Redshirt them or they'll be picked last in PE

Sept birthday here. Graduated HS at 17 in the top 5% from a AAAAA school, and graduated from TAMU magna cum laude at 21. Had successful HS football and baseball careers that afforded me the opportunity to play ball at a few smaller schools, but chose to go to TAMU because I knew I wasn't going to be able to play pro ball. Being the youngest in my grade never hindered me, nor would being held back have helped me in my opinion. Ended up with a 1-2 yr head start on most people in my industry (~50% of folks with my major take 5 years to graduate), so it has paid dividends in the professional world as well

Depends on the kid I guess.

My brother red-shirted his son with a late May birthday. He was a varsity football starter for three years and was selected district MVP one year. He has around a 3.85 gpa in college and is applying to dental school next year. I think it was good for him both in sports and academics.

I have a birthday toward the end of summer and wish I was redshirted.

June boy, he's going into 1st. He's behind, we probably should have, but didn't. Putting him in a private Christian school to have more individual focus to catch up.

I have 3 kids (2 boys and a girl) with summer birthdays- 2 in early summer and one at the end of August. We waited an extra year for all. My oldest is a late August birthday (born 2 weeks early) and a boy. As a former elementary teacher, I knew since birth I would wait a year for him. He's in high school now and I'm so glad we did or he would have struggled quite a bit. We didn't know at the time we made the decision, but he's on the autism spectrum so those deficits would have been even more pronounced if we'd sent him ahead as the very youngest in his class. My other two are now identified as GT and doing very well academically, but I feel both needed the extra year for maturity/ other reasons. None of our decisions revolved around sports in any way. Our second child is ADHD and couldn't sit still for 5 minutes in 4 year old preschool. We did a transition preschool year with a great teacher and I think that year made a big difference in how he approached big school. Our daughter probably would have been fine to send her ahead, but we decided to give her that extra year anyway. (Among other things she still required naps/ tired in 4's and was/ is small. Even with the extra year she's still smaller than about 75% of her classmates now.) At this point we haven't regretted our decision to wait for any of them. Ask me in a few years with our middle though. He keeps us on our toes.

From an educator standpoint, you could usually tell who the youngest were without even looking at birthdates or size. While many do just fine, some will struggle academically, socially, or both. You may not always see huge red flags in kinder either, but it may manifest more a few years down the line. I had a few parents in 2nd/3rd grade regret not holding their kids back when recommended by a kinder or 1st grade teacher. I never personally saw the opposite happen.

Ultimately, you know your kids best and have to do what you feel is right. If you do go ahead to kinder and it doesn't work out, please heed that advice even if they didn't technically fail. Repeating kinder (or even first) is not nearly as big of deal as it will be a few years later. When I was teaching it wasn't uncommon to repeat those grades. With more people waiting ("redshirting"), I don't know if as many repeat anymore, but there's still some.

Best wishes on your decision.

Edits for typos (posting from a phone/ autocorrects) and clarity. Please excuse any other typos as I'm tired of editing from my phone.

There's no point for September birthdays to redshirt unless there are medical issues present, your whole post is pointless. August is the cut-off.

Anyway, I was a premature August birth. I had a lot of physical problems as a small child such as poor overall health, weakness, small stature. I started kindergarten on time, but my parents opted for me to repeat third grade.

Worked out well for me. Puberty kicked in and I stopped being sick and scrawny. Had a successful athletic career at the varsity level and was scouted by a few small time G5 schools. Went to A&M, got a BS and MS.

I don't think automatically red shirting is the way to go. I think you have to get an idea on how the kid is developing. There's no accurate way to predict that. When I was six, the doctors told my parents I wouldn't be a tall man. When I was 16, I was 6'4". I think it's best to treat your kid like a human being and talk through things with them.

Our oldest turned 5 at the end of June. Intellectually, she is ready for Kinder. Socially we are a little worried, but we think she will adjust. She starts Kinder at the end of August.

Also, she is very tall for her age, and we don't want her dealing with that next year as a 6 year old in Kinder.

redd38 said:

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I really don't think it matters too much academically. You're either smart or dumb, dumb kids don't turn into smart kids a year later. My birthday is very late (Sept 28th) so I was more than a year younger than some kids in my class but the oldest kid was pretty dumb and I was pretty smart so age never was really an issue for me.

I'm also a ginger so it's not like sports were going to be a big factor in my life, so that wasn't a consideration.

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Its not smart or dumb, but developmental. My boy is developing as expected for his age, but the school expectation isn't built on summer birthdays . Doesn't matter in older grades, but at the young ages, a year makes a huge difference developmentally.

