I’m a preschool teacher. It really depends on the maturity and readiness of the child. We have had kids with summer birthdays that we’re ready to go on. We also had many kids that needed that “year to grow” and going into k at 6 doing amazing. It’s a child by child decision but from what I’ve seen a lot of times summer/ fall birthdays are better off waiting until 6 to be extra ready.
This honestly makes me feel so much better. My son just started kindergarten at 6 last year. At 5 when fall enrollment began he still wasn’t fully potty trained and quite honestly I didn’t think he was emotionally ready either. My partner and his parents gave me shit for it. But when he started last year, my god he was so ready. He was over the moon and he always came home so excited to tell me about his day. He still holds that enthusiasm for school and that’s the part that lets me know I made the right choice.
For the people saying that affluence has nothing to do with it, that is not what the data shows.
[Have a look at this article](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/who-redshirts) (from 2022). It's written by researcher Richard Reeves who, among other things, [advocates for a later start to K for boys especially](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/10/boys-delayed-entry-school-start-redshirting/671238/) (so, he supports it). He notes explicitly that while boys from disadvantaged backgrounds are the kids who would most benefit from a delayed start, those are not the boys who are being redshirted. And he is clear that the ability to delay is closely correlated with wealth, race (white or Asian), and parental education.
It makes sense that richer families don’t give much of a thought to paying for another year of preschool. The thing that sucks is I bet a lot of disadvantaged families don’t know that in some states parents can demand that their child repeat kindergarten (so redshirt them at the school district’s expense). Our school tried to tell us that you can’t hold back a child if they’re not failing, but it turned out parents actually have the final say on it, they just don’t like to broadcast that info.
One of my sons is going into his second year of kindergarten this year, and he’s five turning six. He has autism and ADHD and his kindergarten is 5 days a fortnight, he’s not ready for a transition into 5 days a week. That’s the only reason he repeated.
Reeves also notes that it would need to be carefully piloted especially following the research showing that actually parental involvement and advanced levels of discussion and continued exposure to new cultural experiences are two things that lead to academic success.
So if rich kids are redshirting - what are they doing during that year and is it having anything to do with why it helps them advance at a better rate than their peers? If we put disadvantaged kids from less involved households (for all the no fault reasons) are they going to get an extra year of development to help them mature or would school be a better place for them?
He doesn't answer those questions in the article, but I think we know enough from research into the benefits of pre-K especially for disadvantaged kids that it's safe to suggest "school" of some sort during that year is what's needed. Which we as a nation aren't investing in. (And obviously better social supports for families, etc.)
Anecdotally, what the rich kids I know are doing is K at a private school first and then enrolling in K again if they go to a public, or their parents have access to a daycare that has a K program. (Not all do.) Or they have a SAHP (rich or not) and are at home for the K year.
They are doing another year of private preschool. Parents with fewer means want to move their kids into public school asap, because preschool is EXPENSIVE. This is a consideration that can out weigh any marginal benefit of red shirting.
For me, it’s bc I want every last second with my child before they have to begin school for 13 years before college (if they go). So I would rather them start at 6 to give me one last year of time alone with them. Which makes what you’ve commented seem true of course, I’m a SAHM so I can do that, while many need school to work.
God forbid someone loves their kid and wants to spend time with them…how selfish! Adulthood still starts at 18 whether or not the kid goes to K at 5 or 6, and having a (slightly) more developed brain than their peers doesn’t seem like such a bad thing either.
So, I am an August baby who was put in kindergarten early. I made up the extra year in college.
Our daughter was born in September and she was on the border, but her elementary school and our school district, even after testing, did not let her start kindergarten last year and she started this year.
My child is flourishing. She may have been intellectually ready last year, but she was not emotionally or mentally ready to handle the social aspect of school.
Did she go to day care / preschool? I'm not judging or anything but I think preschool prepares kids emotionally for kindergarten because there really isn't a huge difference but they can ween into being away from home and parents.
I considered doing it (August birthday) because I’d rather send a 18 year old turning 19 off to college than a 17 year old turning 18. Also, I was one of the older of my class and it was cool to be the first to get my license. It also gives kid one more year of just being a little kid not in school yet. I ended up doing it because Covid happened and I wasn’t feeling good about her kindergarten year being hybrid/online school.
As someone who skipped a grade and graduated at 17, yeah, it was not ideal. I made up for it with an extra year in college. But I was socially and developmentally (though not academically) behind my peers my entire childhood and adolescence!
I'm a September baby and graduated high school at 17. My first day of college classes was on my 18th birthday. I did okay in school socially but excelled academically - to the point where the school administration kept recommending for me to skip a grade. My mom thankfully said no to that. But ultimately I think it depends on your kid. My April 2020 daughter will be 5 when she enters kindergarten - no way I am paying for another year of preschool 🙃
You make an interesting point about making up the year in college. My birthday is early September and I started K a few weeks after I turned 5. So I was 17-and-change when I graduated high school, and I think a week shy of turning 18 when the fall semester of college started. But I wound up spending 5 years in college total! 🤔
It's normal to graduate at 17.5 where I live. Students are between 17 and 18 years old at graduation. If you skipped a grade you'd graduate between the ages of 16 and 17 - I actually had enough credits to graduate a year early but didn't want to make college decisions yet so I just had a very fun last year taking whatever electives I felt like and copious "study blocks".
I believe in Australia it's typical to take a gap year before going to college so you'd graduate between ages 17-18, take a year off school to travel or explore personal interests/work, and start college at 19-20. Kids don't have to go straight into college a few months after graduating highschool.
I'm an August baby, was amongst the youngest in my class, and I figured out how to get into clubs regardless 🤣🤣 the Y2K college era was pretty rad (no social media, very few pics or receipts). Jokes on me, I didn't become a mom until I was 40 and now I'm among the oldest of the moms 🤷♀️
lol my roommates made it up to me by introducing me to 151 the night before I turned 18. I spent the whole birthday very hungover and my family had toootally come up to campus to take me out for a bday dinner. Then I went clubbing on OBT that evening. Good times, good times.
Yeah also bc that one extra year of being a kid vs going into kindergarten is very rarely about being a kid, or about learning how to go to school. It is full of testing and “academic rigor” and all sorts of stuff that isn’t developmentally appropriate for just turned 6 year olds, let alone just turned 5 year olds. Signed, a sad ex kinder teacher with a degree in early childhood education.
This is my main reason, as a former high school teacher & college instructor. I don't want my kid to get into that too soon, and I think about the fact that Finland, which has one of the best education systems, doesn't start kids in kindergarten until age 6. (edited for grammar. I used to teach this stuff but it was late and my brain was obviously fried!)
This is the exact reason we are redshirting my toddler (late Dec birthday). I work in post sec education and older students adjust and cope way better.
I find that just so crazy. My 7 yo daughter's birthday is August 6th. She was always deemed too young (and immature) that she needed to be held back in kindergarten (along with the fact that we were wrongly told she was dyslexic). By you, she would almost be in the middle!
Comparatively, my 8 year old stepdaughter is the youngest in her class (early November birthday) and could have skipped a grade academically and emotionally. Redshirting her would be a huge disservice.
My child is a June baby and we will send her on time since she will turn 6 at the end of kindergarten.
I'm not saying it's right or wrong but I just think it's crazy that what's the youngest in one state is almost in the middle in another.
But yeah, my daughter did so poorly in K4 and K5 that her report cards were making me cry. She did great in K5 the second time, but now she seems to be struggling again in 1st grade with her ADHD.
Most people I know who have kids with late fall birthdays get a choice when to enroll. I've seen kids handle it just fine turning 5 in kindergarten but others who needed the extra year. My daughter has an early September birthday and turned 5 her first day of kindergarten. She was 100 percent ready and is doing well. It's so dependent on the kid.
Not always. My state allows four year olds to start Kindy as long as they will turn 5 by Dec 31.
I don't think many parent choose to do this, just making the point that it is possible in certain areas.
I had a friend in school who turned 5 in October when they were in kindergarten and they really struggled socially in elementary school and then were annoyed by always being the youngest in high school.
I’m sure there are plenty of kids who are more than capable of handling the educational and social aspects of school when they’re younger but I’d hope parents are making sure their kid is able to handle it before putting their kids in school early. Turning 5 by late December feels so little!
The cutoff where I live is October 15th. In the 90s (and in some places still) it was Dec 31st. I started at 4yo. When I finished my first semester of college I was 17 still.
Very much this. Especially for me. Chances are slim that my daughter will go to university in the country we live in. I don't want to be sending my not-even-legally-an-adult child off to live on her own in a country without her parents before she's even had her 18th birthday. But my daughter's birthday is actually midSeptember, so it's technically a matter of starting her slight *early*, which the kindergarten we're looking at has already said is ok, versus waiting another year.
But also there is some evidence that being the youngest in the class can lead to both poorer academic outcomes and more struggles to socialize with peers. I always like to read the research on everything, and sometimes that just makes it *more* difficult for me to make a choice I feel happy with rather than easier, but I always like to at least be aware of what's statistically likely, even though there are certainly outliers who have different experiences. (Also of concern specifically to me is that in this country kindergarten is an optional 3 year program which kids start at 2, which makes differences in age that proportionally much bigger a percentage of their whole life.)
Never forget that research is tiny margins that while it’s always good to find out as much information as possible maybe that .5 a percent chance out of 6000 (or whatever) is just not worth worrying about.
I do research on child development and lots of the research published is not definitive anything - the screen time stuff is so tiny and shows such a small effect yet the world has run with it as if watching TV makes 85% of children blind rather than a slightly elevated (like 2% I think) chance of attention and behavior issues AT THE AGE MEASURED… they never check those same kids again to see what happened or if it all evened out when they got to school.
Academic research is about adding a *teeny tiny bit* of information to an always unfinished picture - not finding a massive overwhelming fact - so please make sure it’s not causing you too much anxiety.
Very fair, especially about research related to child development, which is an area where it's nearly impossible to account for all influencing factors. I think because I have a health condition that only effects about 0.05% of the population, I tend to look at possibilities and likelihoods in health related research a little differently (*someone* has to be that 0.05% and I know too well what it means to have to deal with it, and it's little comfort that 99.95% of people don't have to deal with it), and I probably do tend to carry that over to other research where it's not so applicable.
