"Redshirting" Kindergarten

My brother was held back because he was the youngest. It was not done for athletic purposes, but helped him with sports. That said, most states have a maximum age for HS participation. That is what matters.

If you have the financial means to delay kindergarten a year I would without a doubt recommend it- it has been proven to have huge benefits in terms of social/emotional and academic success, not only for year one but the students entire academic career and life.

There have been numerous studies and interviews of students and parents over the last 20ish years and one study actually found ZERO, yes zero, parents/students who regretted their decisions to wait a year.

If You can afford it... wait a year.

I'm over 30 and I know this was done for some kids around my age, Flagpole. So as others have said, it's not new. Probably more common for major-sport families than for runners.

Holding kids back for athletics never made much sense to me. I played HS football with a few kids who ended up in the NFL. Those dudes were just a different breed than the rest of us, even compared to other very good athletes. It seems like it would be a pretty rare case where an extra year of development would close down that gap by a non-negligible amount. If you aren't built like a tight end, an extra year isn't going to make you 6'5" and 245 lbs. If you don't have the talent to be an elite running back, an extra year won't change your genetics.

In track terms, "redshirting" might make the difference between a kid running 4:30 in the mile and ending up with a PR in the 4:20s, but I just don't think it would ever propel a kid to the elite level if he wasn't already headed in that direction. Same applies to other sports.

Obviously we don’t have a bunch of ex football players on this board. For decades youth football teams have had a few dominant players that were held back a year at some point to help them succeed more in sports.

I imagine the physical advantages fade out by the end of high school, but by then those kids have had the benefit of getting playing time and extra coaching attention all through the younger age groups.

The same parents who hold their kid back have them playing up a year in every club sport. Competing 13 years of school against kids who are less developed will cause the kid to never reach his full potential. Check the birthdays of Fisher and Schweizer. Compare to Matthew Maton and Stephanie Jenks.

doesn't make sense to me wrote:

Holding kids back for athletics never made much sense to me. I played HS football with a few kids who ended up in the NFL. Those dudes were just a different breed than the rest of us, even compared to other very good athletes.

Right, but I think it was at least partly a college thing. You don't need to be NFL-good, or even a realistic prospect, to get scholarship money. For that you need to impress people as a high school student, and a year of development could actually make a difference.

Also partly a pride thing, football parents want their kid to be good at whatever level he plays at. It makes even more sense if you assume high school football or basketball matters for its own sake. There are people out there with that point of view. This is a board full of runners, which selects for people who don't share that mentality or those values quite as strongly. If we did, maybe we'd have warmed the bench of the basketball team rather than running.

IChoseD2 wrote:

It only affects a certain number of kids though. Birthdays have to be within a certain timeframe for this to be considered and most people don't do it for athletic reasons. Small sample, big outrage.

But for the maturity and developmental aspects for boys especially, they do kind of run behind.

What timeframe?

The youngest and oldest kids in my class were almost two years apart so you have a choice almost regardless of birthday.

Maybe it varies by state. My experience has been that this was only available to August birthdays. I know people with August birthdays who are both the oldest and youngest of their grades. For Sept - July I thought the class you belong to was set.

Ok...I've long known about holding kinds back (usually boys) for 'maturity' issues, but not for ATHLETIC purposes. This is new information for me.

ringo-starr wrote:

I'm over 30 and I know this was done for some kids around my age, Flagpole. So as others have said, it's not new. Probably more common for major-sport families than for runners.

Ok. Thanks for the info. I appreciate the comment.

This pride thing is something that is not part of my makeup at all. I just wanted my kids to find something they enjoyed, and I didn't care less if they would be stellar at whatever that was. They both tried other sports before running, and I never pushed them into running or any kind of specific career. I honestly don't understand parents who do that. It is THEIR lives, not the parents' lives.

ncaa dude wrote:

Kid will never reach full potential because they will be older than their peers. Should have kids starting early instead so that competition is higher.

There is a lot of data on this. The conclusion is the opposite of what you state: on average, kids older than their peers will do considerably better in the long run.

I believe the effect was first noted in hockey, if memory serves.

GFC wrote:

ncaa dude wrote:

Kid will never reach full potential because they will be older than their peers. Should have kids starting early instead so that competition is higher.

There is a lot of data on this. The conclusion is the opposite of what you state: on average, kids older than their peers will do considerably better in the long run.

I believe the effect was first noted in hockey, if memory serves.

Reasons include:

More playing time

Success leading to greater confidence

Success leading to greater interest in a sport, which in turn leads to more practicing

Greater likelihood of playing on travel teams

Etc.

It's a pretty strong effect (although obviously there will be exceptions).

No there isn't. Hockey is the only example and it wasn't that the kids were held back. They played at their requiredl level but had Jan/Feb birthdays as compared to Nov Dec birthdays. They were in the correct grade in school also. Schweizer/Fisher examples were given as compared to Jenks/Maton. The younger for their grades had more long term upside.

So much brain development occurs zero to five years old. If a family can have a college educated parent at home with a child, if a child is doing activities such as ballet, tap dance, gymnastics, playing a musical instrument with formal lessons from age two or three or club swimming and a college educated parent is reading and teaching a child daily, then it can work out holding a kid back. In aggregate, it is bad to keep kids out of kindergarten for an additional year. Their outcomes are worse than their peers in aggregate. No one should be 20 years old or near 20 years old at high school graduation. College graduation rates are worse for this bunch. Keep that in mind.

ncaa dude wrote:

No there isn't. Hockey is the only example.

This is simply untrue. Just take a look at soccer data, for example.

(Note that I'm not encouraging red-shirting, for all the reasons others have mentioned.)

It's pretty common. In our area the cut-off is Sept. 1. Our oldest daughter's birthday is Aug 30th. We opted to not hold her back a year as she was definitely ready for Kindergarten. She went to 3-years of preschool. There are 3 other kids who were in her preschool class that I know of who all went to pre-K instead of Kindergarten instead. All had birthdates in March - May, so not even close to the cut-off. All seemed just as ready as ours, but in at least 1 of the cases the school they were going to go to wanted them to wait a year. My suspicion in that case is that they wanted an extra year of tuition out of the family (that family goes to private school). In the end will it really matter? Probably not for most kids...