Why you shouldn't redshirt for Kindergarten:

[Barb_]

Tailoring to his perceived audience? That's some good rhetoric skills there!

Right? Although, attempting to teach homeschooling moms the word "redshirt" was a mistep. I give him a B-

[isaacbernstein]

Right? Although, attempting to teach homeschooling moms the word "redshirt" was a mistep. I give him a B-

 

Really? I only get a B- for showering others with my wisdom?

[Barb_]

Really? I only get a B- for showering others with my wisdom?

For your rhetoric skills. You've underestimated your audience :D

[JoJosMom]

I was younger than all my friends. Too bad my parents didn't redshirt me so I could go to bars with everyone else! I don't know why Mom and Dad were so inconsiderate.

 

Twinsie!  Me, too.  I graduated from college the DAY BEFORE my 21st birthday.  I have yet to recover from the pain of being denied the opportunity to drink alcohol in college.  Perhaps I should set up a Go Fund Me account to pay for therapy? :nopity:

[JoJosMom]

Really? I only get a B- for showering others with my wisdom?

 

Looks like we're being showered with something; the identity of that something is questionable :glare:

[HomeAgain]

This is such a strange post. May I suggest to the OP that it be cross posted to the Writing forum for Logic stage students? That way it may be critiqued properly with constructive advice on how to form a fact based argument.

[HS Mom in NC]

Really? I only get a B- for showering others with my wisdom?

 

How old are you?

 

Did you really expect to take a position on a controversial topic online and get only applause? Did you really expect no disagreement, especially when the basis of your argument about making an academic decision is mostly based on getting into a bar with your buddies? Seriously?  Is this the first time you've ever been online? 

 

What exactly did you expect to accomplish by posting about this at a homeschooling forum?Are you aware that a homeschooling forum is an unwise place to discuss red-shirting because people who homeschool aren't limited by grade level content based on age the way institutional schools are.  My kids started Latin and Greek Word Roots at 5 and 6. My middle kid didn't start learning to read until she was almost 8 years old but tested into and enrolled college level subjects including calculus at community college when she was 15. See how learning and academic ability ebb and flow for some kids in some areas and how artificial constraints like grade level don't always matter?

 

[...................]

It's a troll

[Jean in Newcastle]

Right? Although, attempting to teach homeschooling moms the word "redshirt" was a mistep. I give him a B-

 

Like!  (I'm out of likes)

[....]

My junior year, however, I hit another bump. I turned 21 right before my junior year, but because my friends were 19 and 20

 

 

Er...I know I should just leave this alone and go back to making lasagna...   :tongue_smilie:

 

I was in the military for five years, including being stationed in a hostile-fire zone overseas...and THEN I went to college.  I ended college with a husband and a baby.  I had to find someone to watch my baby so I could take finals.

 

And you think you felt weird because you were a year older than most of your classmates???

 

Just saying, not everyone follows the same path in life.  I've taken college classes with people much, much older than 21.

[luuknam]

I've taken college classes with people much, much older than 21.

 

 

I've taken college classes with my spouse, who's 8 years older than me, when we were both 21+ (and married, in case that part wasn't clear).

Edited May 6, 2017 by luuknam

[nixpix5]

Well I feel silly for even giving a reply to this but I was a summer birthday and went into K as a 6 year old and had the opposite experience. Always ahead, in the gifted program with a less fidgety body. Having worked in academic settings I feel sorry for the very youngest in the class because teachers sometimes forget that they should be more wiggly and less focused based on age and shouldn't be compared to older and more self regulated peers. Not always the case of course but I have seen this happen. Once a little is identified in class as feeling not focused enough, not "smart" enough etc that can stick with them and have a negative impact on their sense of self as a student. There is pluses and minuses on both sides and it is absolutely child dependent. One experience does not make someone else's experience but I am sorry you felt traumatized by the extra 12 months of life.

[....]

I've taken college classes with my spouse, who's 8 years older than me, when we were both 21+ (and married, in case that part wasn't clear).

 

That's actually how I met my dh - in a college class and he's several years older than me, too.

 

I had a professor for Native American literature who was in her 40s before she even started college.  She gave us the "you're never too old to learn something" talk.   :D

[LMD]

*yawn*

 

thanks for assuming that every other parent on the internet needs your 'wisdom.'

 

stick around, read rather than post, and you might see some real wisdom and grow that tiny, special snowflake brain.

[El...]

Well, I had my laugh for the evening!  Thanks, guys! 

 

Why would someone come onto a homeschooling forum and lecture parents on how to schedule their child's grade progression?  Truly, bless someone else!  We're already sold on customized education!  Sold, and fully stocked up, no longer interested in whatever you are selling.