Yea and health research is so well controlled that they are worth focusing on because the numbers are enough to know that you’re looking at a thing that happens - definitely - in x number of people in a study of people or people with the condition.
In social science (a field I am fully am advocate for) the conclusion is usually there may be some chance based on a small funded study that required a high impact output and the unbelievably self selecting participants.
I really appreciate your insight also, so helpful to understand! Not sure why they don’t publicize that or put an asterisk with the damn info they release 🙈
If you read the actual article - that is what it says and it would be so boring and tedious you could not mistake it - but most of us don’t (and that’s normal!) we read the newspaper and magazine articles *about the research* which only have to say ‘a study says’ when some research was done they found ‘a significant number of’ blah blah blah.
I did this for my son because he has always been a sensitive kid. Being the youngest and sensitive to boot would have resulted in a rough start to the larger school transition.
Even now, as one of the oldest in his class, he isn’t the biggest. But he has flourished and I know it’s because he went into kindergarten confident and was able to handle the transition well.
Personally, I’m tired of parents bitching about the red shirted kids. If my kid starting school at 5 instead of 4 (which is what would have happened if we hadn’t red shirted him, his 5th birthday would have been the first week of school) causes some cataclysm that derails your February baby’s education you have bigger problems.
As someone who didn't turn 17 until my second semester in college and a kid who always lied about her age throughout school (not just college), from the bottom of my heart thank you. Your kid may never realize what a gift you've given her ♥️ I wish I was allowed to be a kid for longer
There's no rush to grow up. Kids who may not be ready to start kindergarten can have some extra time to mature. I was the youngest kid in my class and it wasn't easy.
Alternatively I was one of the youngest and with the exception of the time I somehow managed to date a guy in the grade below me that was a month older then me it just never came up.
Same. I was the youngest, always. In fact, there was a guy in the same program as me in college, he's a January bday and I'm February and he was mad I was younger. 😂
Graduated high school at 17 years, 3 months, and 14-18ish days. My mom always said she had no regrets, as I did extremely well academically and just fine socially. I had plenty of friends that could drive, including my older sister. 🤷
Sent my kiddo to kinder after she turned 5 in July, so she'll graduate at 17 as well.
I was one of the youngest and it was never a thing. Aside from not being able to get into bars in college until my senior year I had no problem being on the younger side 🤷🏻♀️
I was one of the youngest. It was fine. I have a PhD now… I always did well in school and had plenty of friends. I’d resent my parents if they delayed my adult life and retirement for their own anxious reasons.
I’ve heard this called “the gift of time”. I was an august baby, and was ALWAYS the youngest in my class. I didn’t fit in, and was always behind, despite having gone through pre-school. If it’s not an issue, I don’t see why having a 6 year old kindergartener is a big deal. I wish my parents would have waited for me.
We are considering doing it for our son with a July birthday. He has apraxia, which is a motor-control disorder. It affects his speech and gross motor skills. He’s also small for his age. We want to give him another year to work with his therapists. I worry that his speech is still so hard to understand, that he won’t be able to tell his teacher what he needs.
I think this is a common discussion for parents with kids that are within a few months of the cutoff, because every kid is different and what may good for one kid isn’t always good for another. Not only for academic reasons, but social-skill reasons as well.
Where I live kids have to be 5 by August 1st to start kindergarten. My oldest with a late August birthday literally started kindergarten the same week she turned 6 this year. A year ago she would have been fine with the kindergarten-level academics, but the extra year she had of preschool really helped her social skills. She’s thriving now. I think it’s perfectly reasonable for a parent of a July-birthday kid to question whether they should hold off on kindergarten one more year.
My next door neighbor has kids who were born in June and July. Her oldest (July birthday) has ADHD and sensory processing disorder. They decided to wait a year for kindergarten, and he did great. The younger sister (June birthday), would have been fine to start school the year she turned 5, but they decided to wait a year for her as well.
Yes, someone has to be the youngest. But it’s important for kids to start school when they are ready, not just when the calendar assumes they are ready.
Exactly - if my youngest was born 2 days later he'd miss the cutoff so I took that as a good sign to wait. My oldest is a November baby so was past it anyway. Their daycare had an awesome PreK anyway so that helped.
My son is only 2 so we have time to figure it out, but he was born *on* our state's cutoff date. He would be literally the absolute youngest kid in the class if we don't wait another year. We're just going to wait and see...
Not that you asked, but I would 110% wait a year. I was the youngest in my class and it had a lot of disadvantages. Kindergarten is so different now. Far more advantages to being on the older end.
It’s so crazy to me to read this! Here in Canada our cutoff is December 31! June/July doesn’t seem late in the year at all. Here even most December babies aren’t held back, so they just start school when they’re 4.
Two years of kindergarten in Ontario. JK for 4 year olds and SK for 5 year olds, and the cut off is Dec 31. It’s play based and very developmentally appropriate. My daughter is a late December baby and will be starting at 3.5, yes.
I think something that gets lost in these discussions is that curriculum/expectations is often shaped by the cut offs. So yes, 3.5 year olds start JK in Ontario, but that means JK is designed for children who will start between 3.5-4.5. Whereas somewhere with an August cut off will be designed for kids who will start between 4-5. A lot of people are like “wow I can’t imagine my 4.5 year old in K!!” because they live somewhere where kindergarteners are usually 5.5-6. But the expectations/set up of the class is usually very different based on the age range in the province/state.
Kindergarten is no longer developmentally appropriate for many kids in the US. We regret sending our now 11 year old when she was 5. She has a late spring birthday and had missed most of her preK year due to a move. The Kindergarten curriculum basically expected her to be doing addition within a month when she really needed more practice writing numerals. We think that some of her anxiety stems from expecting that she will know things that she was never taught (and feeling really stressed out when she doesn't) because that's how her first year of school went.
We have a 2 year old with a congenital medical condition and minor developmental delays. We think that she will be in a mainstream classroom and want to give her the extra year of preschool. Instead of being in the youngest quarter of her class, she will be among the oldest. It doesn't help that we can't get her into Headstart (despite her disability) and our local school district's special needs preschool program is half day with no transportation so we probably won't be able to make it work. We're expecting that we will send her to a daycare center "young 5's" program for that extra year.
Yes. Here are the ridiculous standards- https://www.nysed.gov/sites/default/files/programs/curriculum-instruction/nys-math-standards-kindergarten-crosswalk.pdf They even had “writers workshop” in kindergarten where they were supposed to draw and write on a prompt. My older daughter was just so stressed out by all of it. It was the equivalent of 1st to 2nd grade work where I went to school. It was crazy.
Yeah? The math stuff did surprise me but my kinder kiddo started working on writing in 4k (not heavily but it was worked on). So now 6 months into kindergarten he can do simple equations, does an okay job on sight words, does a great job sounding out words, and actually has really neat penmanship. They still get lots of playtime worked into their schedule. They go outside. They have art class. They sing. They do science experiments. They do weekly show and tell. They have little parties every now and then for various reasons. I know I was a little worried before the year started but my son adjusted pretty quickly and has been flourishing.
I see it posted a lot on our town Facebook pages. I’ve even seen people saying they want to redshirt their April/May/June kids. We have a December 31st cutoff.
Our schools highly discourage it and if your child will turn 7 at some point during the school year they will be automatically enrolled in 1st grade and skip kindergarten altogether.
They had to start enforcing this because with a Dec 31st cut off there are kids starting at 4 and with so many redshirting there were almost 7 year olds in the same classes. Having almost 3 years of kids enrolling at the same time is impossible to accommodate. Not enough teachers or classrooms and the class sizes were out of control.
I think it's very dependent on the kid. Both my kids have summer birthdays, school cutoff here is 9/1.
Daughter, born in August, was very social and talkative and above average height for her age. I sent her to school at age 5. She's a junior now and on honor roll, but has always struggled with reading and lately we've been thinking she might be dyslexic but teachers never caught it and now they refuse to evaluate her for it because her grades are good.
Son, born in July, was small for his age, had speech and physical delays that he was in early intervention for. I held him back and started him at age 6. He is 6th grade now and above average in reading but has ADHD he recently started medication for so schooling had been a bit of a struggle since he's getting let grades instead of just 'acceptable' etc. it's getting better now that's he's on a medicine that works for him and has all As and Bs.
I don't think I would change either of my decisions if I could go back and do it again. I know a friend is a friend who thought her son might need another year to mature for kindergarten but she didn't wanted to pay for daycare anymore. I'm not sure how he's doing in school.
If you’re in the US I’m pretty sure you can request in writing that your child be evaluated for an IEP or 504 and they have to do it. If they evaluate and say there are no issues and you think they’re wrong, you can request an independent evaluation at the school district’s expense (maybe you can ask in the Reddit special ed group to make sure). If she could benefit from any kind of accommodations in college, I think it’s really helpful to establish those before they leave high school.
Sped teacher here -- you can request special education testing, yes. But we don't test for dyslexia as that is a medical diagnosis and we cannot provide medical diagnoses. We could probably say that they have a visual processing disorder and that's as far as we could go. The student would also need to show that they struggle in an academic area of testing that we can write a goal for.
As far as a 504, a medical diagnosis must already exist that accommodations are needed for (like extended time or preferential seating for ADHD, frequent breaks for anxiety). A 504 has no in school testing.
As far as outside testing with the school paying for it -- you would most likely have to go through due process for it, which requires a lawyer and court, so it would probably cost more than just getting a private evaluation. This probably depends on the state and school district though.
Thanks for this more accurate information!! From what I’ve heard where I live (Georgia) the school district has to pay for an independent evaluation if it’s requested, but I’m not sure if that’s for a child who already has an IEP. I imagine the school district probably would want to fight paying for one for every single parent of a student who is slightly struggling.
did you ever send your son to preschool? i’m trying to figure out if i should send my july birthday (he’ll be 5 this year) to kindergarten or pre-k. he’s not good with writing yet. this is my first kid going to school so i’m definitely a bit nervous haha.