I disagree. "Slow" children remain slow no matter where they are in physical development. You can get a good bead on academic potential before school starts. I'd say even around age 3 you can start to tell if your child is bright, average, or borderline intellectual functioning. That's why it's so important to pay attention to that and help them from as early of an age as possible. It is dangerous to not gauge their intelligence as soon as possible and to wait until they go to school.

I think redshirting your kid (unless he/she has a mental disability) is kinda BS.

The kids most likely to be redshirted are those whose parents are college educated which tells me that they're overreacting and are afraid of their kids failing.

Thank you all for taking the time with your opinions/experiences. I appreciate it.

I've read articles about this practice. It does seem that it's more common among college educated parents (I don't have link just right now, but I'm not trying to BS anyone either). It seems that the parents are just tying to give their kids an advantage. It is an advantage.

If they start kinder this month, they will have classmates that turn 6 next month. We know that they'll have classmates that are already 6. They will have just turned 5.

We have another child with a September birthday. No way would we want a redshirt for her.

Thanks Ags.

Dark Helmet said:

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I disagree. "Slow" children remain slow no matter where they are in physical development. You can get a good bead on academic potential before school starts. I'd say even around age 3 you can start to tell if your child is bright, average, or borderline intellectual functioning. That's why it's so important to pay attention to that and help them from as early of an age as possible. It is dangerous to not gauge their intelligence as soon as possible and to wait until they go to school.

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A smart 3 year old and a smart 4 year are both smart and both developmentally different. You wouldn't expect the smart 3 year old to do the same things as the smart 4 year old.

GrayMatter said:

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I think redshirting your kid (unless he/she has a mental disability) is kinda BS.

The kids most likely to be redshirted are those whose parents are college educated which tells me that they're overreacting and are afraid of their kids failing.

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I redshirted my kid because I knew it would help his chances to get laid.

We did for my daughter..she was a big social introvert. The only regret/issue is every sports team she plays on is age based, not grade based. So all of her teammates build friendships and bonds that carry over to school (which to me is the greatest reason to participate in such activities). My daughter is not able to cultivate those relationships without a great deal of outside effort.

Not the end of the world, but I find her personal connections at school have suffered a bit as a result. She'll be entering 8th grade this year.

There is a long AO thread on this that I started for those with access...probably still on the first page or two.

Anyway, I am redshirting my August birthday son. He went to public K this past year, they won't let him repeat so sending him to private K. Personal experiences on that thread seemed much more positive than negative...as in there is no downside (other than $) or regrets from those that did it.

My other son redshirted as well with a Feb birthday. But in defense of that decision, he has special needs (ASD) and really did need more time to gain some acceptable social skills. In his case he did private K first (more personal attention) and did public K last year.

Yeah it can get silly if people keep moving the date cutoff without good reason, but whatever...do what you think is best for your own kid.

Pro Sandy said:

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Dark Helmet said:

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I disagree. "Slow" children remain slow no matter where they are in physical development. You can get a good bead on academic potential before school starts. I'd say even around age 3 you can start to tell if your child is bright, average, or borderline intellectual functioning. That's why it's so important to pay attention to that and help them from as early of an age as possible. It is dangerous to not gauge their intelligence as soon as possible and to wait until they go to school.

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A smart 3 year old and a smart 4 year are both smart and both developmentally different. You wouldn't expect the smart 3 year old to do the same things as the smart 4 year old.

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Why not? I did. (In fact, I was put in the "gifted" class in 1st grade, despite being a year younger). I think it's better to over-challenge young kids than to coddle them. Kids that age can quickly learn and adapt, but you have to give them something to learn and something to adapt to. Otherwise you're just wasting their developmental powers.

Parents tend to overthink things. Either way works just as well. I'm in August and being the oldest in my class had its good moments. A friend of mine was the same month but one of the youngest. We both had a fair shake at life.

Summer birthday, graduated high school at 17. Hated not being able to drive until I was a Junior. Other than that, it never really impacted anything.

Seems like struggling to keep up all throughout the formative years would make someone a stronger adult. And vice versa.

Would the public school say anything if they went through a year of kinder somewhere else, then enrolled in a new school in kinder the for the second year?

redd38 said:

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Pro Sandy said:

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Dark Helmet said:

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I disagree. "Slow" children remain slow no matter where they are in physical development. You can get a good bead on academic potential before school starts. I'd say even around age 3 you can start to tell if your child is bright, average, or borderline intellectual functioning. That's why it's so important to pay attention to that and help them from as early of an age as possible. It is dangerous to not gauge their intelligence as soon as possible and to wait until they go to school.