 

You know how kids sometimes "review" books on Amazon, apparently as some sort of school assignment?  Perhaps this is one of those.  "Write an essay on your own educational experience, and find an audience that gives a crap about it somewhere on the internet."  Haha!

[Sk8ermaiden]

I barely met the cutoff. I always turned the next age the summer after everyone else.

 

I don't think I was ever in a single college class that had ONLY Freshman or Sophomores, etc. My freshman year I met my first college boyfriend in my State and Society in the Modern Middle East class. He was a senior. My roommate my freshman year (barely 18) was a sophomore (20). (We are still very good friends, despite this seemingly insurmountable gulf in our ages.)

 

You know, I escaped my entire college experience never once going to a bar with friends?

 

And you know what happens when you're the youngest?? If your friends go to bars for their 21st, you don't get to go to ANY of them, because YOU are underage. And if your parents hadn't redshirted you, you'd be whining about that. 

 

And this ignores that the cutoff is different everywhere. If you were within 2 months of it, chances are, somewhere else, you would not have made it. In college you see all different ages because of this.

 

The idea of having to work FOREVER because of an extra year is so, utterly hilarious. And I'm trying to think...we were the first to buy a house of our college friends. We were 23/25. One of the last will be buying this year. They are 33/34. Our best friends since college may never be able to get into a house. And all the couples came from the same college and consist of an engineer husband and a SAHM. There is no life timeline. I think this troll is 14 at the oldest. 

 

In all seriousness, DD is a July birthday and in our homeschool, she isn't redshirted. But I'm toying now with the idea of just taking an extra year to complete her education. Give her an extra year to mature and find her bearings and have a little more room for interest-led stuff in high school. She'll still be right on target with her peers going into college.

 

Edited May 7, 2017 by Sk8ermaiden

[SKL]

I hope all of you greenshirted kids have thanked your parents for your adult successes.  I shudder to think how things would have turned out if your parents had made you stay home an extra year instead of sending you to school.

 

To be honest, I probably would have dropped out of school, like my mother did.  It was all I could do to stick it out until age 16.5 and graduate.  I would not have been eligible to take the GED or go to college until 18, so I'm not sure what I'd have done in the mean time in my rural town, but most likely I would have gotten a below-minimum-wage job.  Not sure how all that would have impacted me long-term.  But yes, I thank my parents for the decision they made in my case.  It was absolutely the right decision to put me in KG at 4 and also to let me graduate early at 16.  I also put my kids in KG at 4.  I think it would be harder for them to graduate early nowadays, so I'm not sure how to deal with the infantilizing rules in high school.  Maybe they won't mind them as much as I did.

 

[Arctic Bunny]

Twinsie! Me, too. I graduated from college the DAY BEFORE my 21st birthday. I have yet to recover from the pain of being denied the opportunity to drink alcohol in college. Perhaps I should set up a Go Fund Me account to pay for therapy? :nopity:

Oh dear, no! That is *much* worse! In my province, the drinking age is 19. Much better! Unfortunately, DH and I were totally on our own by then, so couldn't afford to go to a bar on my 19th. That's probably my parents' fault, too!

[Barb_]

Oh dear, no! That is *much* worse! In my province, the drinking age is 19. Much better! Unfortunately, DH and I were totally on our own by then, so couldn't afford to go to a bar on my 19th. That's probably my parents' fault, too!

:lol: I was three weeks away from giving birth, so no alcohol for me either. I can't even blame my parents for that one

[AimeeM]

Your last line assumes you can speak for all children -- that they will ALL thank us for sending them "on time."

 

I think I'll stick with the advice of professionals, and my own instincts, considering I know my children a good bit more than you. 

 

I am redshirting my youngest. I'm intentionally HOLDING BACK a year two of my children who are further in their education -- and whom I should have redshirted in the first place. <---- regret

 

[abba12]

It's not like you were a full year older than the rest of the students. You were 3 months older than some not redshirted kids. So it was torture being on a high school campus as an adult, but had you been three months younger like the older correct-age year you'd have been fine? Nah mate, not really how it works.

 

Sorry you felt that way about your parents decision, I'm sure they tried as hard as they could to do the best they knew how. 

 

Even if you were all the right age it would have been your friend with the earliest birthday in the same boat, 3 months later. I hardly think not getting to drink with friends for a few extra months is a good reason to change major academic decisions. 

 

It's not as if all your classmates were 12 months younger than you and you were a year behind. Some would have been 3 months younger, maybe even 2 months younger and right on cutoff. It's a continuum. 