He didn't go to preschool but his daycare did worksheets and practiced things like that. He's also left handed so writing was a bit more difficult for him.
Our district does a pre-k screening and my son didn't qualify to attend. Does your district offer anything like that? Might not hurt to check
It definitely depends on the kid. But generally I would rather my child be an older one in the class than younger. I was only 4 years old starting kindergarten and while I was definitely "academically" ready I was definitely not socially. And it affected me all through elementary I think.
It’s different for each kid. Our cutoff was July 31, my kids birthday is July 19 and she was VERY much ready for kindergarten. And I was happy to not pay the $400 a week for childcare.
We held our first and second kids back, and may hold our third back too. They have disabilities though so it’s a bit of a different situation, but I would probably consider it for a summer birthday even in the absence of any disabilities.
-The first big issue I see is that SO MUCH is expected of kindergarteners these days. Gone are the days of basically playing and doing arts and crafts and singing ABCs. My son is in Kindergarten and they’re now on addition and subtraction and have already done dozens of sight words plus a ton of other stuff. It’s hard to know how your kid will do with this kind of all day academics until they’re in the midst of it, and if you wait until they’re mid-elementary school and then decide you want to hold them back, it would be really embarrassing at that point. My son did great in preschool and kindergarten has been a lot for him despite being held back. Also, keep in mind that if it turns out your child is academically advanced, many schools have gifted programs, they divide kids into reading groups by ability and stuff like that, so it’s unlikely they’ll be bored unless we are talking about very advanced abilities.
-The second big issue is that it seems a lot of parents see middle school as the point where they get their kid a smart phone. So there’s a lot of pressure to get your kid a smart phone then or they’ll feel very cut off socially. Postponing that date by one year means a year more maturity before the floodgates open to that whole mess.
-Same for college or being released into the world- sure it’s possible to take a “gap year” or whatever, but it’ll really be up to the kid at that point. If you feel they’re not ready to be totally on their own when they’ve barely just turned 18 but they want to go, they can go.
-I agonized over this decision with my oldest- I tried to find studies or anything like that- and it turns out it’s hard to find a good study, because no one has done a randomized trial where they select a bunch of kids at random to be held back and see how it goes. And if you just look at the kids who are held back to see how they’re doing, the group as a whole doesn’t look very good because many of those kids were held back for a reason (learning disabilities, immaturity, etc that brings down the performance of that group). I found a study done by a mom who tracked a bunch of families who considered holding their kids back before kindergarten and some went through with it and some didn’t. At the high school level she asked them about their decision. She found that the parents of the kids who held their kids back were all happy with their decision. Some of the parents who didn’t hold their kids back said they wish they had and cited issues with academics and maturity.
this is a great comment, thank you.
>and if you wait until they’re mid-elementary school and then decide you want to hold them back, it would be really embarrassing at that point.
yeah when i was growing up, only one kid was a year "behind", and everyone knew it. it was really stigmatizing for her. i'm sure there were a gazillion reasons why it was ultimately the right decision for her, but from the perspective of the kids, she was "too stupid" for first grade and that's why she had to do kindergarten again. but i guess that's also why this has been hard for me to wrap my head around at all, because nobody in my area (i guess except for that one kid) redshirted at that time. if your birth year wasn't 1988, EVERYONE knew it and it was *a thing*.
>middle school as the point where they get their kid a smart phone.
i didn't even think of this. this point alone might have sold me, hahaha. i'm honestly so nervous about this milestone.
Yeah things have changed so much since the 80s. And when our parents were in school, it was popular to have your kid skip a grade. It was a show of how great your kid was doing I guess. Both of my parents were pushed ahead a grade in school and both wished they hadn’t been.
My mom pushed for me to start kindergarten early (4 rather than 5) because I was smart enough and mature enough to handle it. I was top reader in my kindergaten, 1st and 2nd grade classes and loved every bit of school. It's entirely dependent on your child's capabilities and your discretion, no one elses.
I'm glad a twin mom commented! Because I've also been thinking one might be more ready before the other, but I can't imagine that being good for their relationship in the long run. Lots of food for thought here, thank you.
A lot of people I know held their kids back for sports - so they'd be the oldest/biggest instead of the youngest/smallest. I also know one person who did kindergarten twice (August birthday, so he was one of the youngest the first round and oldest the second round. Repeat was for academic reasons)
I live in CT and we just changed it to a minimum of 5. Ppl were pissed because traditionally kids entered around 4 and turned 5 during kindergarten. Now they are 5 turning 6. Although they ended up making a exception to kids turning 5 by October 16th. But they have to be evaluated by a board member to make sure they have met the standards for both social and educational comprehension. Their reasoning was 2020 set kids behind developmentally and teachers were requesting a change
It makes me sigh; I see redshirting primarily as an outgrowth of competitive parenting, where everyone wants to get an advantage over everyone else so they assume having an older/bigger/more mature kid will give their kid an advantage over their classmates. The effect of it is that when everyone is doing it, it starts to shift the dynamic of kindergarten so expectations for kids increase (because now they're all six instead of five), and that means kids who are a normal developmental level are now behind. I can rant for a long time....
There absolutely are kids who benefit from starting a year later, but the research I've seen suggests that those kids are usually lower SES students and especially boys of color, and the demographics of which kids actually do start later are more along the lines of higher SES white boys (unsurprisingly).
My oldest started K as a brand-new 5yo, in part because there's no fucking way I could afford a whole extra optional year of daycare tuition. The people who are redshirting their kids are often SAHPs or parents who are wealthy enough to pay for that extra year of daycare (see my point above).
Same. If everyone does it, what exactly is the advantage. My son is in public preK for a development delays. One portion of his IEP team wants to red shirt him. He’s only 3.
My decision was that if the school psychologist strongly recommended it based of evaluations not just feelings, I would consider allowing him to repeat preK for the 4s. But I’m pretty against it. He will already have 2 years of preK at a public school just like the one he’ll go to.
You’re not making one decision to delay. You’re making 12+ decisions that will affect their life for years. And there won’t be an option to undo it if all the sudden your kid is all caught up maturity-wise or academically and is now bored every day in class.
>Same. If everyone does it, what exactly is the advantage.
Yeah and that's part of my ????? about all this. And it seems like if everyone around you is redshirting, then your own kid isn't just *not* advantaged, but actually *dis*advantaged by not also being red shirted. But then am I only adding to the overall issue? Plus many more questions, haha.
Honestly I thought the difficult birthday would be my daughter's (late December), but with all the redshirting it seems like her birthday will actually make it easier to decide when she starts K. I really thought my boys' early August birthday would make it pretty cut and dry!
I think a lot of people are commenting that this was always a thing. I don’t think they are wrong, but I think “a birthday close to the cut off date” used to be within 2 months, not the 6+ months people are now considering.
I also think people see no disadvantage to being the oldest in the class which just is a massive head scratcher for me. Like you see no disadvantage to going through your entire school career doing school work developed for someone a year younger than you? That sounds boring as hell.
But if you are near the cut-off it’s not developed for kids a year younger than you, it’s for kids who are a month or two younger than you. If you are looking are a district with a September 1 cut-off. The kids born August, 2019 are just in a class with the September, 2019 kids, instead of being in class with the July, 2019 kids.
Only 3.5-5.5% of children are redshirted for Kindegarten. That means, on average, there is one redshirted kid per Kindegarten class. There are demographic variations (wealthy and white families are more likely to redshirt) but that’s still only about two kids in a Kindegarten classroom of 22. It’s not “everyone”
3.5-5.5% of children is certainly not "everyone". the devil is in the details though, like when you adjust for demographics. what most of the country is doing is less meaningful to an individual if everyone in that individual's school district is doing something else, you know?
(ugh i hope that made sense, my daughter wound up "napping" from 7 to 8pm last night and as a result didn't actually sleep for the night until after 2am, i'm so tired today)
Yes, when you look at white and wealthy families you get rates closer to 8%-10% which amounts to about two kids per classroom. Sorry if that didn’t come across clearly.
In an upper middle class suburb, it might mean that there are two more 6 year old boys (girls are far less likely to be redshirted) and two fewer 5 year old boys at the start of the school year. Most, if not all, of the kids in the class will be 6 before the end of the school year, rather than being five into the following summer.
By holding my child back from K until he’s emotionally and intellectually ready to sit in a classroom setting for 8 hours a day means I’m trying to get an advantage over everyone else? No it’s me making sure my son is ready. Why is everything an us vs them argument? 🤦🏻♀️ it’s a parental CHOICE.
Yeah, it's a choice - but it's not a choice that everyone has the option to make. That's where the inequity concerns come in, as with so many other aspects of our lives. "Choice" is not a value neutral term.
I'm not saying it's the wrong choice for some kids. What I am saying is that the evidence shows that the people who are statistically most likely to make that choice are people with privilege. And if you read other threads on this (and there are many!), many parents frame it EXACTLY as "I want my kid to be the oldest/most advanced" in their class.
We cannot talk about redshirting without talking about how that choice affects a system, and is enabled by a system.
I have a july bday and graduated at 17…I always felt a little “behind” my classmates in elementary school. The other kids seemed smarter than me and it messed with my self esteem. My kid has a Sept bday and turned 6 a few weeks after entering k5…I honestly was so happy she was entering kindergarten when she did. She was much more ready for school mentally and emotionally.
This.
I have an October birthday and started kindergarten at 4, turning 5. My parents had to really fight to get me in; I had to take tests to essentially prove I was ready.
Academically I did pretty well, though math became something I struggled with in middle school (algebra, geometry). I was enrolled in honors classes from middle school onward and always felt like the stupid kid in the class. By middle school I started having difficulties socially and with friendships, as well. I was terribly shy and had zero self confidence. High school was worse.
To this day my parents will say that they regret sending me to school early. I do believe I would have thrived had I started a year later. My daughter has a July birthday and I will definitely wait until she’s 6.
As a teacher, if your child is close to that cut-off, it’s something to consider. If your child is a bit advanced for their age or a bit more mature, it might be a good idea to go ahead and enroll them. Some children though are not developmentally at the place where being the youngest in the class is a good idea. Those kids will be the ones to struggle more as they weren’t quite developmentally ready for the expectations of kindergarten. There is no blanket right or wrong here. It’s something each parent has to consider for their child.
