“Yes, but schools don’t group kids by exact birthdates. Most do so by 12 month groupings.”
I was talking about intrinsic groupings, not conventional groupings.
But the conventional groupings have an effect on the development of an individual. Which is why we are having this discussion in the first place. If there was zero effect on development, why would anyone care if there was redshirting or not?
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"Which kind of matters when it comes to interpersonal relationships, social dynamics, etc.
An 8th grader is spending much more of their time with other 8th graders than with 7th graders."
But it’s not like it would be overly difficult for them to make friends with 7th graders if they wanted to. Where I went to junior high, the 7th and 8th graders had lunch together, so an 8th grader could easily join and make friends with a group of 7th graders. They could also take multi-grade classes such as yearbook if they wanted to get to know more people from the grade below.
Your friends don’t necessarily have to be your classmates. If an 8th grader really disliked being less mature than others around them, they could simply go to a playground of small children after school and/or on weekends, make friends with them, and then they’d lightyears more mature than their friends.
I wish my oldest (March birthday) could have started K at 4. He could read, add and subtract and understood multiplication. He never was an athlete, but he wasn’t klutzy or small for his age.
My younger son (July birthday) I sometimes thought should have been held back. Mostly he both gifted and had LDs and probably was somewhat ADHD. He eventually got it all sorted out and went to a very good college. I mentioned that I sometimes thought he should have been held back and he was super indignent!
I myself with a September birthday skipped first grade, I was always the very youngest one in my grade. I got excellent grades, SAT scores, excellent college yada yada. I took a gap year before college and a gap year before grad school, both of which were excellent experiences and I have always been very grateful that my parents skipped me.
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I don’t have kids OP, but I’d assume that most parents don’t redshirt because they’ve learned to view the world objectively. Putting a child in a room full of kids less mature than them isn’t going to make them objectively more mature at that point in time. It’s the same with academics. An 8-year-old 2nd-grader reading at a 3rd grade level really isn’t any more impressive than an 8-year-old 3rd-grader reading at a 3rd grade level. The 8-year-old 2nd-grader is just overall less educated.
A 13-year-old 7th grader may be more mature relative to their classmates than a 13-year-old 9th grader, but guess what? In actuality, the 13-year-old 9th grader knows more than the 13-year-old 7th grader. Redshirting a child doesn’t make them smarter, faster, or stronger. It’s just an optical illusion. They just seem smarter, faster, and stronger because they’re always around kids younger than them.
In short, OP, redshirting your son will increase his maturity relative to his classmates but decrease his knowledge at a given point in time, as he’ll always be less educated than he would’ve been otherwise. As far as I’m concerned, facts are what matter in the world.
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My daughter wasn’t redshirted - she started school early because she’s adopted and I wasn’t sure of her true birth date. Even if she really was older (which I had suspected), the legal age was a barrier to some activities.
If she were legally older, she would have gone at the same time as her classmates. If she’d turned 6 in K, then at the end of the school year she could have gone to camp at the same time the others in her class, and troop, were going. She was often left out when others could do things that she couldn’t, like play on a team, go to camp, get a driver’s license, go to an R rated movie. If all your friends in first or fifth or sophomore year are doing something, and you have to wait another year and a half, it matters to you.
Just always a step behind her peers.
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My first two children were not red shirted and both did or are doing gap years and did fine academically and socially. My youngest was super shy and was not talking so much in pre school so we had him do an additional year of pre school. His birthday is in May and is a full year older than his friends. He is doing really well and I think in his case it has benefited him. He is 16 and already saying he doesn’t want to do a gap year because he would be two years older than other incoming freshman in college so I guess that is another point to consider. I think it depends on the kid. It is not common here and I would guess the more affluent the area the more common it becomes.
In theory this could happen. In practice, how often did this happen?
And you had jr high yearbooks? My jr high certainly didn’t.
I sorta can tell.
Come back after you have kids.
You’ll discover that the world doesn’t work in a completely rational matter. Because kids and humans in general are not robots unaffected by their environment.
The rest of what you say makes logical sense only if kids/humans are robots and completely unaffected by their peers (the kids they spend the most time with).
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That’s not what I meant. Let’s take, for example, somebody born in December of 2016. If there were a summer camp that required them to be 6, they’ll have to wait until the summer of 2023 to go that camp, regardless of whether they’re an incoming 1st grader or an incoming at that point. That same person will be able to drive in December of 2032, regardless of whether they’re a 10th grader or an 11th grader at that point, see R rated movies in December of 2033, regardless of whether they’re an 11th grader or a 12th grader at that point, and go to bars in December of 2037, regardless of whether they’re a college junior or a college senior at that point.
Objectively speaking, your daughter didn’t do anything later in her life than she would have. She did, however, achieve all her educational milestones(such as graduating from high school and college) a year earlier her life than she would have and was always more educated than she would’ve been at any given point in time. She may have been “a step behind” her classmates in terms of social activies, but was a step ahead of her peers in terms of education.
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My kids’ middle school did. So did their grade school. Not hardbound like the HS yearbook, but serving the same purpose. (And no, of course my grade 1-8 elementary school did not, but that was in prehistoric times).
I think it’s worth observing that the redshirting issue is mostly an artifact of how we deliver education, while also acknowledging the reality that there’s not much you can do about it. I guess you could explore private school options.
Or not because development happens on a very wide spectrum.
Or not because being in school is not equivalent to being educated. Students aren’t empty vessels waiting for knowledge to be poured in.
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Yes, the individual is not getting to go to camp any earlier or getting to get a driver’s license earlier, but in my daughter’s case, she couldn’t do those things until AFTER all her friends (and sister) did.