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A smart 3 year old and a smart 4 year are both smart and both developmentally different. You wouldn't expect the smart 3 year old to do the same things as the smart 4 year old.

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Why not? I did. (In fact, I was put in the "gifted" class in 1st grade, despite being a year younger). I think it's better to over-challenge young kids than to coddle them. Kids that age can quickly learn and adapt, but you have to give them something to learn and something to adapt to. Otherwise you're just wasting their developmental powers.

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You had the same abilities at age 4 that you did at age 3? You never developed as your grew older? I find that hard to believe.

Older brother was held back a year and my parents didn't want us to be in the same grade so they held me back too. I was 19 when graduating high school.

Pro Sandy said:

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redd38 said:

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Pro Sandy said:

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Dark Helmet said:

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I disagree. "Slow" children remain slow no matter where they are in physical development. You can get a good bead on academic potential before school starts. I'd say even around age 3 you can start to tell if your child is bright, average, or borderline intellectual functioning. That's why it's so important to pay attention to that and help them from as early of an age as possible. It is dangerous to not gauge their intelligence as soon as possible and to wait until they go to school.

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A smart 3 year old and a smart 4 year are both smart and both developmentally different. You wouldn't expect the smart 3 year old to do the same things as the smart 4 year old.

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Why not? I did. (In fact, I was put in the "gifted" class in 1st grade, despite being a year younger). I think it's better to over-challenge young kids than to coddle them. Kids that age can quickly learn and adapt, but you have to give them something to learn and something to adapt to. Otherwise you're just wasting their developmental powers.

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You had the same abilities at age 4 that you did at age 3? You never developed as your grew older? I find that hard to believe.

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What abilities? I was taller at 4 than at 3, I was stronger at 4 than at 3... but that doesn't matter for school. My capacity to learn at 3 was the same as at 4. And any other abilities I gained from 3 to 4 where from being in school.

DallasAggie97 said:

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Would the public school say anything if they went through a year of kinder somewhere else, then enrolled in a new school in kinder the for the second year?

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If you mean go from one public school to another - I don't know, but imagine they won't like it. Although, I am not sure how much you really need to disclose to them.

If you start with private school, then likely no problem. My first son, I don't even recall the issue even coming up. And I don't think he was the only one in his private K class doing this.

I will say, that doing private K first may cause boredom that 2nd year doing public K...as the curriculum is much more advanced/intense at a good private school. Real homework almost every night, more advanced math/reading, etc. I am in a good district/well rated elementary - but public K was a joke in comparison. Glad at this point that kid #2 is doing private school on the 2nd pass.

redd38 said:

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Pro Sandy said:

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redd38 said:

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Pro Sandy said:

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Dark Helmet said:

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I disagree. "Slow" children remain slow no matter where they are in physical development. You can get a good bead on academic potential before school starts. I'd say even around age 3 you can start to tell if your child is bright, average, or borderline intellectual functioning. That's why it's so important to pay attention to that and help them from as early of an age as possible. It is dangerous to not gauge their intelligence as soon as possible and to wait until they go to school.

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A smart 3 year old and a smart 4 year are both smart and both developmentally different. You wouldn't expect the smart 3 year old to do the same things as the smart 4 year old.

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Why not? I did. (In fact, I was put in the "gifted" class in 1st grade, despite being a year younger). I think it's better to over-challenge young kids than to coddle them. Kids that age can quickly learn and adapt, but you have to give them something to learn and something to adapt to. Otherwise you're just wasting their developmental powers.

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You had the same abilities at age 4 that you did at age 3? You never developed as your grew older? I find that hard to believe.

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What abilities? I was taller at 4 than at 3, I was stronger at 4 than at 3... but that doesn't matter for school. My capacity to learn at 3 was the same as at 4. And any other abilities I gained from 3 to 4 where from being in school.

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That's just not how human development works. As we grow, we develop. Developmentally, a 3 year old and 4 year old are different. If your theory worked, the kids who can't read that we promote anyway would be geniuses.

It's ok that you were developmentally ahead, that's why you were in the gifted program. That's above average. Most people your age weren't developmentally where you were.

DallasAggie97 said:

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I've read articles about this practice. It does seem that it's more common among college educated parents (I don't have link just right now, but I'm not trying to BS anyone either). It seems that the parents are just tying to give their kids an advantage. It is an advantage.