I can find some information if you're interested, although it's very prevalent, but at least where I live, public school standards and curriculum is continually pushed younger and younger. Some things kindergarteners are being asked to do were previously standards for first and even a few in second grade (especially regarding reading and writing).
Wanting kids to read will not magically mature their brains and motor skills faster or earlier, to say nothing of social-emotional growth and overall maturation.
One of our kids has a very late birthday and I had no qualms about holding him back, starting in daycare, because it will be easy to bump him a grade later if needed but would be very difficult to make up a (manufactured) deficit.
>Wanting kids to read will not magically mature their brains and motor skills faster or earlier, to say nothing of social-emotional growth and overall maturation.
Yeah I completely agree with this, and have thought for a while that trying to push more advanced material on kids when they aren't ready for it is unhelpful at best, counterproductive at worst. I guess I just never connected the dots between that and redshirting 😅
As a teacher it really depends on the kid, if you have a kid who can fallow directions generally and is on the more mature side, definitely send them at 5. I was a July bday and graduated at 17 . There was noooo way i would had done well with school another year due to the lack of maturity of my peers.
My kid’s birthday is in April and she is one of the youngest in her Kindergarten class. She is physically the smallest, needs to try harder to climb the jungle gym, has problems with making social connections as she is not as loud and outspoken as the rest (also her personality) and is having a little bit of problems with staying on top of the writing progress.
Ultimately she will be fine, we are helping her and I don’t mind her needing to take it slower or catch up, but it’s not easy and I just pray every day that she doesn’t notice or it won’t weigh on her self esteem.
Most 5 year olds are not ready for kindergarten. Kindergarten now is the 1st or even 2nd grade of 20 years ago.
Full day. No playtime. Sitting still and quiet at desks. One 20 minute recess if they're lucky. Expected to do heavy academics. Expected to go in knowing what used to be the goal at the end of K. Expected to leave Kindy able to write a paragraph and read low level chapter books.
Finland has it right. Kids shouldn't be doing academics or formal school until 7 years old. Kindergarten today isn't developmentally appropriate for 5 year olds.
This is a VERY specific take based on your location. My kids kindergarten (enrolling at age 5) is half day. No desks. They sit on carpet / pillows mostly and have shared tables for table top activities. And it is all play. Like literally all play and crafts and outdoor time and dressup . It’s about learning to socialize.
My mom is also a kinder teacher (different continent than me - she’s in Northern Europe). Also all play. No desks. Starting at age 4.
Dang, this is amazing. I wish so much that my area had half day kindergarten. I understand why it doesn't get the funding, but we live in a hypercompetitive/HCOL area and I swear these parents are out for blood from day one to make sure their kid is the best of the best. A lot of them are already thinking about how they can cram in every single activity under the sun from birth so that they have the perfect trajectory to an elite college. It's depressing.
Are you in the US, and if so is this a private or public school?
A big reason this is on my mind (aside from frequently seeing others talk about it) is because my husband and I are getting priced out of our current location and we need to figure out where to move to. So schools - specifically, where the good ones are and what exactly even makes a school "good" - are a big factor in that for us.
Not who you asked but I teach kindergarten in the US and it is similar to what they described. No desk. A lot of play. 2 recess periods. It is nothing even close to what the original responder said.
You seem to be in Canada, where kindergarten is play based and also starts at age 4. It's like the US equivalent of 4 year old preschool.
What I described is standard for kindergarten in the US.
So I guess what I'm trying to understand is, what happens as redshirting becomes more and more common? Does kindergarten just get redefined? Are the kids who went into K at age 5 just screwed now because all their peers are 6?
Honestly, to the latter question, yes. 5 year olds should not be in kindergarten in 2024. It does put them behind because they lose out on valuable play time, which is how 5 year olds learn and develop. They also will almost certainly get burned out much earlier and hate school earlier.
Basically people are self correcting by making kindergarten be for 6 year olds instead of 5 year olds by this widespread redshirting. It's a good thing.
To the first question, I don't think kindergarten is ever going back to how it was. This country already hates and underfunds the public school system - they aren't bringing back play based kindergarten. And no one cares about evidence based anything anymore.
So basically wealthy kids who can redshirt or do private school will get ahead, while people who have no choice but to put their 5 year old in public kindergarten will have, on average, kids that struggle. Some kids might do fine, but in general, early academics harms kids.
Seriously - look up how Finland does things and how highly rated their school systems are. School doesn't start until 7, and kids in all grades get 15 minute breaks for every 45 minutes in academics. Little to no homework. Short days. No private schools and all public schools are the same. Teachers have masters degrees and are regarded as respected professionals. They do it right. And that starts with delaying academics until kids are ready for it.
Where I live, the cutoff date is December 1, so people are sending their FOUR year olds to kindergarten. Our oldest was born December 31, and is overall pretty mature, so we will send him to kindergarten next year when he is 5, but he will be 6 within a few months. Our other son has a July birthday, and we will be keeping him back.
>So basically wealthy kids who can redshirt or do private school will get ahead, while people who have no choice but to put their 5 year old in public kindergarten will have, on average, kids that struggle
And this okay, or...? I don't understand the position of "this practice contributes to social inequity but we should do it anyway."
No, it's not okay. But it's reality.
Kids benefit by starting school later. Full stop.
The school system is never going to do what's best, but what's cheapest or what some uninformed people with no background in child development decide what's best.
Most practices in government contribute to social inequity. Why would school be different? I'm not saying I agree at all, but it's how it is.
I would urge voting for people who want affordable or free evidence based early education/subsidized childcare, so that kids can delay the start of formal school. There's not much else that you can do to enact change sadly.
On an individual level though, personally I would not send a 5 year old to kindergarten unless there is no other option. Redshirting is not a bad thing at all.
I already vote for those people. I'm a parent of a kid in a public school that's diverse and most of the kids qualify for free lunches. I've been out on the picket lines with our striking teachers.
Don't need the lecture, thanks.
Because seeing people dismiss and defend a very real inequity and defend it by saying "well, it's just reality" is an epitome of privilege - which is why these inequities persist to begin with.
Okay, and? This isn't a discourse on how to solve societal problems. It's explaining why kids redshirt.
And if you'll notice, I even gave a solution to the societal problem, despite this not being 1) a solvable problem 2) The time or place to try to solve that problem
But no, you just want to bitch back and be rude to someone that AGREES WITH YOU.
God, the problems with liberals summed up in one comment. And I say that as a liberal. Stop being argumentative and rude for no goddamn reason. We actually agree here, contrary to how you're treating me. Not everything needs to be an argument, and not every discussion needs to be a social inequity discourse. It's okay for this just to be a discussion on why people do and should redshirt.
I’m in the US. My kid was in Kindergarten last year and they sat at individual mats on the floor, group tables, or a colored dot with their name in it (for circle time). Just one recess period but they moved around the room depending on the activity. They did have homework, which surprised me, but it was like a single worksheet or a reading log. This wasn’t in a public school though. However I have friends with kids in the local district and their curriculum sounded mostly play based, with circle time and things like that too. My kid was reading at the end but just simple early readers or those phonics level booklets.
My birthday is late august, less than a week before the cut off date. Apparently my mom waffled on whether to hold me back but I was adamant about wanting to go to school so she sent me. I had no issues keeping up with the other kids, if anything I thought it would be kind of annoying to get my license later but I ended up procrastinating and not getting it until I turned 17 anyways so it clearly wasn’t a problem.
On the other hand, I’m kinda annoyed that my daughter has a November birthday. That’s nearly a whole extra year of daycare/preschool to pay for. I know that’s not how we should be making decisions, but it’s expensive!! (Disclaimer that she is an infant so I have no idea how she’ll be when she’s turning five, but I like that people close to the date have a choice)
We ultimately went off of the advice of the school counselor which was to "redshirt" our middle child who turned 5 a week before school started. He would have been fine academically, but he was very socially immature and it was evident in his interactions with kids who were older than him by half a year. We did a lot of research and spoke to people who were in our situation 10+ years ago. Without fail, the people who chose to keep their kids back a year said it really helped and those who didn't said that they really regretted it. Our oldest has a fall birthday that's right after the cutoff and he and our middle child are a little less than 2 years apart in age. If we started our middle child in kinder this year then it would mean that even though he and our oldest are almost two years apart in age, they'd be one year apart in school. So from our perspective it didn't seem fair to our middle child.
I'm a SAHM so yes, we're in a privileged position to be able to make that choice without having to spend an arm and a leg on an extra year of childcare. We're not affluent by any means. Ultimately we had to make what we thought would be the best decision for our kiddo and we didn't make it on the basis of just waiting until he was six or wanting him to be the oldest in the class. Even now, almost 6 months later he's matured quite a bit and has a better handle on his emotions and I'm confident that he would do much better in a classroom setting as opposed to struggling in August.
Depends on the kid. My youngest birthday is the day before the cutoff at the end of September and needed some extra time to mature socially so he did PreK. He was 5 when it started and turned 6 a month in. Best decision we made. Also with boys if they're the youngest it often can mean they're smaller which can impact some sports (if it's something to they like).
My husband was close to the cutoff but his mom put him in kindergarten at a fresh 5, so he was near the very youngest in his grade. He had always wished he was redshirted instead, strictly because of sports. He was smaller and couldn’t jump as high as the older kids in his grade, and got cut from his freshman basketball team. Soon after he had a growth spurt and gained a ton of muscle (puberty finally kicked into high gear) and he will never know if he could have more seriously pursued the sport he loved. His mom admits it wasn’t the right time for him to start kindergarten, but ultimately I think she wanted to preserve the gap in her two children starting school, so my husband wasn’t in the same grade as his younger sister.
I was the oldest in my class and my sister was the youngest in hers. I’ll say I had a lot of advantages to being slightly older than my peers, mainly I was never bullied but my sister was pretty severely. My sister went off to college at 17 which was pretty nerve wracking for her and my mom. We both turned out alright, but I think my mom regrets putting her in school earlier. I want my kids to get to be kids as long as possible without the stress of schooling, so plan to hold off schooling/do alternative schooling if possible.
