Redshirting: Holding kids back from kindergarten (with POLL)

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Were you held back?

  • Yes

  • No

  • Parents didn't care

Results are only viewable after voting.
rpanic

rpanic

Golden Member
Dec 1, 2006
1,896
7
81
Had to hold two of my sons back because they were born in December, sucked because my one son's best friend lives across the street and is two weeks older than my son and is going even though my son is far more mature. This year they are moving the date back even further its ridiculous.
 
mmntech

mmntech

Lifer
Sep 20, 2007
17,501
12
0
They tried to do this to me but my parents would have none of it. That was a long time ago before they instituted junior and senior kindergarten. Actually the exact opposite is happening here now. It's become little more than an expensive daycare service in Ontario. Gotta co-parent those kids I guess.
 
lokiju

lokiju

Lifer
May 29, 2003
18,526
5
0
True story, I was held back in kindergarden (made to repeat it) because my parents refused to sell their house that was on the market to my teacher for $40,000 less than they were asking. She in anger at my "rich" (in her eyes) parents wouldn't do that favor for their sons teacher and made me pay the price for it.

My parents being the passive hippies they are didn't fight the school on it and as a result I was that kid that was a year older than all the others in my grade.

It personally made me feel like I wasn't as able to learn as others for a long time until I realized that really wasn't the case.

Later on I did 4 years of private school that taught a year ahead and I guess you could say that "rebooted" me :p

From my own personal experiences, I would never hold my son back (he's 2 years 9 months old now) and I would/will always encourage him to advance at the proper pace or faster if he wishes.
 
edro

edro

Lifer
Apr 5, 2002
24,326
68
91
I was the youngest in my class...
All of the oldest kids in my class were dumb.
It's like they were socially more advanced, but intellectually slower.
 
L

lothar

Diamond Member
Jan 5, 2000
6,674
7
76
The most retarded thing I've ever heard....Only in America.

My best friend started college at 16, I started at 17.
If our parents practiced this "red-shirting" nonsense, we both wouldn't start college until 19 like the other "red-shirting" people.
 
cronos

cronos

Diamond Member
Nov 7, 2001
9,380
26
101
My son missed the cutoff date by about a month, but he clearly didn't belong in pre-school anymore (extremely bored, read like a 1st grader already, and kept asking when he can go to 'real' school) so we tested him to get in early (any child who was born between September 1st and December 31st can get tested to get in KG early). He passed so he was about 4 weeks away from his 5th birthday when he started KG.

The fact that he's one of the youngest in the class ended up not being such a big deal as his school has all mixed grade classes now (K/1, 2/3, 4/5). He was in a pure K when he started, but was in a K/1 as a 1st grader and now in a 2/3 class as a 2nd grader.

I find it really interesting how the dynamic works in a mixed grade class. Last year in a K/1 he was one of the 'big kids' although he's closer in age to the Kindergartners. His best friend was a K. That kid followed him around everywhere. This year as a 2 grader in a 2/3 he's one of the 'young kids' (and actually is the youngest in the whole class), and ended up being best friend with a 3rd grader. This time he's the one who follow this kid everywhere. I was actually pretty happy to learn that he has no problem adjusting to both 'leader' and 'follower' roles just fine.

There's actually a boy in my son's class who had his 9th birthday (a 'late' 3rd grader) when my son was still 6 years old. This still fascinates me whenever I thought about it.
 
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L

Lifted

Diamond Member
Nov 30, 2004
5,748
2
0
I don't understand any of this. Are the people being held back staying in pre-k for an extra year, or an extra year of tutoring?

I was in pre-k at 3, again at 4, same private school for kindergarten at 5. My mother then had the brilliant idea to put me into "the excellent" public school for first grade, where the kids were more juvenile and clueless than they were at pre-k when I was 3. I was writing, reading, knew math inside and out, and these kids were lucky if they could write their name.

I couldn't imagine not sending my child to school until they turned 6. I guess if you really want your child to be a clueless retard it's a great idea.

Then there was high school, science/tech school which was the second best public school in the city, where I met students from China and Russia who were basically coming in with backgrounds in calculus and physics while we were still learning geometry and trig. The US education system is going backwards, not forwards, and parents want their children even further behind. This country depresses me.
 
N

nanette1985

Diamond Member
Oct 12, 2005
4,209
2
0
It's popular around here. None of my kids were held back. In my neighborhood anyone who started late went instead to private advanced pre-kindergarden.
 
mcveigh

mcveigh

Diamond Member
Dec 20, 2000
6,457
6
81
my wife is a teacher. she has several kids that SHOULD have been help back. They just aren't mature enough for school and disrupt the classes for others.
there is more to being ready for school than an age.
 
Aikouka

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
My birthday is September 26, and the cut-off was mid September. However, I had to take some sort of aptitude test to prove that I was as capable as a 5-year-old even though my birthday was only about two weeks off.
 
MotionMan

MotionMan

Lifer
Jan 11, 2006
17,123
12
81
HAL9000 said:
Stupid idea, the earlier you start learning the better.
Click to expand...

You clearly don't know crap about this subject, so you should remain silent.

Both my kids were summer babies, so the choice was for them to be the youngest in the class by a wide margin or be one of (but not the) oldest in the class. The choice was simple. They both got an extra year of pre-school and are much better for it.

I missed the cutoff in my district by about 3 weeks, so I was always one of the oldest in my class, too. BTW, my wife was the youngest in her class and went to college at 17 1/2. She wished she had been held back a year before starting kindergarten.

I saw/see no drawback to it in the slightest.

MotionMan
 
destrekor

destrekor

Lifer
Nov 18, 2005
28,799
359
126
In a way, I guess I sort of had been "redshirted" - and I honestly didn't see any benefit in the end, though it meant I got to drive earlier (and drink ... :awe:) so, yay? :p

Hell, I was redshirted and even got to play. Our district has a "Developmental Kindergarten" so, when regular Kindergarten came around, it was thus like I had waited a year.

That and I was apparently a momma's boy as a little tyke.
 
V

Via

Diamond Member
Jan 14, 2009
4,670
4
0
Poeple have been reading Outliers, it seems.

That book really is a must read.

Around my area there's a town named Metamora where "red-shirting" boys for high school football is supposedly routine.
 
zinfamous

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,095
30,041
146
HamburgerBoy said:
As the first born I got in at 5 while my siblings started at 6. I also got picked on the most and ended up expelled by 6th grade, while my siblings haven't had really any problems. Based on my anecdotal evidence, it's better to start them at 6, at least until some parents get the idea to start at 7.
Click to expand...

Nah, your siblings simply learned from you:

"Holy shit, Clyde; let's not do whatever the fuck Cletus was doing last year!"

that's how it works.

yeah, sucks to be the first born, sometimes. :\
 
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