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Many instances of redshirting, however, involve parents who are trying to gain an advantage for their child down the line. Parents sometimes ask us whether redshirting their child will make him more likely to be accepted into gifted and talented programs. Although we could find no direct evidence in the research literature that this is the case, we can extrapolate from the literature that older children may indeed be more likely to be placed in a gifted and talented program.

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And finally, parents should bear in mind that redshirting can even have an effect on their child's economic future. Starting school at age 6 instead of age 5 means heading off to college at age 19 instead of age 18. (Perhaps spending an extra year with a teenager in the house is another cost to consider!) Then the student graduates from college and enters the workforce at age 23 instead of age 22. The redshirted individual will ultimately spend one less year in the labor force and forgo the returns of an extra year of experience throughout his working life. Assuming that, as research seems to indicate, being redshirted has no net long-term impacts on skill level, we can estimate the cost of losing that year in the labor force for a college-educated male who retires at age 67. Over the course of the worker's career, working full time and year-round, he can expect to earn $80,000 less.

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In his analysis, Gladwell overstates the benefits of redshirting to some degree. In fact, a balanced look at the research suggests that while children derive a short-term gain from being redshirted, that advantage dissipates quickly over time.

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The link to the article

Over the course of a child's scholastic careers, they function better in school regardless of what age they enter school due to parental involvement. It's as simple as that. While "redshirting" doesn't really gain an advantage over 12+ years of schooling, parental involvement has shown to be more of a predictor of a child's success in school.

On a side note: I wasn't trying to imply that the OP was BS-ing anyone.

My daughter turns 5 in June. She's always been a little developmentally delayed so I'm strongly considering holding her back. My district has a weird policy on it. You can redshirt, but they have to take an aptitude test if they are 6. The district determines whether they can go into Kindergarten or first grade. From what I've heard it's about 50/50 and there's you can only appeal to the school board who doesn't usually overturn.

My younger son's birthday is Aug 25. He started K just turning 6. We made the decision early and kept him in his 2s class at preschool/mothers-day-out an extra year. There was never ever an athletic issue, it was always about whether he would do better (socially/emotionally and maturity wise) as the youngest or one of the oldest.

Knowing when he was born we would be making this decision, I also asked everyone what they thought if they had a kid on the cusp. My anecdotal evidence is as follows:

For those who let kids go when their age indicated it was time, about 50% had no problems throughout the kid's school career. However 50% had regrets. Some immediately, some at 3rd grade, some entering MS, and some in HS.

For those who held kids back, I never spoke to a parent who had regrets.

That made our decision an easy one.

gigemags-99 said:

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Boys hold back. Girls, don't worry about it.

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This. Boys you need to make sure they are mature enough.

Boys and girls are such a difference like mentioned above. Son 1 is October birthday so he is older and we still considered it just from a maturity stand point. We didn't and he is going into 1st fine but I've had this conversation with a ton of boy parents. It never hurts late spring/summer biethdays to wait a year and honestly you get a more innocent sweet kid longer. Son 2 is a spring birthday and I would might think about delaying him a year but he is pretty mature and I need to get back to work so we won't. I've never talked to a boy parent that has regretted it. In hindsight it's not a big deal doing an extra year of pre k or kinder. Husband wS held back in 1st grade simply bc he was shy and that was a huge issue. So we tend to be super sensitive when we made these decisions

Dark Helmet said:

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There's no point for September birthdays to redshirt unless there are medical issues present, your whole post is pointless. August is the cut-off.

Anyway, I was a premature August birth. I had a lot of physical problems as a small child such as poor overall health, weakness, small stature. I started kindergarten on time, but my parents opted for me to repeat third grade.

Worked out well for me. Puberty kicked in and I stopped being sick and scrawny. Had a successful athletic career at the varsity level and was scouted by a few small time G5 schools. Went to A&M, got a BS and MS.

I don't think automatically red shirting is the way to go. I think you have to get an idea on how the kid is developing. There's no accurate way to predict that. When I was six, the doctors told my parents I wouldn't be a tall man. When I was 16, I was 6'4". I think it's best to treat your kid like a human being and talk through things with them.

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...and I was born after the cutoff. I should've been in Grade X, but I was always in Grade X+1. That's literally the point of the entire thread - being very young for your grade vs. being old for it. Try again.

DDP

I was late April, my youngest brother was July. We had no trouble at all. We were a bit small, but hell, I am only 5'9" today. We were both reading at age 3 and were G&T so the academic issue didn't really matter to be honest. We were way ahead no matter where they put us.