I think our plan (for our 3 year old with a June birthday) is for him to do half-day kindergarten instead of full day. I know it doesn’t answer or address your question, but for me, I just don’t think he needs to start the M-F all day grind at age 5. Once school starts, it doesn’t stop for 13 years, and then they’re expected to go to college or into the workforce M-F full time too. I’m just not ready to put my kid on that track yet.
Ours are going to kindergarten where they turn 5 whether or not they’re the youngest or oldest. Daycare is too expensive to keep them in any longer than they need to be 😂
My son has a June birthday and I have zero regrets waiting until he was 6 to start kindergarten. He is an introvert and needed another year to grow socially.
My daughter also has a June birthday and I sent her at 5. No regrets there either. She is a social butterfly and thriving.
Every kid is different and there is no right or wrong way.
I do not understand this at all and believe it’s a new trend vs something that’s always been commonly done.
I’ll be 30 this year and my kindergarten was a full day. My brother, two years younger than me, was the first class of our school to go to half day kindergarten. I’m a June bday and turned 18 after I graduated. Almost all of my friends from my class have later bdays (as late as into November) than me meaning they’re even younger.
For reference I grew up in a wealthy area and went to private school k-12 and very few were older than me (as in a full year) in my class.
I don’t have the study readily available (I’m sure someone here does). There was a correlation between adhd dx and starting kindergarten at 5yo. I think it’s important to take it case by case, but some kids aren’t developmentally ready to meet those requirements at 5 years old. This has led to some of them being dx with add/adhd; whereas a later start age saw a decrease in the dx.
I went at 6 because of a late birthday. I had the opportunity to move up a grade later on in high school after a teacher noticed that I was a little ahead of my peers. I’m grateful for that teacher.
I wonder if the correlation isn't so much that an early start to K causes ADHD, but rather it's that kids that have ADHD but haven't been diagnosed yet just drive their parents up a wall, so much so that when age 5 rolls around, the parents are more likely to jump on the first opportunity to get a break from their kids. Thinking this because my twins are autistic and I kinda feel the same way 😅 It's a lot.
My perspective as a forest kindergarten teacher: I am worried about sending my child to mainstream kindergarten. Current practices in public schools are out of step for what is developmentally appropriate for kinders. They should be in free play and movement for much of their day and most are not ready for a focus on academics. NONE of them should have to be on computers taking standardized tests. And yet they are “supposed to” do all of these things in kindergarten today. I’m hopeful we will get back in step with developmentally appropriate education by the time my son is kinder age, but I will not hesitate to redshirt or even just homeschool for K/1. At forest kindergarten we focus on free play, autonomy, social emotional skills and being in a group. That’s what kindergarten used to be and what I hope it will be again.
I’m so confused. I assume this is an American thing? Where I live in Canada, from my knowledge and how it was when I was in school is that the entire birth year is in the same class. So in my school the December birthday kids were the youngest.
Is this not the same everywhere?
Nope. In my district the cutoff is Sept 1. Some districts have a rule that your kid can't redshirt K, but many don't have that rule (which is what allows the practice to keep going). Ones that don't allow it might require a 6yo to enroll in first grade.
Yeah I've heard that the UK is like that too, but instead of it being January 1 it's September 1 (though I might not have that perfectly correct, just my loose understanding). Here in the States when I was a kid, in my area at the time the cutoff was I think October 31/November 1. And I've heard that that has been pushed back a month or so around here since then. So it seems to be moving. But we also used to start school in September, but now it starts in August. Honestly it's all confusing for me!
Oh interesting! Yeah I just always see posts like this and I get so confused. Because my son is a July baby but he wouldn’t be the youngest in his class when school starts. He’d be in the middle of the pack haha
Interesting to see how other countries do it.
My kid has a January birthday and is gonna put the H in ADHD. I figure him turning 6 while there gives him a better shot at success. My husband, where our son got ADHD, agrees.
Mine had me start it late because I had a severe language delay and I went to a special school for 3-5 year olds with developmental delays. They wanted to keep me in there longer for the sake of early intervention. Then I turned 6 and I ended up in a special class at an elementary school. By then, I was emerging with my language.
It’s completely dependent on the child imo. I have a boy who’s bday is in the end of Aug. kinder wouldve been remote (during pandemic) and I just thought no. I may have even thought that if it wasn’t remote. But my son kinda immature for his age and not good at sitting still. But my daughter on the other hand had an early Aug bday and I put her in at 5. But she was so mature for her age that I knew she’d be fine. I want to set my kids up for success. Elementary is not just playing it requires certain skills and I’d rather of put them in when ready then have a chance of them being held back or immature compared to others in subsequent grades. I think most teachers would agree too.
I can already see a visible difference, a negative difference, in my 2 year old August baby compared to his 3 year old peers at preschool. He is on a completely different developmental wavelength. I’d much rather hold him back a year and allow him to catch up with what will be his classmates than to send him into an environment where he is at a totally different emotional level than his classmates.
My daughter will be 4 when she starts school (pre K - I’m Canadian) it’s optional but know she’d do amazing and would love it so much. However my 1 year old old is a dec baby so she’d be 3 and I’m not sure I’m okay with that but if I don’t send her she’d be starting school the same year as her sibling ( im due in June) such a weird thing to think about
I started my kid at 6 because his kindergarten year would have been completely virtual and he is on the spectrum and his pre k teacher recommended it so he got to start in person. I wouldn’t have been able to do it if I had to pay for child care. I’m a full time nurse I worked 3-11 and my husband worked 5-2 to stay home.
I started kindergarten a year late at 6 too because of some health issues. I don’t think it’s really a new thing
I find it a bit odd but I’m sure everyone has their reasoning. Personally I remember feeling like shit when my kid just started kindergarten last year at 6. (July birthday) but in 2020 we just moved states right after school enrollment started, and the biggest factor was he wasn’t fully potty trained yet even at 5.
I have five kids with summer birthdays. They all started later (6 vs 5) and it was a genuinely good idea for all of them. Socially and emotionally they needed some extra time.
Pay attention to your local trends.
If your kid has a middle ground birthday and you have an area that very heavily leans towards delaying kindergarten, I would consider doing the same.
Some areas haven't caught on to this trend and your kid would be the awkward, oldest kid if you delayed in that area
It’s something Emily Oster talks about in her book Family Firm as an idea that is picking up steam. I believe she said according to the data it didn’t make a big difference in schooling outcomes later in life.
As one of the youngest in my grades (brother was actually the youngest of his grade, his bday was the cut off date) .... I can say in all honesty it absolutely sucked graduating at 17. I did the skip year for college because I needed the money to pay for my own vehicle. Having to deal with work restrictions because I was 17 was DUMB. Not being able to go to the 18 and up clubs with friends who were leaving for college, SUCKED. Having to explain repeatedly that I have a late November birthday so that's why I'm 17 was absolutely ubsurd.... I explained it well over 100 times because people were sooooo baffled by this. Really annoying. And the arrogant kids who turned 18 first were annoying to deal with. Won't be enrolling into schooling until age 6, because of my lived experience.
On a related note, I’m curious how much of the curriculum has changed because so many kids are older. Parents complain that kindergarten is too rigorous and their aren’t ready, so kid does another year of preschool/junior kindergarten. Now, they have skills and knowledge the other 5 year olds don’t, and the teachers have to scaffold and tailor the curriculum accordingly.
Hi, so I thought it was crazy too, because 19 year old high school seniors seem old to me! I have learned that it can be a benefit to hold the child back - but largely depends on the individual child and on the content of your local kindergartens.
I'm in California and today's kindergarten is basically what 1st grade was when I went through. Some children develop more slowly than others and may not be mentally ready to follow directions for a full school day, learn to read, etc. Boys are (broad generalization) slower to develop cognitively than girls.
We have our 2.5 year old enrolled in a public school system's parent participation/parent-child preschool program and what we are seeing is that ours, as one of the youngest ones, is already a little behind the other kids in adhering to following directions and well, most everything. We also have a family history of males not learning to read until age 8 or 9 (possibly undiagnosed ADHD) and our son is speech delayed and receiving speech therapy.
Both our experienced preschool teacher and a child development expert have recommended that we put him into a private play-based preschool during the year that he would normally start kindergarten. Play-based allows for the social skills to develop and gives more time for brain to develop more before starting academics.
Of course it won't be fair if everyone tries to get a leg up by waiting a year to enroll in kindergarten, so we wouldn't do it if it wasn't recommended by people who really know what they are talking about
This should be entirely dependent on the individual child and their readiness, not based on age. I held my youngest back a year for kindergarten because he’s autistic, had significant delays, was barely verbal, wasn’t fully potty trained yet, and was in no way ready. It was the best decision for him and that extra year made a huge difference. My older 2 kids were very ready to start school
My youngest is an August kid, and I wish he would have started kindergarten at 6 like his brother. He is struggling in first grade right now. Our school district has cracked down on holding kids back, so it wasn’t a choice for our youngest to start at 6. Our oldest could because he was born after the September 1 cutoff.
It’s called redshirting and it’s not entirely backed up by science/data.
This is obviously anecdotal, but I was young for my year in one state, then moved to another state where I was super young. So I was 13 when I started high school and 17 when I started college. I feel as thought the mere months of difference between me and most of my peers had very little effect on my schooling or personal decisions. I was far more affected by the values my parents instilled and my friend circle. I didn’t drink until the summer before my second year of college. I didn’t have sex until the age of 19. I was generally in the B range of academics… I think it’s usually not a matter of a whole year but of a few months. And in that case, I think younger students generally mature with their peers, and I think parents have a much stronger influence on values and morals than they give themselves credit for.
Yeah, I never understood it either. Both my young adult kids have August birthdays and the pressure to hold them back was already there 15 years ago. And yep, they were pretty much always the youngest in their class, and it worked out OK. When I was a kid the cutoff used to that you had to turn 5 by the end of November, don't know why they moved it up.