 

And if you're upset about some vague idea of retiring on less money and buying a house a year 'late', well, you haven't actually had much life experience yet. That's not how adulting works. Either that, or you're a very bitter person holding onto a very old petty grudge. 

[2_girls_mommy]

I graduated at 17 because of how my birthday fell. I had 3 months before I was 18. I couldn't rent an apartment. I couldn't get my phone turned on. I couldn't buy a car without a cosignor, though I was working full time and supporting myself. That summer was hard for me until I turned 18 and was fully an adult. I always felt life would have been easier in my circumstances if my parents had waited a year to start me even though I could handle the academics. Anyway, none of that makes a bit of difference to my life now, more than 20 years later. 

 

My kids have summer bdays. I didn't redshirt them. (not that it matters for homeschool one way or the other.) But they won't need to be independent as soon as they graduate high school like I was, so it won't make much difference to them. Maybe the part about not driving when everyone else is might bother them, but I am not that concerned about that either. 

 

[Tanaqui]

It's not like you were a full year older than the rest of the students. You were 3 months older than some not redshirted kids. So it was torture being on a high school campus as an adult, but had you been three months younger like the older correct-age year you'd have been fine? Nah mate, not really how it works.

 

And really, some of those students must have been kept back at least once, or moved from areas with a later age cutoff than in his district. He wasn't the oldest in his graduating class. There's no way.

 

[73349]

 

 

And really, some of those students must have been kept back at least once, or moved from areas with a later age cutoff than in his district. He wasn't the oldest in his graduating class. There's no way.

 

 

Yup. By graduation, it's normal for there to be a 2- to 3-year age span. DH and I are 13+ months apart but graduated together because of different cut-off dates. I believe I was second youngest, but the youngest girl in our class was 13 months younger than I am. The oldest graduate was likely someone 11+ months older than DH.

[Carol in Cal.]

It's impossible for me to imagine a class these days with only one 'older' kid in it.

[SKL]

The year I graduated, there was a guy in my class who turned 21 toward the end of the year.  He failed English (didn't turn in required work) and thus did not graduate.  A great guy as far as I could tell - witty - probably had some learning disability that nobody understood.  I had one slightly younger classmate that I knew of.  So the age range was 4.5 years in that class of roughly 200 students.  Obviously the range in college was much larger.

[Wheres Toto]

It's impossible for me to imagine a class these days with only one 'older' kid in it.

 

Really.   Nowadays, it's not at all uncommon.   My son would have been red-shirted, at the request of the school, if he was there.  It's part of what led us to homeschooling.

 

I graduated at 17, my birthday was over the summer.   My last time sitting in an actual classroom for college (I finished my degrees online), I was 32.   And I don't think I was the oldest one in most of my classes, despite taking most of them during the day.

[OneStepAtATime]

Really. Nowadays, it's not at all uncommon. My son would have been red-shirted, at the request of the school, if he was there. It's part of what led us to homeschooling.

 

I graduated at 17, my birthday was over the summer. My last time sitting in an actual classroom for college (I finished my degrees online), I was 32. And I don't think I was the oldest one in most of my classes, despite taking most of them during the day.

Yep. I had a Bachelor's but went back to college while pregnant with DD. My math class included 17 year olds all the way up to a guy in his 50s who was changing careers. And everyone in between. Day class, not a night class, and it was at the local Uni, not CC.

[MotherGoose]

When I was 18, or possibly 25, I might have complained about being the only "adult " in a sea of children if in high school well past my eighteenth birthday. I have a February birthday, so technically I was an adult on a high school campus for three months or so. Now that I'm 42, I understand that you aren't truly an adult until you pay your own bills without any help from your parents or student loans. Doesn't matter if you're 18 or 50.

[maize]

My little one-room schoolhouse has a range of 13+ years between the oldest and youngest pupils. This must be horrifically stressful to the poor kids who are obliged to spend their days together--guaranteeing the future income of many therapists for sure!

[Guest]

Cool discussion, so I'm leaving it up, but I'm putting the troll on permanent moderate (just FYI).

 

swb

[OneStepAtATime]

:)

[SporkUK]

I graduated at 17 because of how my birthday fell. I had 3 months before I was 18. I couldn't rent an apartment. I couldn't get my phone turned on. I couldn't buy a car without a cosignor, though I was working full time and supporting myself. That summer was hard for me until I turned 18 and was fully an adult. I always felt life would have been easier in my circumstances if my parents had waited a year to start me even though I could handle the academics. Anyway, none of that makes a bit of difference to my life now, more than 20 years later. 

