Redshirting

[mickeyboat]

My DDs' birthdays are almost a year apart, and fall on either side of the 9/1 cut off. I considered redshirting DD#2 so they would not be in the same grade in school, but her pre-K teacher said she was ready for K, so I sent her. Everyone thinks they are twins.

They are freshmen in high school now. Until a couple of years ago, DD#2 has been a little less mature than her older peers, but they are both doing just fine. Of course, socially it is not easy to be in the same grade as your sister, but we work through that, too.

 

[soccerdad72]

The term "redshirting" comes from college sports. It's a process of using the rules that allow an athlete to maintain a season of competition eligibility while staying in school. The reasons why are several - including gaining physical or athletic maturity, as well as avoiding competition for playing time with other players who might be ahead on the "depth chart". The rules are actually pretty complex, but at its simplest, an athlete has five years to complete four seasons of eligibility in a particular sport. There are wrinkles with NCAA D-I/II/III and NAIA, but most people would be thinking of D-I, which has the most stringent eligibility rules.

At least in NCAA D-I, a redshirt athlete would generally need to stay in school and would typically practice. They're still eligible to receive athletic scholarships. The term comes from the red practice uniforms that competition ineligible players would wear during practices. I don't know if that's still common, but that's where the term comes from.

I don't know if keeping a child out of kindergarden is really redshirting per se. There really isn't a good corollary for redshirting. The closest I can think of is "grayshirting". That's where a committed player either stays out of school or only takes a part time course load for a year, which then allows for the possibility of a redshirt year in the future.

Was the dissertation on the term "redshirting" necessary?

 

[Luv Bunnies]

My oldest DS who has a July birthday started K when he was 6. His situation was a little different since he has Asperger's. The extra year in a special ed preschool program allowed him to be in a mainstream K class. If we had sent him to K at 5, he would not have been ready for a mainstream class.

My youngest DS has a September 2 birthday. He would have made the cut off for K when he was 5, but we chose to wait until he was 6. Athletics never entered our minds. We just wanted to make sure he was socially and developmentally ready for K. During that year, we sent him to a private Jr. K program. The cost was considerable, but we felt it was the perfect program for him at the time. He is now one of the older kids in his class (16 years old as a Sophomore). We feel it was the right decision for him.

 

[bcla]

Was the dissertation on the term "redshirting" necessary?

Nobody else did, so I thought I would. Besides that, I don't really think "redshirting" is a proper term to describe delaying school entry of a child. It's been specifically used to describe an athlete in school but sitting out a year of competition. I guess it's a term that people have heard of, but I don't think it really applies to kids entering school.

"Deferred entry" might be a better description. Now what might be more interesting would be if we had staggered school years where there's less typical variation in age. Not likely to happen though.

 

[havaneselover]

Nobody else did, so I thought I would. Besides that, I don't really think "redshirting" is a proper term to describe delaying school entry of a child. It's been specifically used to describe an athlete in school but sitting out a year of competition. I guess it's a term that people have heard of, but I don't think it really applies to kids entering school. "Deferred entry" might be a better description. Now what might be more interesting would be if we had staggered school years where there's less typical variation in age. Not likely to happen though.

I can find articles written by the wsj, abc, the New Yorker, NBC, CBS, etc. and a journal article out of Stanford university that use the term so I'm not sure why you suggest it's improper.

Btw the Stanford journal article suggests it's used by high income families of white males and driven by concerns about their child's relative position within a kindergarten cohort which is exactly what I see in my neighborhood although parents here also hold back girls with late spring/summer birthdays.

 

[Skippy918]

I sent my son on time. He has a late August birthday. He did fine in K and he's doing well in first. I do know several kindergarteners who are older than him. For us, he was ready since he went to a good pre-k program. Having 2 in daycare was $$$$ enough for 2 years, another year would have hurt a lot.

 

[MnMomtoboys]

I have one son that missed the cut off by one day. The school wanted him anyway but we refused. Best decision we made with him. We went back and forth with our youngest but decided for him to wait a year. So far so good. He is the oldest in the class but everyone will be 7 by the first week of March. He is in first grade.

 

[bcla]

I can find articles written by the wsj, abc, the New Yorker, NBC, CBS, etc. and a journal article out of Stanford university that use the term so I'm not sure why you suggest it's improper.