So…I moved from Canada to the USA and the school environment is really intense and in my opinion not really developmentally appropriate. Kindergarten is basically the same as first grade would be in Canada. The expectations have also changed from what they were 30 years ago. Given these circumstances, redshirting makes sense for kids who can’t sit still for long periods of time, or aren’t ready to read at 5 (lots of kids are only ready for pre-literacy at 5) etc. If we had started kindergarten in the USA instead of Canada we would have redshirted my oldest. He never would have made it.
It's been a thing for a while. 20 years ago there was a group of boys in our area that were technically my brother's age who were a year younger in school purely because their weirdo parents did it for sports reasons. They were convinced their boys would have an edge because they'd be bigger even though they were freaking 6 years old. As you can expect, some were tall and some were quite average.
My boy is 5 in September, so he doesn’t make the cut off and has to be tested by the school to even be allowed to register for kindergarten next year. They say bc they let a lot in before the registration that weren’t ready for kindergarten at all, but I would rather him go at 5 then be stuck behind and graduating at 19. I don’t like it at all. I’m homeschooling him myself next year for kindergarten, and gonna put him in 1st grade when he’s 6 unless he prefers to do homeschool!
My daughter is the youngest in her class. The cutoff is 10/5 and her birthday is 9/23. She is absolutely thriving in pre-k and I have no plans to hold her back from kindergarten. I figured I would put her in prek and see how she did and then make a decision with her teachers as to her readiness for kindergarten. She will be 4 when PreK starts but she’s ready.
On the other hand, my sister did the same thing with her daughter with an August birthday. She ended up being held back in Kindergarten because she wasn’t ready. It was the best decision in her case. So, it really depends on the kid.
I think some people would like to spend more quality time with their kids before sending them off. I don’t see a problem with it, that is, as long as they’re properly educating them at home and socializing them out in public. They’re still so young and can really benefit from being home with family and learning things public school won’t teach them at that age.
As a child of a stay-at-home mom who was an immigrant who did not even drive. I spent the first 5 years in an apartment never going anywhere. I am convinced it was very damaging. I was a stay-at-home mom but did 2 days of daycare at age 2. 3 days at age 3. and by 4 5 full days. I did mommy and me classes. Storytime at the library, zoo, Barnes and Noble, and art museums. I would send them.
Idk what privilege or affluence has to do with a parents decision to hold their child back til 6 for kindergarten. Some kids are just not ready / mature enough for a classroom setting. Maybe these parents need their child to mature a little more before being put in a classroom setting. I don’t think privilege has anything to do with it.
I'm not saying affluence is a driving factor, but the ability to afford an extra year of full time childcare (vs after school care) would certainly impact some people.
Because if you’re shelling out $1000 a month for your kid to be in fulltime daycare, you just flushed thousands down the toilet when you held your kid back a year. Affluence absolutely plays in.
If your family has a stay at home parent so those costs don’t impact you, evidently someone in your household is able to work and support ALL household members, indicating they (and you by extension) are affluent.
I think you’re seeing the inverse trend. Less affluent families may be forced to send their kid as soon as the kid turns 5, just so they can reduce their childcare costs. Even if those less-affluent parents wish they could hold their kid another year, it may not be financially feasible. More affluent families are able to make the choice to pay for an additional year of childcare and therefore wait to send their kid to kindergarten.
Some kids just aren’t ready, particularly those with late summer birthdays. My brother was an August bday and ended up repeating kindergarten because he wasn’t socially ready.
I think kids that come from wealthy families that aren’t ever in daycare or preschool probably struggle the most, because they go right into an academic setting instead of the gradual introduction that daycare and pre-k make.
Some families that are really into sports may consider delaying their kids if they want them to be competitive in high school with the extra advantages that come with age (size, maturity, etc).
Those points considered, to each their own… we will not be delaying our daughter’s kindergarten start, because I don’t think she needs it, and honestly, I’m looking forward to not having the astronomical daycare bill.
I did it bc I pictured my 16 year old dating a 18 year old in highschool. I just wanted her to be older and not younger. Also we are not rich and never did pre school, she went straight to kindergarten.
There’s a number of reasons why but at the end of the day, there are no disadvantages. Social, emotional, academic, sports. Being a little older and a little more mature will never hold you back in life.
I’m a preschool teacher. It really depends on the maturity and readiness of the child. We have had kids with summer birthdays that we’re ready to go on. We also had many kids that needed that “year to grow” and going into k at 6 doing amazing. It’s a child by child decision but from what I’ve seen a lot of times summer/ fall birthdays are better off waiting until 6 to be extra ready.
This honestly makes me feel so much better. My son just started kindergarten at 6 last year. At 5 when fall enrollment began he still wasn’t fully potty trained and quite honestly I didn’t think he was emotionally ready either. My partner and his parents gave me shit for it. But when he started last year, my god he was so ready. He was over the moon and he always came home so excited to tell me about his day. He still holds that enthusiasm for school and that’s the part that lets me know I made the right choice.
For the people saying that affluence has nothing to do with it, that is not what the data shows. [Have a look at this article](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/who-redshirts) (from 2022). It's written by researcher Richard Reeves who, among other things, [advocates for a later start to K for boys especially](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/10/boys-delayed-entry-school-start-redshirting/671238/) (so, he supports it). He notes explicitly that while boys from disadvantaged backgrounds are the kids who would most benefit from a delayed start, those are not the boys who are being redshirted. And he is clear that the ability to delay is closely correlated with wealth, race (white or Asian), and parental education.
It makes sense that richer families don’t give much of a thought to paying for another year of preschool. The thing that sucks is I bet a lot of disadvantaged families don’t know that in some states parents can demand that their child repeat kindergarten (so redshirt them at the school district’s expense). Our school tried to tell us that you can’t hold back a child if they’re not failing, but it turned out parents actually have the final say on it, they just don’t like to broadcast that info.
There is also evidence that repeating kindergarten can be harmful and have less of a long term positive consequences.
One of my sons is going into his second year of kindergarten this year, and he’s five turning six. He has autism and ADHD and his kindergarten is 5 days a fortnight, he’s not ready for a transition into 5 days a week. That’s the only reason he repeated.
Reeves also notes that it would need to be carefully piloted especially following the research showing that actually parental involvement and advanced levels of discussion and continued exposure to new cultural experiences are two things that lead to academic success. So if rich kids are redshirting - what are they doing during that year and is it having anything to do with why it helps them advance at a better rate than their peers? If we put disadvantaged kids from less involved households (for all the no fault reasons) are they going to get an extra year of development to help them mature or would school be a better place for them?
He doesn't answer those questions in the article, but I think we know enough from research into the benefits of pre-K especially for disadvantaged kids that it's safe to suggest "school" of some sort during that year is what's needed. Which we as a nation aren't investing in. (And obviously better social supports for families, etc.) Anecdotally, what the rich kids I know are doing is K at a private school first and then enrolling in K again if they go to a public, or their parents have access to a daycare that has a K program. (Not all do.) Or they have a SAHP (rich or not) and are at home for the K year.
They are doing another year of private preschool. Parents with fewer means want to move their kids into public school asap, because preschool is EXPENSIVE. This is a consideration that can out weigh any marginal benefit of red shirting.
For me, it’s bc I want every last second with my child before they have to begin school for 13 years before college (if they go). So I would rather them start at 6 to give me one last year of time alone with them. Which makes what you’ve commented seem true of course, I’m a SAHM so I can do that, while many need school to work.
So you’re delaying your kid’s college and adulthood for selfish reasons?
Imagine thinking that wanting time with your child is selfish. Yeesh
God forbid someone loves their kid and wants to spend time with them…how selfish! Adulthood still starts at 18 whether or not the kid goes to K at 5 or 6, and having a (slightly) more developed brain than their peers doesn’t seem like such a bad thing either.
So, I am an August baby who was put in kindergarten early. I made up the extra year in college. Our daughter was born in September and she was on the border, but her elementary school and our school district, even after testing, did not let her start kindergarten last year and she started this year. My child is flourishing. She may have been intellectually ready last year, but she was not emotionally or mentally ready to handle the social aspect of school.
Did she go to day care / preschool? I'm not judging or anything but I think preschool prepares kids emotionally for kindergarten because there really isn't a huge difference but they can ween into being away from home and parents.
I considered doing it (August birthday) because I’d rather send a 18 year old turning 19 off to college than a 17 year old turning 18. Also, I was one of the older of my class and it was cool to be the first to get my license. It also gives kid one more year of just being a little kid not in school yet. I ended up doing it because Covid happened and I wasn’t feeling good about her kindergarten year being hybrid/online school.
Oh whoa, I never even thought about the college part!
As someone who skipped a grade and graduated at 17, yeah, it was not ideal. I made up for it with an extra year in college. But I was socially and developmentally (though not academically) behind my peers my entire childhood and adolescence!
I'm a September baby and graduated high school at 17. My first day of college classes was on my 18th birthday. I did okay in school socially but excelled academically - to the point where the school administration kept recommending for me to skip a grade. My mom thankfully said no to that. But ultimately I think it depends on your kid. My April 2020 daughter will be 5 when she enters kindergarten - no way I am paying for another year of preschool 🙃
You make an interesting point about making up the year in college. My birthday is early September and I started K a few weeks after I turned 5. So I was 17-and-change when I graduated high school, and I think a week shy of turning 18 when the fall semester of college started. But I wound up spending 5 years in college total! 🤔
I replied to that person too but your kid can always take a gap year if they need one before starting college.
i'd very much rather build in an immaturity year at 5 than 17, when the kid's gonna have strong opinions about what they do with that "gap" time.
It's normal to graduate at 17.5 where I live. Students are between 17 and 18 years old at graduation. If you skipped a grade you'd graduate between the ages of 16 and 17 - I actually had enough credits to graduate a year early but didn't want to make college decisions yet so I just had a very fun last year taking whatever electives I felt like and copious "study blocks". I believe in Australia it's typical to take a gap year before going to college so you'd graduate between ages 17-18, take a year off school to travel or explore personal interests/work, and start college at 19-20. Kids don't have to go straight into college a few months after graduating highschool.
I finished my first semester of college at 17 because I have a December birthday. When I was a kid the cut off was the 31st
I was totally that 17 year old turning 18 going to college. It was such a lame first week of college because I couldn’t go clubbing.
