struggles or obstacles in their lives. Gifted has been challenging and it's topped off with a variety of 2E and/or health issues with each one of my kids. I don't think these parents really want to be in my shoes if they understood it.



Here interesting little article about why it may not be such a good idea


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/dont-delay-your-kindergartners-start.html?_r=0

DH & I bought a fixer upper. I learned how to do every imaginable thing on that house! Tiling, plumbing, electric, refinishing floors, and more. We had nothing money wise. The fixer upper was actually cheaper than rent for us. We slowly moved up. I hope my kids have to work their way up in life. My sister had her f-I-l hand them a house. Years later I am way better off with skills I acquired, money management, and appreciation for what we have accomplished. I don't see that scenario as a bad thing.

Ahhh yes, I see ... Yeah one - uppers are always toxic, whether their kid is gifted or not (and parents of gifted children are also guilty of this). And interesting that some districts use grade norming! As much as our district likes to sing the praises of red-shirting the tests ARE age-normed (so far as I can see the sports are too, When I register DS for anything I have to plug his birthdate in and he is placed according to that not his grade... but for now these are the community sports as I don't believe their are any school sports teams in elementary). I agree this kind-of parent is not good but they'd be that way with or without redshirting and you find them in parents of gifted children and not-gifted imo ... Poor kids either way. And yes they are annoying and toxic.

This is what I see and my point in it not being really all that big of deal:
At the end of the day, 'normal red-shirting' (and by that I mean within a month or two of the cut-off NOT holding a kid back two years!) is not going to make a child gifted so to me it's not that big of a deal. Like I said, as far as I can see many parents just want to do the best by their kids given their child's maturity level, self-esteem, strengths and challenges, etc. I just don't see it as that big of a deal. If a parent wants to hold a child back because it serves their child's individual needs best, to me that's fine just as fine as grade-skipping if a child would be best served by that.

I haven't read the other responses, so I don't know how much of a problem it is in other areas. Most of the parents I've run into who redshirted don't seem to be hyper-competitive about it, but they have done it to give their child an advantage in one way or another. Understandable, all parents should want what is best for their children.

My only real problem with it is in how it affects those like my son, who is on the younger side of his grade even without considering the redshirters. He attends a very small school and is the youngest boy in the grade, as far as I know. There is an age range of 2 months to 15 months older than my son for the boys, and the school has repeatedly given that as a reason for him not to be moved up 1 or 2 grades for his math class (his teacher initially requested this move, not us). The schools' response was that he's already so young for his grade, why make him feel any younger?

Never mind that the only thing he feels is boredom, let's just worry about an artificial construct based solely on the year in which the students were born.

Anyway, I do understand why some of the parents are doing it, and perhaps some of the kids are benefitting (despite the several reports I've seen indicating otherwise for the long term). My only wish is that the schools would be as willing to allow parents to appropriately accelerate their children as they are willing to allow parents to hold their children back.

My kids have been to both public school and private school. We live in a fairly blue-collar community with a lot of recent immigrants, so in the public school there is some redshirting, but almost exclusively with boys with summer birthdays and not in the lower socio-economic groups. In the private schools, though, there is a ton of redshirting of both boys and girls with summer birthdays, including at least 5 boys in my DS's grade of 65 kids who have birthdays in March-April-May and pretty much every other boy with a summer birthday. The reported reasons are both academic and athletic. In fact, I've had one parent who redshirted her July-birthday daughter refer to a girl who was a year younger and not redshirted as being "young for grade." I'm not sure what that makes my two youngest kids, who were both skipped

Interestingly, quite a number of the kids who were redshirted actually socialize primarily with the kids a grade up, who are their age mates! On the other hand, they are also more frequently "moved up" to the higher-grade athletic team, (although that really just means that they are playing with their age mates). But it sounds more impressive to say that their child played hs ball while still in ms.

My neighbor actually brags to me that her 15yo son is accelerated one year in math. What that means, though, is that he, a 9th grader who is one month older than my son, is actually doing the same math as my son, who was not redshirted and so is in 10th grade.

As far as my kids go, the fact that they are in class with kids sometimes more than two years older than them means that they are with their academic (well, close enough) and social peers, so it saves them yet another skip. So far it has even worked out in sports (which are grade-based here). My kids aren't althetic stars nor would I call them natural athletes by any means, but they more than hold their own with their teammates because they play up to the level of coaching.

Of course there is always the dreaded driver's license issue. Some of my son's classmates were fully licenced drivers this spring and my son won't even start driver's ed until this fall (and this is my son who is in the correct grade for age, although the youngest in his class since he has a July birthday). Honestly, it hasn't been an issue at all.

I am seeing the opposite in my area (Sydney, Australia). Our son is early entry and non in his class have been held back. Some are 12-14 months older but is hard to notice a difference between him and his classmates. I do like hearing about the redshirting on athletic grounds because I am yet to hear a highly successful athlete put his or her success down to the age they started school. As far as I am aware it usually more like natural ability, time and effort that leads to athletic success, not age compared to kindergarten classmates.