 

My kids have summer bdays. I didn't redshirt them. (not that it matters for homeschool one way or the other.) But they won't need to be independent as soon as they graduate high school like I was, so it won't make much difference to them. Maybe the part about not driving when everyone else is might bother them, but I am not that concerned about that either. 

 

Similar, and I knew people who graduated with me who were a few months younger [and one person who was a junior who graduated with us] and I'd been taking college classes for over a year at that point. I spent that summer living with a friend because it was that or homelessness - I was too young to get things on my own or get help from a lot of sources where one had to be an adult and too old for parental responsibility to really be enforced or get help as a child. I had a lot of difficulties my senior year because I was too young though I am glad I was able to get away as soon as I did. 14ish years on and it makes little difference I think...other than I still live with the then friend I lived with that summer & we have kids now   :lol:

 

I live in England now which does not really have redshirting at least for state schools - you can defer entrance but kids are still placed in where they would be just having missed what everyone else went through. It's been an ongoing debate whether this should change - particularly when Scotland and Northern Ireland have different systems (as do private schools). So far, we're not really affected because we home educate and all the activities they do use age or qualifications to progress; only my occasional council reports and keeping an eye on the future as some of the GCSE programmes here are Year-based keeps it in my mind. My current year 3 child, who is an August birthday who was very ill when she was younger and really struggled until about a year ago would likely have been recommended for it if we lived elsewhere. 

 

I find the "wisdom" from the OP odd, like many here my life certainly has not been on some track by how long its been since graduating high school. University I did a bit earlyish then again lateish though certainly was not the oldest by far, housing [still renting], work - I'm totally restarting freelance now...I was teetotal and didn't go out drinking socially until I was 30 and even now will be one of multiple people at events not drinking since between it negatively affecting some of my medical conditions and just generally not liking it, it's rare I'm in the mood for alcohol. Like, I had a very bad childhood which still affects me (currently having a bad period of panic attacks) but of all the things I consider about my own parents or that I would like my kids to thank me for, this is not really up there, which is good since it is out of my hands. 

[Momto4inSoCal]

I had a Sept birthday so I started school at 4 turning 5. I never really thought about it until high school. I hated having to wait to get my permit. All my 18yo senior friends could sign their own notes for school, I couldn't. All my friends turned 21 before me so they got into bars earlier. Age really isn't a big factor when homeschooling though. Homeschooled kids generally are taught by ability not age. I have twins in TK(by state cutoff) and one twin is in kinder math, the other 1st grade and both are only half way through their kinder phonics curriculum. We move up based on what they are academically ready for not because of a birthday. Most homeschoolers I know enroll in dual credit classes jr year of high school. The classes are free until you graduate so it's almost to good to pass up.

[goldenecho]

Amen to this:  there is no right answer for all people.   I don't think people should blanketly red-shirt without considering the child.   My oldest was born in May and my youngest in April.  I'm not sure if either would have been eligible for reshirting, but I can say that redshirting my oldest would have been a huge mistake.  Even as it is he's ahead in classes and struggles with boredom. 

 

My youngest on the other hand...I knew he wasn't ready for Kindergarten but just suppressed my mom's instincts and sent him anyways (didn't really know I had another option, and at that time didn't think I had what it took to homeschool him).  He cried his way through KG, and then would have had to repeat anyways (and did repeat KG, sort of, only at home in stead of at school).  It lead me to homeschool him which I consider a benifit, but if that hadn't been an option, redshirting would have been so much better for him.

 

But (to the original poster), I actually appreciate your perspective.  Even if not everyone feels the same way, anecdotes can be helpful sometimes.

 

 

 

 

I was redshirted. The social impact you're complaining about did not apply to me. Not going to a bar for my 21st wasn't even on my horizon. LOL My biggest issue was I was always ahead academically and bored. out. of. my. gourd. Like take sporks to your eyes bored. They didn't get around to actually challenging me until I'd given up on school.

 

I will say be careful you're not projecting you onto your kid. There is no right answer for all people. My big boys have fall birthdays and started K just before they turned 5. One needed another year (or more..) to mature and we added a year later on. One has thrived. One girl who started "on time" with a summer birthday suddenly had her wings fiercely twitching to fly in her junior year and probably won't have an official senior year. Another late summer birthday grade skipped so she could feel more comfortable in her own skin. One blanket answer based on my experience would have only served one of these four kids who have been raised the same way.

 

[Guest]

It wasn't until I was a senior in high school that I realized my parents may have done me a disservice.

 

-

 

But it was my senior year of college when I truly realized that my parents had done me a disservice.

 

 

 

If you hadn't been redshirted, you would have realized this your junior year of high school, forgotten all about it, then realized again your junior year old college. Then you'd be way out ahead in the crediting your parents for your delightful worldview game.