I found that if the student was the oldest in the grade, they just waited a little for the others to have a birth day. They didn’t go to the R rated movie on their own the day they turned 17, but wait until 4 or 5 friends also turned 17. What they didn’t do was wait for the youngest, my daughter, to turn 17. I really hadn’t realized it was an issue at all until we were traveling with her team and all the girls wanted to go to a movie I didn’t want to see. Daughter couldn’t go without an adult (and at some theaters, no under 17 yo at all, even with a parent). Overall, not a big deal but just one of many little things.
I think unless there is a pressing reason for going to school early or redshirting, the parents should follow the guidelines for the school district. Usually it works out best for kids to be in the age groups designed for that year, and usually they’ll be in out of school activities with those peers too- scouts, sports, summer camps. Hockey has very defined age groups and it doesn’t matter what grade you are in, you play by age.
It is the private schools around her that do not allow advancing and require students to be 5 to start K. One of the most elite schools requires age 5 by July 31, no exceptions. Redshirting can make a student 2 years older than their public school grade level (I don’t think redshirting an Aug or Sept kid happens often at that school).
And when you are are a parent, @coffeefeet , you’ll understand the fear a parent has sending her 55 pound 10-year old off to 6th grade at the middle school with 200 pound 14 (or even 15) year old 8th graders - with facial hair! I was thrilled the 6th graders did NOT have the same lunch with 8th graders.
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Some countries don’t have middle schools.
Imagine being 11 years old and lining up with 15-18 year olds to enter a school building. You can’t see them as peers but they are not adult guardians to you either. The one positive side is that after that they won’t have to change schools again until college unless their family moves out of the area totally.
My kids went to a k-8 and it never bothered me that the 4 year old Kindergartener was in an after school program with 13 year old 8th graders, could play in the same games (even basketball) or watch the same movies. Then she changed schools for 6th grade.
That 10 year old going into the same middle school with those enormous, huge, supersized hairy 8th graders? Scary. The school did keep all the grades separate, and each grade had their own hallways for lockers, separate times for ‘specials’ so even the band and orchestra had separate class times by grade. I guess I wasn’t the only one worried about co-mingling.
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We had some pressure to red shirt S1. He was a quiet, shy kid who came slowly to love and thrive in his play-based preschool. Other parents and some teachers wanted him to have another year of play. But he was also big and smart and just ready in so many ways so I sent him to kinder on time. If I had held him back he would have had fun playing another year, but then he would have been truly enormous relative to his peers and perhaps frustrated academically. He did well in sports and in school.
I will note that I wish he had taken a gap year before college. As well as he did in HS, he did not know what he wanted to do and some time to travel or work would have helped him. He is taking a break now before grad school.
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I have 3 kids with June, sept and April birthdays. We have a Sept 1 cutoff for kindergarten. I did not hold back my first child but I wish I had. She was always a little behind socially. I remember her kindergtrten teacher telling me she was the youngest in the class (her b-day is early June) and I was shocked but she responded that “everyone in this town holds back summer babies”. I think that extra year could have given her some extra confidence that she could have used in high school and middle school. She seems to be finally finding it as a freshman in college. Second child was Sept. He is right where he should be academically and socially. Never thought of holding him back as he would be old for his grade. Third child was born in April. He had lots of early development issues. Late to walk, talk, eat (had a feeding tube for several years). We decided to hold him back in first grade and it was a great decision. He is socially and academically right where he should be with his peers. He was still the shortest kid in his grade until this year but is now finally taller than many of his 7th grade peers.
I feel like it’s a very personal decision and one you have to make individually for each of your kids. There is no right or wrong answer. Many kids in our area go to private school in 9th and end up repeating 8th or 9th grade either for sports or academics. If the kid was already redshirted before kindergarten, they can now be graduating when they are 20.
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“We have a Sept 1 cutoff for kindergarten. I did not hold back my first child but I wish I had. She was always a little behind socially.”
Behind what? The kids in her class? There are a lot more people in the world than those in a classroom. The set of people in the world who matured earlier and later than her would’ve been the same no matter what. Yes, redshirting her would’ve increased her social maturity relative to her classmates, but it might’ve decreased her absolute intellectual maturity, as she would’ve always had less schooling at a given point in time.
Relative maturity matters more for a young child. It can make all the difference for some kids what their life trajectory will be if they are accepted or feel successful in their cohort.
Maybe not for all kids, but for many. Being a successful athlete, being a star vs a bench warmer, for example, can change how a person sees themselves and what they are capable of and how much taking risks pays off.
But I don’t think you are particularly interested in considering that possibility. I am curious why. Objective maturity doesn’t really much matter at all, as far as I can tell. Other than you get a bonus year in your twenties (which I think is huge and not to be underestimated) if not red-shirted, I don’t even know what objective maturity even means.
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I just don’t understand why a kid should feel bad about something that’s not their fault. Surely a 15-year-old 11th grader who can’t drive when all their friends can would feel better when they consider the fact that hardly any other 15-year-old in the country is allowed to drive without an adult in the car. They have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. A 20-year-old college senior who can’t go to bars when their friends can should consider that hardly any other 20-year-old in the country is allowed go to bars.
Conversely, I don’t understand why a 4th-grader who’s the age of a 5th-grader should feel proud of themselves for doing 5th-grade math or reading at a 4th-grade level, as those are the capabilities of most kids their age. Same thing later when they’re the only 10th grader who can drive. It’s not like they did anything special to earn getting their license before their classmates.
Donuts taste delicious on the surface, right? But when you consider what’s actually inside the donut, you probably don’t want to take a bite out of it. It’s the same thing here. Winning a competition against others a year younger than you may feel good on the surface, but when you consider that you aren’t any better than most your age, your ego will deflate as fast as it inflated.
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