I get that some are using the term because it's an attempt to use a reasonably well-understood term for a different setting than it was originally defined. However, the actual mechanics of "redshirting" in college athletics includes taking a year off from competition at any point within the first four years. I follow college sports, and the actual process of redshirting includes normal progress towards graduation and usually participating in practices. I've seen athletes held out for competition in any of four years for reasons as diverse as injury, to a stud player making it difficult to compete for playing time, or a coach opting to spread out the playing time of great players recruited in the same class. I don't think there's really that much of a similarity between holding out a child from kindergarten and holding an athlete back from competition (since the athlete still has to be attending the same classes), but I do understand why the language is used. Sports metaphors are everywhere, even if the terms don't really match what's being described.

When I was kid, the adults just called this "being held back".

 

[mefordis]

Wow, this is a solution. Where I am teachers support holding back for summer and fall birthdays, though. They fully support it.

The school district I work for has put an absolute stop to it. Since kindergarten isn't required in NC, any child who will turn 7 during that school year is automatically placed in first grade.

I think it works. For children with summer birthdays, the parents still have the option of holding them back a year (since they won't turn 7 until the following summer), but it has cut down on the massive age gap in kindergarten.

FYI: The cut-off here is August 31st. Since school starts the last week of August, there isn't a real issue with 4-year-olds in kindergarten.

 

[pumpkinmomma]

We put my youngest in K on time and it was miserable for her. She was behind, had trouble adjusting, and cried often.

We moved her to a transitional kinder program and she will do regular k again next year. It's been the best thing for her as she is on the younger end and was behind both developmentally and socially.

Some kids are just not ready for kindergarten, even if their birthday says they qualify. My oldest started k at a young age, but her sister is a different kid.

 

[LoserMomma]

Both my kids have late July birthdays and both are among the youngest in their classes...but they're also among the tallest. My son had (has) some maturity issues he deals with, but he's so big people already think he was redshirtted and he wasn't...I can only imagine if I had held him back like some people suggested. My SIL did redshirt my nephew (also a late July birthday) because he struggled even more than my son and now he's in 5th grade and is 5'5" tall and wears a size 12 shoe.

 

[shelly3girls]

The idea that there is some magical date that determines whether or not a child should/can begin school is a crazy idea to me. I personally don't mind it as a guide but it certainly should not be the only determining factor. Academic and social readiness is what matters. I don't know anyone who has waited to start their child for sports but many who have done it for academics or maturity reasons.

Around us, summer birthdays are strongly encouraged to wait. The level of academics expected is much higher than it was in the past so it only makes sense to me that 4 or just turned 5's may need to wait. My DD is a February birthday and is the youngest of all of her sophomore friends. Many of them have turned 16 already. I don't see the big deal. With a September 1st cutoff almost every senior in every school will turn 18 their senior year (or the summer before if started late).

I don't personally know any kids who will turn 17 in their sophomore year but I certainly wouldn't judge. I question the kids who were pushed ahead and are only 14 but that is their parents' business, not mine.

DS is a summer birthday. He had a vision problem at 4 and 5 so we didn't start him in kindergarten. Now that the problem is corrected, he is thriving in school. I do expect the school to teach to his level because it was their recommendation to start him when we did. If they had not, then I would not expect them to accommodate. Luckily his class is very high academically so it isn't an issue. I think all classrooms have kids at different levels and always have. My mother taught her whole career and feels that even if the average age is higher the range of abilities hasn't changed much.

 

[aprilgail2]

Redshirting drives me insane. My DD had a kid turn 7 in January of kindergarten year. That's ridiculous. Who the heck wants to turn 19 in high school? I graduated from college at 20. And several kids with spring birthdays were redshirted. I live in a very competitive area (tons of doctors and lawyers in my neighborhood) and it's often done to make gifted identification more likely.

.

My daughter had a boy that was 7 in her kindergarten class- had social issues because he was in class with a bunch of 4 and 5 year old, not much in common. The school ended up making him go into first grade about a month into school! I can't imagine being 19 and still in high school! I graduated 2 months after turning 17!

I did think about holding my daughter back- I took her in for kindergarten testing and told myself that if she had trouble with the testing I would hold her back- she scored very well so I sent her. NO regrets. She is probably one of the youngest kids having a Nov birthday- she was 4 her first 3 months of school but she was fine. She is 14 and a Sophomore now and doing great. She will be a senior at 16 and in college at 17. She is no less mature than other kids in her grade- I wasn't ready for the dating part but who ever is?

