Spin Off- Redshirting

I was 4 when I went to Kindergarten and 5 when it was over. My birthday was in October.

My feeling is that red shirtting is not at all necessary. My usual response is that no one sits at a meeting, hears a dumb remark and then says, ah, what do you expect? He was the youngest in his kindergarten class. They all catch up - if they are even behind.

Most school districts have a cut off date for kindergarten when a child must be 5 years old. In our district that date is September 5th (I think). If your child's birthday is September 10th, they have to wait until the next year to register for kindergarten. I have a friend whose son will turn 6 the 2nd week of kindergarten vs. my son who will turn 5 two weeks before he starts kindergarten.

People I know who red-shirt their kids for kindergarten usually have kids who have a birthday that is really close to the cut-off date. Some of them worry about their baby being so much younger than the majority of the class. Some of them worry that their kids aren't socially or emotionally ready. Some of them worry that their kids are not academically or developmentally ready. I know one family who waited because their daughter has Down Syndrome and they wanted her to have another year to get ready. Like I mentioned in my answer to the original red-shirting question, I knew a family that waited so their son would be bigger for athletic reasons.

From a teacher perspective, unless a child is extremely immature or can't follow directions or keep focused for 10 minutes I don't know that waiting is necessary. But, parents know their children best.

I often get asked if we will be waiting to send our son to kindergarten this year because he will just be turning 5. No, we won't wait. He has been at an academically based daycare since he was 8 weeks old. He has good social skills and he is independent. He can focus and cooperate in a group of kids. He is a little shy in new situations, but I don't think keeping him out a year is going to be any better than putting him into a new situation. He is interested in letters and numbers and he is trying to read. He is ready. Yes, I might worry about it a little when he is just 15 and all of his friends are driving almost a year before he is and when he is 20 and almost all of his friends are of drinking age. But, I have 10-15 years to teach him how to react appropriately in those situations. I'm not going to hold my son back because of that.

I have 2 daughters that were born in August. The first one, I sent to K when she was 5.... so she was essentially the youngest one there.

She did ok the first few years, but it did reach a point where she was struggling.... when we moved at the end of her 4th grade year, we had her repeat 4th grade (with her full knowledge and consent) at her new school, which was also 1/2 the country away.

For her, that was the perfect time to do it. It gave her a chance to catch up. She just finished her doctorate in Microbiology at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and just started a job as a senior contamination engineer at NASA.

The second daughter, we delayed her entry for a year... she was just a LOT different than her big sister. Unfortunately, she still struggled... she had a lot of problems with ADHD, including the social aspects. We never put her on medication.

My point is, you never really know how it will turn out....... redshirting the second daughter didn't really help that much..... but that was because her ADHD is what she really struggles with.

It is something that some do when they have kids who will be among the youngest in the class, in hopes of giving them another year to mature before entering Kindergarten (thinking they are not yet ready to start Kindergarten). Some even do it with kids who wouldn't be one of the younger ones in hopes of giving the kid a competitive advantage over their peers when they do begin Kindergarten.

My son has a June birthday, so he makes the Sept 1st cutoff in our area with plenty of time, but I'm not totally confident that he'll be ready. I will rely on the opinion of his Pre-K teachers to help make the decision whether to send him in the fall, or redshirt him for a year to give him more time to mature.

We had one in my sons K class who turned seven at the end of that school year. I'm not sure if mom held him back for more time to mature emotionally or if it was for athletics. (parents are very into sports and academics, so that might have factored in, but she's never brought it up.) Very, very nice kid, though. He's very sweet, nice to his friends.

I was four when I started K, so was my husband. We were both youngest in our classes, yet had very different experiences. Neither one of us got hung up on it. To be honest, I think a kid's school/high school experiences really depend a lot more on their parents and their own skills and abilities than it does on what everyone else is doing. It was mentioned that some kids get to have their licenses sooner.... I mean, to me, that is a bit of a silly reason to hold your kid back if they are really ready... to avoid having some small window of disappointment 10 years from now? There's ALWAYS going to be a 'youngest' in each class and just because you age up doesn't mean you get to do this, that or the other. Those privileges should be based more on maturity than age, anyway, if we are being smart as parents. Age is just a number.

Some kids are ready to sit still and listen to instructions (are ready for school) at a younger age than others.
For those who are not ready - and extra year of maturity often helps them a great deal.
My sister was 4 when she started kindergarten - turned 5 in early October (where we grew up you had to be on or before Dec 31st to start)- but she was such a cry baby over every little thing - one more year at home would have done her a lot of good.
Where we are you have to be 5 on or before Sept 31st to start and our son has a late Oct birthday.
So he was 5 for only 2 months in kindergarten before he turned 6.
It's worked out very well for him.
He's 15 now and in 9th grade.
He'll be eligible for a learner's permit in April but they don't teach driver's ed till 10th grade.

In Canada children start kindergarten the year in which they turn five. Children in kindergarten are four and five, grade one children are five and six, grade two children are six and seven, grade three children are seven and eight and so forth. There is no such thing as redshirting here. Children start when they are supposed to start, and if they are behind they are provided with the help they need to catch up.

Most kids who are "redshirted" turn 6 the summer before they start K or just after the year starts, depending on the cutoff date. So they will turn 7 the summer before or just after starting first grade, etc, and will still be in the ages for the grades you listed above, just the older age for all or most of the school year.

I think redshirting is generally done for the children with summer and early fall birthdays. My daughter has a summer birthday. She is in first grade and is and will be six the entire school year. Had she been redshirted she would be seven the entire year of first grade. It is very rare around here for there to be children who start first grade at age seven and then turn eight during the year. It might be more popular in other locales.

I am with you. Now,we have 7 year olds in K. It's insane. The age gap,in K is like two years!

Yes, redshirting means holding back your child one year some even do two years.

In our state, school is not mandatory until 7 years old. I didn't realize people were holding their children back so far.

As well, they cannot begin until they are 5 by September 30, for that school year.

My daughter has a late birthday, so she is quite big compared to the other students. However, she is in the appropriate grade according to the laws start requirements.

well, as a devoted trekkie, i'm surprised that for so many, redshirting is a sports or educational term!
clearly the 'correct' term is offing non-essential crew members.
as far as kindergarten, apparently i'm the anti-redshirter, since my kid started young. he also started college at 15. now, while that sounds like the opening to a homeschooler's brag that her kids did everything early, real life is rarely so neat. (i pulled him out of school in middle school) my son never seemed to suffer from being the youngest in his class, and was always academically and socially successful. but between working to finish his bachelor's, and switching his major in his senior year, and taking breaks here and there, it ended up taking him about 10 years.
so we are both a success story and a cautionary tale.
:)
none of it fazed me. i didn't have a vested interest in how or when he finished school, just that he loves learning and knows how to make it happen when he needs to. he's now looking at grad school, and my only eek is worrying about how he's going to pay for it. which is, i know, none of my business.
i don't spend any time whatsoever angsting over his early start in school.
khairete
S.

My daughters bday is Aug 25th. Cut off date is Sept 1st. We chose to have her start kindergarten when she turned 6. It worked for us and her. I'm mostly happy about our decision because of the middle and high school years when kids could use the 'extra' maturity under their belt. Plus if she was born when she should have been born (Sept 2nd) then we would have had to wait anyway. Although her prek teachers both said she was more than ready, the advice of teachers and assistant principal was that if it was their own child, they would give the child an extra year.

This is a very personal decision for all families.