For those of you who don’t know, redshirting is the practice of delaying a fall-born child’s Kindergarten entrance until they’re almost 6 instead of almost 5. This is something I’m thinking about doing with my son, who will be 4 in November and will be eligible for Kindergarten the fall after next. There are many studies that show that kids who are redshirted do better in school as well as later in life, and honestly, you don’t have to be a scientist to see why this makes sense. Kids who start older are going to be more mature and ready to handle the challenges of school. This means they’ll get better grades and ultimately, get into better colleges.
You’d think that based on this information, any parent with a fall-born child who could afford an extra year of daycare would redshirt without hesitation. But this is not the case. When I think of all people I know who have fall birthdays and are from affluent families, the vast majority were not redshirted. As tempted as I am to redshirt my son, I can’t but feel that there must be a reason why so few parents do it.
If you have a fall-born child who you could afford to redshirt but didn’t, why not? And if you could do it over again, would you redshirt?
Well…my opinion. Being fully five is different than being not five. Many states have enrollment deadlines of September 1, so the kids are fully five or very close to it anyway.
You would need to look at states that have an enrollment deadline at the end of the year to see what their data shows. Can’t really look at apples and oranges here.
Red shirting was very popular where my D grew up, especially for boys. My D, with a summer birthday, was the very youngest amongst her friend group, sometimes by more than a year.
We didn’t see any difference in college admission or sports for that matter for students who were held back vs those that started per the cut off.
IMO, if a child is academically and socially ready, start them. The flip side to holding a child back who is ready is that they will be bored and unchallenged.
Our district did a kindergarten assessment on every student. An educator made a recommendation in if they felt the child was ready or not. Families typically followed the recommendation.
Students here need to be 5 by September 1st and yes I know many with summer birthdays, especially boys, who were held back. I would say it’s rather common here. I would have your son evaluated when he’s closer to the kindergarten start date.
September 1 is the cutoff where I live. Two of my kids have fall birthdays (sept and oct) and I never considered holding them back as they were already some of the oldest kids in their respective classes and both were more than ready to attend kindergarten at 6. My third we did hold back because of age. They’ve all done equally well in school.
However, as a general observation I don’t think age predetermines how well a child does in school. My kids have friends all along the age spectrum within their classes and some of the youngest kids have been the most accomplished.
The other issue is if you redshirt what will your child do while waiting to attend kindergarten as they will be almost 7 at that point correct?
Our daughter was born on Aug 31, with a Sept 1 cutoff. She was either going to be THE youngest girl in her grade, or ONE of the oldest. Holding her back one year was a no brainer.
When I saw this thread title, I was mentally gearing up for a discussion of college football/basketball redshirting, which isn’t rare at all!!
@vpa2019 , when D started kindergarten she had just turned 6, she wasn’t almost 7.
My DD has a fall birthday, so started K at almost 5. She was very mature for her age and academically 2-3 years ahead. No way was I going to red-shirt her. When we moved to a different state with an even earlier birthday cut-off and many red-shirted kids, the milestones became 2 years apart in many cases (eg, driving), but she was still very mature and academically advanced all the way through. It helped that she was always one of the tallest and very athletic so it wasn’t ever a problem socially. No regrets and I’d make the same decision again. Each child is different, though.
I redshirted my older son (although I wasn’t familiar with the term) as he had a July birthday (although he was born 2 months prematurely and his original due date was at the end of August) and the cutoff in our district was September 1. He just wasn’t ready for K (per his pre-school teachers) by the fall - if K had started in January he would have been fine. I didn’t do it because I was thinking about college, grades, athletics or any of that. I just wanted to make sure he would start off with a positive attitude towards school. He is a junior in HS now and I haven’t regretted my decision once, but not because I think he’ll get into a better college (who knows) but because his schooling has been successful and he is happy and well adjusted.
Same with my kids but the OP said his child will be eligible for kindergarten 2 years from now and he’s asking about redshirting so if that child is held another year that’s starting kindergarten just a few months shy of turning 7.