 

Good thing, too, that no one ever voluntarily or by circumstance beyond adolescent reshirting takes five years to get through underrad and outinto the real world where they can rake in the big buckz.

 

Wait no, I've got that backward, havn't I? Freshman year of college, and one year into real life, respectively.

Edited May 10, 2017 by OKBud

[zejh]

I turned 21 fall of my junior year of college (wasn't redshirted, just had a September cut-off where I started school and a November birthday) and the party was on my dorm hall, with alcohol provided by a 19-year-old hallmate from Puerto Rico (drinking age of 19)... The town where we live now, some siblings with close birthdays are an extra year apart in school because they changed the cut-off from December to August a few years ago. I can certainly see when you're 5 and your 8-year-old sister got to start kindergarten at your age and you have to wait another year, that must be annoying. (I was annoyed that my parents with similar birthdays to mine got to start kindergarten at age 4, 30 years earlier. That said, I'm talking about something that annoyed me in elementary and middle school...)

 

More seriously, one reason I'm considering homeschooling my not-yet-5-dd is that she's not going to be ready for the district's full-day seatwork-heavy kindergarten, and I don't even think it would be good for her when she's almost 6, but​ I don't want her bored when she's 12. (That said, compromises might have to be made. Nothing is set at this point.)

[LMD]

dh and I graduated high school the same year, I was 17.5, he was 19.

I sort of ended up skipped due to interstate moves. He ended up doing year 12 over 2 years because he was also working 30 hours a week.

 

Neither of us are traumatised *rolls eyes* - if this is your biggest problem in life then you are remarkably blessed.

[happybeachbum]

ETA:   There's a TROLL in the dungeons!!!

 

Personal anecdotes do not make facts or statistics.  I hate clickbait titles like this, and yet, here I am.  

 

You have NO IDEA how your life would look had you not been redshirted.  Perhaps you were not actually ready for the next grade, as your teachers, who had probably met  hundreds of kids before, seemed to think.  Perhaps you would have failed one or multiple grades rather than simply starting later.  Perhaps your ability to drink with all your friends in college would have led to you dropping out of school.  Who the heck knows?  This post is absolutely absurd.  

 

If you don't want to redshirt your kid, then don't do it.  That's your right as a parent.  

 

And as Elsa says, "Let it go."

 

Thank you!  I know I wasn't emotionally ready for the second.  The changing teachers thing as well as things outside of school made 7 my worst year.  Having the sweetest nun as a first grade teacher and then a nun from hell for second was traumatizing.  She was just a mean woman that I really think shouldn't have been around kids period.   I didn't do any of my classwork just turned in blank sheets and would go and watch the first grade class wishing I was back there.  I didn't tell my mom what was going on.  I think staying in Kinder or even first grade for another year would have helped a bit.  Though I don't know because that never happened.  I could read but math at least formal math was harder for me.  My mom did make me repeat the second grade when I attended public school and though I was upset (the math finally clicked when I did a test in 3rd grade.  The few minutes I was there) I was able to catch up with my math.  Then I ended up in middle school and the way they taught math was that short cut stuff.  Which made me hate math for years.   May 7th grade history teacher turned me off of history, because of her attitude towards it.  Same with science.  Though the teacher was good she was meticulous.  I think she was out to make us transcribe the whole science textbook.  It wasn't until high school that I found my love for history again (well it did help that my teacher looked like Stephen Baldwin.  LOL)  Math no so much.  Science not until college.

 

This to show that we don't know what would have been.  We only know what is.  Things change.  Who would have thought I would like math again and want to learn it and possibly go further in study.  Who would have thought I would have found a love for history after my experience with the 7th grade teacher etc.

[ktgrok]

I'm still laughing at the idea that when you are in college everyone is exactly the same age as you!!! Too funny. Wonder if the OP knows that college doesn't really have "grades" you just go until you are done, and might have people in say, your literature class ages 17-77. Is he/she checking ID to verify age before making friends with someone? "Sorry, you are 3 months past the age cut off of people I befriend."Or just so antisocial they didn't make ANY new friends after high school?

Edited May 19, 2017 by ktgrok

[happybeachbum]

I'm still laughing at the idea that when you are in college everyone is exactly the same age as you!!! Too funny. Wonder if the OP knows that college doesn't really have "grades" you just go until you are done, and might have people in say, your literature class ages 17-77. Is he/she checking ID to verify age before making friends with someone? "Sorry, you are 3 months past the age cut off of people I befriend."Or just so antisocial they didn't make ANY new friends after high school?

  

And with CC it really will be hard to do that as you most definitely will encounter people of all ages.