"Redshirting" Kindergarten

a sister of mine ... wrote:

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.

Generally I think that parents seem to try to do their best. Our oldest has an October birthday. The town was not going to let her go an account of being 'too young.' We felt that she was ready and sent her to private kindergarten.

I'm gonna be frank though and say that anyone who holds their kids back for 'athletic reasons' is an idiot. I totally agree with you about 20 yr olds at hs graduation. Do they think that college coaches aren't going to notice?

a sister of mine ... wrote:

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.

I appreciate your view, but I don't need to keep anything in mind. My kids are adults and past all this.

My parents, one sister, two of my kids and writer of this post started kindergarten at age 4. I am flexible. One of my kids started kindergarten at age 5. I am not blinded by stats. Eg. in my home state, they thought it wise to have all day kindergarten. I was not placing my 4 year olds in all day kindergarten. That would have been too much. I found schools that still offered half day kindergarten. Having a kid age 6 or 7 in kindergarten or holding a kid back in a later grade, damages a kid. Of course when a 19 or 20 year old senior gets in an argument with a 17 year old senior, 17 year old senior can win argument every time by bringing up the age of 19 or 20 year old high school senior. There have been 19 year old high school seniors we have discussed on this site over the past seven or so years.

I wish I redshirted kindergarten.

I would have been a pretty good high school runner and gotten a scholarship right away instead of walking on and getting a scholarship later.

This turns out to be very common for athletic reasons, especially in the south. They do it for boys much more than girls. I think it is about 10% of boys (over 9% total start kindergarten at 6).

"According to the most recent data available from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), in the 2010-2011 school year only 6 percent of kids started kindergarten at age 4, 42 percent of kids were between 5 and 5½, 43 percent were between 5½ and 6 years old — and more than 9 percent of kids starting kindergarten had already turned 6."

https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/redshirting-kindergarten/

This has been going on with boys, summer birthdays and private schools for 30+ years. It has become more prevalent in the last 15 years. Yes, I know some parents who have cited athletic reasons along with others as a reason to hold their kid back. Malcolm Gladwell and his Canadian Youth Hockey example in Outliers probably gave some parents the evidence they needed...

So in my experience, the kids that can afford to be held back will (and private schools surely see this as another year to get $ from parents), and other kids need to be in school at the same age because of financial reasons.

My oldest son has a summer birthday and went to school on time. He was ready, emotionally and cognitively. Another kid up the street, about a month younger, was held back because of behavioral reasons. Having seen the two of them play together it was the right decision.

If the kid is being held back for athletic reasons, matures early and is the King of 8th Grade, will they have the resilience to keep fighting when it finally gets tough? Usually no.

I did this with my son. He's a summer baby so he would either be the youngest in his class or the oldest. I remember the kids in my older daughter's classes who were a year older always at or near the top of the class in terms of performance, both academically and athletically. My daughter was always a head of the curve so it wasn't an issue. But my son wasn't as mature and developed significantly slower than my daughter. So I waited a year before putting him into preschool. He ended up being one of only two kids who went in Kindergarten at 6 years old and it made a heck of difference. He fit in well with the other regularly developing 5 year olds and he has since gone on to do well in middle school and high school. He was always on the smaller size so he never had any physical advantages, but he was clearly more mature than most of the kids in his freshman class in high school. So he handled the change and added responsibilities well.

This is a fairly recent phenomenon, it’s mostly boys I see this with. Boys tend to be less emotionally and physically mature at age 5 than girls of the same age.

Our son turned 5 in May, started kindergarten a few months later. He was the youngest in his class, small for his age and has a learning disability but I thought to hold him back a year would just postpone the inevitable, ie dealing with the real world. He’s done fine and adapted and has become more tenacious. He ‘beat up’ the biggest kid in first grade so that helped him fit in also.

I’m sure some parents have a good reason to hold back the kid, severe learning disability, autism etc but just lol if you think you’re kids going to be a pro athlete because they’re starting kindergarten a year late.

Sounds cool to me. For the record, I'm not against keeping kids back for any reason that a parent wants to...their kid, their decision. I am ESPECIALLY on board doing it for kids who don't seem to be emotionally ready or just aren't as physically mature. I DO think some parents are setting themselves up for disappointment if their reason for doing it is to give their kid an athletic advantage. MOST high school kids are NOT good athletes and don't have the ability to be no matter their age.