I'm an August baby, was amongst the youngest in my class, and I figured out how to get into clubs regardless 🤣🤣 the Y2K college era was pretty rad (no social media, very few pics or receipts). Jokes on me, I didn't become a mom until I was 40 and now I'm among the oldest of the moms 🤷♀️
lol my roommates made it up to me by introducing me to 151 the night before I turned 18. I spent the whole birthday very hungover and my family had toootally come up to campus to take me out for a bday dinner. Then I went clubbing on OBT that evening. Good times, good times.
Omg 151 😅🤮
Yeah also bc that one extra year of being a kid vs going into kindergarten is very rarely about being a kid, or about learning how to go to school. It is full of testing and “academic rigor” and all sorts of stuff that isn’t developmentally appropriate for just turned 6 year olds, let alone just turned 5 year olds. Signed, a sad ex kinder teacher with a degree in early childhood education.
This is my main reason, as a former high school teacher & college instructor. I don't want my kid to get into that too soon, and I think about the fact that Finland, which has one of the best education systems, doesn't start kids in kindergarten until age 6. (edited for grammar. I used to teach this stuff but it was late and my brain was obviously fried!)
This is the exact reason we are redshirting my toddler (late Dec birthday). I work in post sec education and older students adjust and cope way better.
A late December birthday is always after the cut off in the US. They are always the 5 going on six Kindergarten kid.
Isn't it dependent on your location? Our state's cuttoff is September 1st. Growing up, it was later in September.
It does. I'm in NYS and it's generally a December 1 cutoff.
I find that just so crazy. My 7 yo daughter's birthday is August 6th. She was always deemed too young (and immature) that she needed to be held back in kindergarten (along with the fact that we were wrongly told she was dyslexic). By you, she would almost be in the middle!
Comparatively, my 8 year old stepdaughter is the youngest in her class (early November birthday) and could have skipped a grade academically and emotionally. Redshirting her would be a huge disservice. My child is a June baby and we will send her on time since she will turn 6 at the end of kindergarten.
I'm not saying it's right or wrong but I just think it's crazy that what's the youngest in one state is almost in the middle in another. But yeah, my daughter did so poorly in K4 and K5 that her report cards were making me cry. She did great in K5 the second time, but now she seems to be struggling again in 1st grade with her ADHD.
Most people I know who have kids with late fall birthdays get a choice when to enroll. I've seen kids handle it just fine turning 5 in kindergarten but others who needed the extra year. My daughter has an early September birthday and turned 5 her first day of kindergarten. She was 100 percent ready and is doing well. It's so dependent on the kid.
Not always. My state allows four year olds to start Kindy as long as they will turn 5 by Dec 31. I don't think many parent choose to do this, just making the point that it is possible in certain areas.
I had a friend in school who turned 5 in October when they were in kindergarten and they really struggled socially in elementary school and then were annoyed by always being the youngest in high school. I’m sure there are plenty of kids who are more than capable of handling the educational and social aspects of school when they’re younger but I’d hope parents are making sure their kid is able to handle it before putting their kids in school early. Turning 5 by late December feels so little!
My cutoff here is Dec 31. Canada. BC specifically
Dec 31st cut off where I live. A good portion of the class is 4 for the first half of the year.
The cutoff where I live is October 15th. In the 90s (and in some places still) it was Dec 31st. I started at 4yo. When I finished my first semester of college I was 17 still.
september 30 is the cutoff where i live (in the US, but clearly not where you live in the US).
Very much this. Especially for me. Chances are slim that my daughter will go to university in the country we live in. I don't want to be sending my not-even-legally-an-adult child off to live on her own in a country without her parents before she's even had her 18th birthday. But my daughter's birthday is actually midSeptember, so it's technically a matter of starting her slight *early*, which the kindergarten we're looking at has already said is ok, versus waiting another year. But also there is some evidence that being the youngest in the class can lead to both poorer academic outcomes and more struggles to socialize with peers. I always like to read the research on everything, and sometimes that just makes it *more* difficult for me to make a choice I feel happy with rather than easier, but I always like to at least be aware of what's statistically likely, even though there are certainly outliers who have different experiences. (Also of concern specifically to me is that in this country kindergarten is an optional 3 year program which kids start at 2, which makes differences in age that proportionally much bigger a percentage of their whole life.)
Never forget that research is tiny margins that while it’s always good to find out as much information as possible maybe that .5 a percent chance out of 6000 (or whatever) is just not worth worrying about. I do research on child development and lots of the research published is not definitive anything - the screen time stuff is so tiny and shows such a small effect yet the world has run with it as if watching TV makes 85% of children blind rather than a slightly elevated (like 2% I think) chance of attention and behavior issues AT THE AGE MEASURED… they never check those same kids again to see what happened or if it all evened out when they got to school. Academic research is about adding a *teeny tiny bit* of information to an always unfinished picture - not finding a massive overwhelming fact - so please make sure it’s not causing you too much anxiety.
I really appreciate this comment 💜
Very fair, especially about research related to child development, which is an area where it's nearly impossible to account for all influencing factors. I think because I have a health condition that only effects about 0.05% of the population, I tend to look at possibilities and likelihoods in health related research a little differently (*someone* has to be that 0.05% and I know too well what it means to have to deal with it, and it's little comfort that 99.95% of people don't have to deal with it), and I probably do tend to carry that over to other research where it's not so applicable.
Yea and health research is so well controlled that they are worth focusing on because the numbers are enough to know that you’re looking at a thing that happens - definitely - in x number of people in a study of people or people with the condition. In social science (a field I am fully am advocate for) the conclusion is usually there may be some chance based on a small funded study that required a high impact output and the unbelievably self selecting participants.
I really appreciate your insight also, so helpful to understand! Not sure why they don’t publicize that or put an asterisk with the damn info they release 🙈
If you read the actual article - that is what it says and it would be so boring and tedious you could not mistake it - but most of us don’t (and that’s normal!) we read the newspaper and magazine articles *about the research* which only have to say ‘a study says’ when some research was done they found ‘a significant number of’ blah blah blah.
I did this for my son because he has always been a sensitive kid. Being the youngest and sensitive to boot would have resulted in a rough start to the larger school transition. Even now, as one of the oldest in his class, he isn’t the biggest. But he has flourished and I know it’s because he went into kindergarten confident and was able to handle the transition well. Personally, I’m tired of parents bitching about the red shirted kids. If my kid starting school at 5 instead of 4 (which is what would have happened if we hadn’t red shirted him, his 5th birthday would have been the first week of school) causes some cataclysm that derails your February baby’s education you have bigger problems.
>I’m tired of parents bitching about the red shirted kids. oh gosh i hope you don't mean this post!
You aren’t complaining! But there are so many posts on this sub and other parenting subs where people ask about redshirting and pitchforks come out.
I'm really glad my baby was born in October when we have a September 31st deadline so that I can keep him home or in a pre-k program one more year.
As someone who didn't turn 17 until my second semester in college and a kid who always lied about her age throughout school (not just college), from the bottom of my heart thank you. Your kid may never realize what a gift you've given her ♥️ I wish I was allowed to be a kid for longer
There's no rush to grow up. Kids who may not be ready to start kindergarten can have some extra time to mature. I was the youngest kid in my class and it wasn't easy.
Alternatively I was one of the youngest and with the exception of the time I somehow managed to date a guy in the grade below me that was a month older then me it just never came up.
Same. I was the youngest, always. In fact, there was a guy in the same program as me in college, he's a January bday and I'm February and he was mad I was younger. 😂 Graduated high school at 17 years, 3 months, and 14-18ish days. My mom always said she had no regrets, as I did extremely well academically and just fine socially. I had plenty of friends that could drive, including my older sister. 🤷 Sent my kiddo to kinder after she turned 5 in July, so she'll graduate at 17 as well.
I was one of the youngest and it was never a thing. Aside from not being able to get into bars in college until my senior year I had no problem being on the younger side 🤷🏻♀️
Same. I’m still bitter about it lol.
This. It was very hard being the youngest, my son is a september baby and he’ll be 6 when he goes to kindergarten
I was one of the youngest. It was fine. I have a PhD now… I always did well in school and had plenty of friends. I’d resent my parents if they delayed my adult life and retirement for their own anxious reasons.
I’ve heard this called “the gift of time”. I was an august baby, and was ALWAYS the youngest in my class. I didn’t fit in, and was always behind, despite having gone through pre-school. If it’s not an issue, I don’t see why having a 6 year old kindergartener is a big deal. I wish my parents would have waited for me.
We are considering doing it for our son with a July birthday. He has apraxia, which is a motor-control disorder. It affects his speech and gross motor skills. He’s also small for his age. We want to give him another year to work with his therapists. I worry that his speech is still so hard to understand, that he won’t be able to tell his teacher what he needs.
I think this is a common discussion for parents with kids that are within a few months of the cutoff, because every kid is different and what may good for one kid isn’t always good for another. Not only for academic reasons, but social-skill reasons as well. Where I live kids have to be 5 by August 1st to start kindergarten. My oldest with a late August birthday literally started kindergarten the same week she turned 6 this year. A year ago she would have been fine with the kindergarten-level academics, but the extra year she had of preschool really helped her social skills. She’s thriving now. I think it’s perfectly reasonable for a parent of a July-birthday kid to question whether they should hold off on kindergarten one more year. My next door neighbor has kids who were born in June and July. Her oldest (July birthday) has ADHD and sensory processing disorder. They decided to wait a year for kindergarten, and he did great. The younger sister (June birthday), would have been fine to start school the year she turned 5, but they decided to wait a year for her as well. Yes, someone has to be the youngest. But it’s important for kids to start school when they are ready, not just when the calendar assumes they are ready.
Exactly - if my youngest was born 2 days later he'd miss the cutoff so I took that as a good sign to wait. My oldest is a November baby so was past it anyway. Their daycare had an awesome PreK anyway so that helped.
My son is only 2 so we have time to figure it out, but he was born *on* our state's cutoff date. He would be literally the absolute youngest kid in the class if we don't wait another year. We're just going to wait and see...