I'm sorry, this description made me sad. I realize that it is just your experience in your child's school, but as the parent of a not red-shirted gifted older child (he turned 6 two weeks after starting Kinder, now in 4th) who was also tall and big for his age, I have found these stereotypes about big kids to be very frustrating. I spend much of his early childhood years explaining to him that, yes it is completely unfair that the smaller kids can push and harass you as much as they want but if you retaliate or defend yourself in anyway, they will immediately tattle and YOU will be the one to get in trouble not them. In our experience, the smaller kids were the instigators not victims, but then played the victim role to get out of or someone else into trouble. Eventually, I learned that I needed to tell the teacher immediately when he told me kids were hassling him because I could not trust the school staff to recognize the real situation. They always saw him as the aggressor because he was bigger. For my son with his keen sense of justice this was a really hard time. Especially since he has never, not once, instigated a physical conflict with another kid at school.

I understand that you are talking about specific children, but it comes across a bit generalized. And I am admittedly quite sensitive on this topic. I just wanted to share a different perspective. I am sure that there are quite a few red-shirted, big kids who have experienced this as well.

Not sure if this has been coverered, but I wrote something recently on this topic and thought I would share some data on redshirting. Nationwide, about 5% of kids are redshirted, but it varies dramatically by district, with some districts having as many as 20% of kids redshirted. Most redshirted kids are male, white, and wealthy. Date show that at age 4, children who later were redshirted were no different academically or socially than children who were not. While many poor/working class/middle class parents are also worried about their kids' academic progress, they simply can't afford to redshirt, so they don't.

The belief among academics is that redshirting is a social/peer pressure phenomenon of the upper middle class that also is a response to fear about increased K expectations.

The only kid that I know was redshirted fit the above mold. The motivation was athletic - father had been a Harvard footballer so desired his to play football with a size advantage. Ironically, once of an age to play the kid had zero interest in football preferring theatre and dance instead which his loving parents fully supported.

SoCal reporting in and YES, in the last 2years--I know of many kids who have been "redshirted"...many many many.

Some of the parents I have asked directly about this have basically brought up the athletic issues, but many are also thinking class President!

They all seem to believe if the child is 1year older than his grade peers- he will be more superior in stature/strength/athletic prowness and also more socially mature... and this will help them become team captain or class pres.

When I have asked specifically regarding the academics- they have responded that the child could easily do the work, but they feel the advanced physical and social maturity is more important.

Unfortunately, I heard so much of this type of talk that I second guessed my own choices and have truly made a mess of my DS6 school choices! & Still trying to sort it all out!

ps
Most of these families- I would say are middle to upper class to several full on ultra wealthy. Many, but not all, of the parents are Ivy leaguers and plan for their kids to be the same.

The more wealthy folk also choose elite private schools where many well known public personalities send their kids. I find it interesting. These parents also believe it is "who you know" and they want their kids to be friends with certain groups of kids. I doubt I will still know them in 12 years to know if it made a difference in their kids lives or not. That said, their kids are great kids and I hope they do have awesome school careers, whether they play sports or not.

I think the point in the book Outliers about this is that the older, more physically developed kids were considered to have "natural ability." Hence they received better coaching, more opportunities, support, etc. that all played a part in their development into star athletes. Maybe they really did have natural ability, but when Gladwell looks at the birthdates of the players on an elite Canada hockey team he finds a disproportionate representation of January 2-March birthdays (cutoff is Jan 1) on the roster. It makes no sense for Canadian men born in Jan-Mar vs Apr-Dec to have greater "natural ability" in hockey, does it?

Specific dates in each region will differ depending on the cutoff for sports and whether kids are age-normed or grade-normed but the idea is the same. Around here I believe it's age-based at the end of July or August, which should give the fall birthday kids an advantage, and would actually work against the summer birthday jocks as they would be "playing down" or against younger kids when their real competition when it matters is the next grade up. The irony.

I differentiate between redshirting for competitive reasons vs for developmental reasons. In my area, it seems to happen mostly with boys from wealthy families, and there's quite a few of them.

My concern about redshirting as it applies to me personally is that DD skipped K and so is in class with boys almost 2 years older than her. Not a big deal now because she doesn't care about boys but I'm a little freaked out middle and high school. And truthfully it's not just the boys, I'm worried about the girl politics too.

I see a HUGE difference between accelerating and (most cases of) redshirting: accelerating doesn't give my child a competitive advantage. I had to jump through hoops to get her the grade skip whereas anyone can redshirt their child with just their say-so. And schools have a vested interest in improving their test scores so who will say no to the redshirting parent?

After reading this, I just looked up the Little League World series and the age is 11-13. You could turn 13 after May 1st but not Aug 1st. And most of the players were 13. Now you cannot say that these players just happened to have their birthdays so they would be the oldest and happened to be the best players. In a large sampling size, maybe the few months difference does make a big difference in the development of coordination, giving them incentive to practice more.

But if you red shirt,maybe the kid loses the practice time and has delays in ability. Would you keep them out of little league and stuff if you were redshirting?