Flagpole wrote:

I DO think some parents are setting themselves up for disappointment if their reason for doing it is to give their kid an athletic advantage. MOST high school kids are NOT good athletes and don't have the ability to be no matter their age.

If you are a parent of a 5 year old already concerned about their kids ability to compete in sports, I'd say there are bigger problems than the 5-year old's physical and emotional development. Parents should just let their kids be kids and worry about competitive sports MUCH later.

zxcvzxcv wrote:

This turns out to be very common for athletic reasons, especially in the south. They do it for boys much more than girls. I think it is about 10% of boys (over 9% total start kindergarten at 6).

"According to the most recent data available from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), in the 2010-2011 school year only 6 percent of kids started kindergarten at age 4, 42 percent of kids were between 5 and 5½, 43 percent were between 5½ and 6 years old — and more than 9 percent of kids starting kindergarten had already turned 6."

https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/redshirting-kindergarten/

All very interesting, Thanks for the nice addition to the discussion.

The Clown Show wrote:

Flagpole wrote:

I DO think some parents are setting themselves up for disappointment if their reason for doing it is to give their kid an athletic advantage. MOST high school kids are NOT good athletes and don't have the ability to be no matter their age.

If you are a parent of a 5 year old already concerned about their kids ability to compete in sports, I'd say there are bigger problems than the 5-year old's physical and emotional development. Parents should just let their kids be kids and worry about competitive sports MUCH later.

Agreed 100%.

Top 5k Americans with birth month. All were on the young end of their grade. It always pays off in the long run to be pushed at younger ages. If starting school late, an athlete is unlikely to reach full potential.

Houlihan - February

Schweizer - May

Rowbury - September (Started school at age 4)

Huddle - August (graduated at 17)

Flanagan - July

My kid goes to a fancy pants US boarding school. The schools won't share any numbers, but something like 15-25% of the entering 9th graders are repeat 9th graders. I don't know who or why it is happenning. It does feel out of hand.

Probably a play on what Gladwell discussed in his book Outliers regarding Canadian kids and hockey.

At YMCA soccer, they put kids on teams based on grade level. My son was on teams with kids that were almost a head taller and my son is about 80 percentile for height. Of course, these were red shirt kids and they all had parents who were super competitive on sports. My son's best friend from his toddler days got red shirted by his parents. He wasn't even a summer birthday. His parents claimed that he wasn't ready for K because he would get clingy when they dropped him off at pre-k. But it turned out that the kid was small for his t-ball league and didn't get picked for the all star team and that was pretty much what did it (yes, all star team for t-ball. It's Texas). Now, the kid is in 4th grade and is easily 4-6 inches taller than his classmates and is on select teams for baseball. His parents sent him to "speed training" for baseball when he was in second grade. That is what kind of parents are behind red shirting.

Yeah, holding a kid back for sports doesn't make sense. Even at age 19, the chances of being good enough to receive a scholarship is a fraction of a percent. If both parents won NXN titles, the extra year doesn't matter.

Star wrote:

I wish I redshirted kindergarten.

I would have been a pretty good high school runner and gotten a scholarship right away instead of walking on and getting a scholarship later.

Maybe. Or, due to your circle of friends being a bit different you could have ended up a stoner or being in the marching band and just made one bad decision one night and sent to juvie.

Best to just be grateful for what you did and do have and not wish to relive the past, Hindsight is 20/20. We can't have everything be perfect in our lives.

My oldest two are summer babies and had the option to put them in Kindergarten when they were 5 or wait a year. We waited for a variety of reasons. They will still graduate at 18 and start college at 19. Best decision we ever made.

They excelled academically and were both placed in a gifted school for late elementary. They have continued to excel in middle school. Athletics has never been a big deal for either as my oldest did not like any sports as a youth. In middle school she tried out for volleyball and now loves it. I believe being older allowed her to develop faster to make up for never having played before.

Each family has to do what they think is best. My wife is a stay at home mom to our 5 kids so the extra year was not difficult.