 

[teacherforhi]

Wow, this is a solution. Where I am teachers support holding back for summer and fall birthdays, though. They fully support it.

So do we. I even said so. Children with summer birthdays wouldn't turn 7 during the school year, so there's no issue there. Since the state cut-off is August 31st, fall birthdays aren't an issue.

 

[vgrandy]

Our cutoff is Aug 31st. I think one problem is that the cutoff is different depending on where you live. Why is it ok for a Oct, Nov, Dec birthday to start kindergarten in one state but Sept is not ok in another?

My kids are DS 9/5 and DD 9/13. Son started at the assigned time turning 6 a few days into Kindergarten. He will be 18 almost all of his senior year. It was the right time for him though. We went the private school route with DD.She started at 4 and turned 5 a couple weeks in. We have cutoffs here for K and 1st grade so she did 2 years of private school then easily transferred into 2nd grade. It was the right thing for her. She is doing very well academically.

I wish there was some flexibility with start school that matched the child's development. Some kids are ready younger, some need extra time.

 

[NewRVLady]

I held my oldest son back so he is a Sophmore and is 16, will be 17 in March. I have ZERO regrets and don't give two hoots about anybody that thinks this is a problenm or that it somehow effects their children in some way. This was the best decision academically for him.

.

Mine was an august Birthday-2 weeks before cutoff
But I dint hold him back until 7th grade-still best decision-he was so immature , while the other boys-some were almost 2 years older

 

[Sydney2977]

Both my boys have summer birthdays- June and July- and we didn't "hold them back."

Fortunately for us DH was able to work night shift in the AF and I worked days when they were little so they never had to go to day care. This allowed for a lot of time for us to teach them at home, and they were reading by age 4. But we were concerned with social skills and adjusting to a classroom setting.

Schools here offer a 4 year old pre-school program and kids get screened- the ones who "test" lower get in and there are 20 spots for morning and 20 for afternoon classes. This is to ensure that every kid is ready academically to start kindergarten. Both boys didn't get in based on this, but because the 40 spots didn't get filled we were able to get them in anyway. It was a great transition for them.

Now at 14 and 18 I still don't regret not holding them back. We ended up moving and changing school districts when they were starting K and 4th because we felt the classes weren't challenging enough (the oldest and several of his classmates were getting sent to the 2nd and 3rd grade teachers for math and English during 1st and 2nd grade, then they were repeating the same things in 3rd) and have been very pleased. Although neither are super academically gifted they are still learning more and not bored.

From a maturity perspective I never would have thought to hold back our oldest. In contrast our youngest can be immature at times compared to some of his peers, but it's just an opportunity for us as parents to teach him how to behave properly. That's why I understand if parents decide for this reason to hold their kids back- each parent knows their own kids best.

From a sports perspective I don't think it's fair, but it's also not right to penalize a kid who may be bigger and has not matured in skills because of their age. Our youngest has always been one of the smallest on his little league team- and they base it on age not school grade. He's had plenty of kids who are a year younger be bigger than him. They weren't the best players on the team though. They can play on the school team in 7th an 8th grade. When he went to try out he knew right away he wouldn't make it after seeing some of the huge kids there- he was like "The coaches aren't even going to give me a chance!" He still tried out and we were proud of him for that. Thankfully he's still had fun playing little league and is mature enough to realize he's not going to be a professional athlete and that's ok.

OK, sorry for being so long-winded! I guess my point is that each parent needs to make the best decision for their kid, and even if others don't agree with it, I think each parent in their own mind does put their kid's best interest at heart. Do what works for your family!

 

[havaneselover]

The nice thing about NC's approach is there can't be more than a 15 month age difference between students.

The almost two year difference I've seen is absurd and not great for the older kids, the younger kids, or the teachers.

Sorry this is a pet peeve of mine because many of these kids ended up in the gifted program and are socially precocious. So why the heck didn't they go to kindergarten when they were 5???

 

[StitchesGr8Fan]

I get the cons to starting early for some kids, but there are cons to starting late too, and you don't see those mentioned as often.

I had a friend who started late, and it did have negative impacts on him socially and educationally. To this day he has no confidence in his ability to learn and it has held him back from pursuing education that would help him in his career.

 

[Turn the Page]

I know someone who held his son back due to sports. He didn't start kindergarten until he was 7 for the sole reason that he would be bigger for sports in high school. I don't know the family very well anymore so I'm not sure if it caused any problems or not.

I always thought it was a terrible reason though.