Some of the public school districts around here started making rules to disallow redshirting. If you came with your 6 year old to register them for kindergarten they said no he is going into first grade instead. Private schools wouldn’t want to do this and lose business.
As others have noted, it’s not rare. The main reason most parents don’t is b/c we have been socialized to accept that if our state says “if your birthday is x, you start school at y”. The ones who don’t just go along with it include (among others) those who have come from other places and had a different experience, those who see a way to get an advantage for their kid, and those who decide that their kid doesn’t fit that mold. And yes, in private schools it is notably more common.
I have been through at a number of conversations about “Redshirting” (which came from a ploy to extend a college athlete’s career btw), and have plenty of examples from both my own & my collegekid’s experiences of being old/young for a grade.
But.
At the end of the day, it comes down to the kid who is on your watch. He is the only kid that matters in your evaluation, and that calculation will involve a range of metrics. How ready is he, in the sense of attention span and general socialization? How physically coordinated is he (esp hand-eye, but general coordination as well). Is he going N → Pre-K → K or daycare → K? What is the school like that he will go to? @momofboiler1 is right: if he’s ready, start him; if not, don’t.
Fwiw, the differences really do average out. Like @vpa2019, the collegekid’s friend groups range in age from the “babies” to the “old ones”. The book “The Hurried Child” is quite the polemic, but includes a fascinating longitudinal study on kids who were identified as ‘exceptional’ in K, and were ‘hot housed’ with all kinds of ‘enrichment’ throughout their schooling. Their path - and that of their former classmates who just got the usual educational experience- was charted through to adulthood. The short version: as early as 9, and definitely by 12, you couldn’t pick out the ‘exceptional’ ones from the ‘regular’ ones.
tl;dr- the only kid that matters in this conversation is your son: take your lead from him and what the overall circumstances will be for him.
Many parents are not as education obsessed as the typical CC poster & reader so they place their child in school when eligible. Seems fine to me either way, but I do wonder whether the benefits justify the delay.
Definitely common here. Our twins with mid-Nov birthdays were the youngest in their year throughout school. Even though the cutoff at that time was December 2 (it has since been moved back to September), most kids with birthdays from July onwards were held back so there were many kids who were more than a year older. But we had no qualms and all worked out fine. They are finding more benefits this year as they will be the only members of their college friend groups able to have proper post-pandemic 21st birthday parties!
Things to consider on your decision plate:
Is your child meeting typical developmental milestones for their current age? (ask pediatrician if you’re not sure)
Is your child emotionally/socially secure in public situations?
What are the results of a kindergarten assessment? (if your school district offers, get this even if you’re not decided)
With these three things before you make your decision. If all 3 seem a “go” then send on schedule without redshirting. And then let the decision go. Because overworrying about these things at such a young age is setting both of you up for stress for “career track” at age 5.
If one or more of the above is a red flag, be comfortable with redshirting. And then take that extra year to let them naturally (with parent engagement and support) continue their development with lots of play, opportunities to be with others, reading, and outdoor time.
One other thing to think about that people miss: the trade is really one extra year of pre-k living at the cost of one year of post-college living. That means one less year of earning potential, fun in your twenties, etc.
My daughter was redshirted and I have no regrets-academically, socially, emotional etc. She was born in September. She’ll be a Freshman in September at Cornell. Highly recommend especially for boys.
Some kids benefit from redshirting. Other kids benefit from acceleration. In our community, neither is common, but acceleration happens more often than redshirting.
What is best for a particular child varies depending upon his or her mental and social abilities. Often times I see acceleration by parents who think their kids are brighter than they really are, and the mistake is revealed much later when the child starts struggling in high school when the pace of academics picks up. But in a few cases, the acceleration really made sense so that the very bright child remains mentally engaged.
If I could do it all again, I would have held back my S22. AND he has a fall birthday, so he would have turned 7 in November of his kindergarten year. He was slow to mature physically (and he is a PHENOMENAL athlete, so I can’t imagine what he would be like with an extra year) and is also having some of that classic male frontal lobe delay. Unfortunately, none of this became obvious until middle school when it was too late to do it without massive social repercussions.