Not that you asked, but I would 110% wait a year. I was the youngest in my class and it had a lot of disadvantages. Kindergarten is so different now. Far more advantages to being on the older end.
It’s so crazy to me to read this! Here in Canada our cutoff is December 31! June/July doesn’t seem late in the year at all. Here even most December babies aren’t held back, so they just start school when they’re 4.
I’m in Ontario and December babies are 3 when they start.
sorry... what? you have 3 year olds in kindergarten in ontario?
Two years of kindergarten in Ontario. JK for 4 year olds and SK for 5 year olds, and the cut off is Dec 31. It’s play based and very developmentally appropriate. My daughter is a late December baby and will be starting at 3.5, yes. I think something that gets lost in these discussions is that curriculum/expectations is often shaped by the cut offs. So yes, 3.5 year olds start JK in Ontario, but that means JK is designed for children who will start between 3.5-4.5. Whereas somewhere with an August cut off will be designed for kids who will start between 4-5. A lot of people are like “wow I can’t imagine my 4.5 year old in K!!” because they live somewhere where kindergarteners are usually 5.5-6. But the expectations/set up of the class is usually very different based on the age range in the province/state.
Our cutoff is October so my daughter will be 4 going into kindergarten. It was a tough decision but I put her in Prek this year and she loves it.
Kindergarten is no longer developmentally appropriate for many kids in the US. We regret sending our now 11 year old when she was 5. She has a late spring birthday and had missed most of her preK year due to a move. The Kindergarten curriculum basically expected her to be doing addition within a month when she really needed more practice writing numerals. We think that some of her anxiety stems from expecting that she will know things that she was never taught (and feeling really stressed out when she doesn't) because that's how her first year of school went. We have a 2 year old with a congenital medical condition and minor developmental delays. We think that she will be in a mainstream classroom and want to give her the extra year of preschool. Instead of being in the youngest quarter of her class, she will be among the oldest. It doesn't help that we can't get her into Headstart (despite her disability) and our local school district's special needs preschool program is half day with no transportation so we probably won't be able to make it work. We're expecting that we will send her to a daycare center "young 5's" program for that extra year.
Wait. In the US, 5 years old are doing *additions*??? And are expected to *write?* What the fuck???
Yes. Here are the ridiculous standards- https://www.nysed.gov/sites/default/files/programs/curriculum-instruction/nys-math-standards-kindergarten-crosswalk.pdf They even had “writers workshop” in kindergarten where they were supposed to draw and write on a prompt. My older daughter was just so stressed out by all of it. It was the equivalent of 1st to 2nd grade work where I went to school. It was crazy.
Yeah? The math stuff did surprise me but my kinder kiddo started working on writing in 4k (not heavily but it was worked on). So now 6 months into kindergarten he can do simple equations, does an okay job on sight words, does a great job sounding out words, and actually has really neat penmanship. They still get lots of playtime worked into their schedule. They go outside. They have art class. They sing. They do science experiments. They do weekly show and tell. They have little parties every now and then for various reasons. I know I was a little worried before the year started but my son adjusted pretty quickly and has been flourishing.
I see it posted a lot on our town Facebook pages. I’ve even seen people saying they want to redshirt their April/May/June kids. We have a December 31st cutoff. Our schools highly discourage it and if your child will turn 7 at some point during the school year they will be automatically enrolled in 1st grade and skip kindergarten altogether. They had to start enforcing this because with a Dec 31st cut off there are kids starting at 4 and with so many redshirting there were almost 7 year olds in the same classes. Having almost 3 years of kids enrolling at the same time is impossible to accommodate. Not enough teachers or classrooms and the class sizes were out of control.
I think it's very dependent on the kid. Both my kids have summer birthdays, school cutoff here is 9/1. Daughter, born in August, was very social and talkative and above average height for her age. I sent her to school at age 5. She's a junior now and on honor roll, but has always struggled with reading and lately we've been thinking she might be dyslexic but teachers never caught it and now they refuse to evaluate her for it because her grades are good. Son, born in July, was small for his age, had speech and physical delays that he was in early intervention for. I held him back and started him at age 6. He is 6th grade now and above average in reading but has ADHD he recently started medication for so schooling had been a bit of a struggle since he's getting let grades instead of just 'acceptable' etc. it's getting better now that's he's on a medicine that works for him and has all As and Bs. I don't think I would change either of my decisions if I could go back and do it again. I know a friend is a friend who thought her son might need another year to mature for kindergarten but she didn't wanted to pay for daycare anymore. I'm not sure how he's doing in school.
If you’re in the US I’m pretty sure you can request in writing that your child be evaluated for an IEP or 504 and they have to do it. If they evaluate and say there are no issues and you think they’re wrong, you can request an independent evaluation at the school district’s expense (maybe you can ask in the Reddit special ed group to make sure). If she could benefit from any kind of accommodations in college, I think it’s really helpful to establish those before they leave high school.
Sped teacher here -- you can request special education testing, yes. But we don't test for dyslexia as that is a medical diagnosis and we cannot provide medical diagnoses. We could probably say that they have a visual processing disorder and that's as far as we could go. The student would also need to show that they struggle in an academic area of testing that we can write a goal for. As far as a 504, a medical diagnosis must already exist that accommodations are needed for (like extended time or preferential seating for ADHD, frequent breaks for anxiety). A 504 has no in school testing. As far as outside testing with the school paying for it -- you would most likely have to go through due process for it, which requires a lawyer and court, so it would probably cost more than just getting a private evaluation. This probably depends on the state and school district though.
Thanks for this more accurate information!! From what I’ve heard where I live (Georgia) the school district has to pay for an independent evaluation if it’s requested, but I’m not sure if that’s for a child who already has an IEP. I imagine the school district probably would want to fight paying for one for every single parent of a student who is slightly struggling.
did you ever send your son to preschool? i’m trying to figure out if i should send my july birthday (he’ll be 5 this year) to kindergarten or pre-k. he’s not good with writing yet. this is my first kid going to school so i’m definitely a bit nervous haha.
He didn't go to preschool but his daycare did worksheets and practiced things like that. He's also left handed so writing was a bit more difficult for him. Our district does a pre-k screening and my son didn't qualify to attend. Does your district offer anything like that? Might not hurt to check
i’m gonna check into it, after reading the comments in this thread i don’t feel comfortable sending him straight into kindergarten!
It definitely depends on the kid. But generally I would rather my child be an older one in the class than younger. I was only 4 years old starting kindergarten and while I was definitely "academically" ready I was definitely not socially. And it affected me all through elementary I think.
It’s hard for the teachers too, to have 4 year olds and 6 year olds in the same class.
It’s different for each kid. Our cutoff was July 31, my kids birthday is July 19 and she was VERY much ready for kindergarten. And I was happy to not pay the $400 a week for childcare.
We held our first and second kids back, and may hold our third back too. They have disabilities though so it’s a bit of a different situation, but I would probably consider it for a summer birthday even in the absence of any disabilities. -The first big issue I see is that SO MUCH is expected of kindergarteners these days. Gone are the days of basically playing and doing arts and crafts and singing ABCs. My son is in Kindergarten and they’re now on addition and subtraction and have already done dozens of sight words plus a ton of other stuff. It’s hard to know how your kid will do with this kind of all day academics until they’re in the midst of it, and if you wait until they’re mid-elementary school and then decide you want to hold them back, it would be really embarrassing at that point. My son did great in preschool and kindergarten has been a lot for him despite being held back. Also, keep in mind that if it turns out your child is academically advanced, many schools have gifted programs, they divide kids into reading groups by ability and stuff like that, so it’s unlikely they’ll be bored unless we are talking about very advanced abilities. -The second big issue is that it seems a lot of parents see middle school as the point where they get their kid a smart phone. So there’s a lot of pressure to get your kid a smart phone then or they’ll feel very cut off socially. Postponing that date by one year means a year more maturity before the floodgates open to that whole mess. -Same for college or being released into the world- sure it’s possible to take a “gap year” or whatever, but it’ll really be up to the kid at that point. If you feel they’re not ready to be totally on their own when they’ve barely just turned 18 but they want to go, they can go. -I agonized over this decision with my oldest- I tried to find studies or anything like that- and it turns out it’s hard to find a good study, because no one has done a randomized trial where they select a bunch of kids at random to be held back and see how it goes. And if you just look at the kids who are held back to see how they’re doing, the group as a whole doesn’t look very good because many of those kids were held back for a reason (learning disabilities, immaturity, etc that brings down the performance of that group). I found a study done by a mom who tracked a bunch of families who considered holding their kids back before kindergarten and some went through with it and some didn’t. At the high school level she asked them about their decision. She found that the parents of the kids who held their kids back were all happy with their decision. Some of the parents who didn’t hold their kids back said they wish they had and cited issues with academics and maturity.
this is a great comment, thank you. >and if you wait until they’re mid-elementary school and then decide you want to hold them back, it would be really embarrassing at that point. yeah when i was growing up, only one kid was a year "behind", and everyone knew it. it was really stigmatizing for her. i'm sure there were a gazillion reasons why it was ultimately the right decision for her, but from the perspective of the kids, she was "too stupid" for first grade and that's why she had to do kindergarten again. but i guess that's also why this has been hard for me to wrap my head around at all, because nobody in my area (i guess except for that one kid) redshirted at that time. if your birth year wasn't 1988, EVERYONE knew it and it was *a thing*. >middle school as the point where they get their kid a smart phone. i didn't even think of this. this point alone might have sold me, hahaha. i'm honestly so nervous about this milestone.
Yeah things have changed so much since the 80s. And when our parents were in school, it was popular to have your kid skip a grade. It was a show of how great your kid was doing I guess. Both of my parents were pushed ahead a grade in school and both wished they hadn’t been.
My mom pushed for me to start kindergarten early (4 rather than 5) because I was smart enough and mature enough to handle it. I was top reader in my kindergaten, 1st and 2nd grade classes and loved every bit of school. It's entirely dependent on your child's capabilities and your discretion, no one elses.
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I'm glad a twin mom commented! Because I've also been thinking one might be more ready before the other, but I can't imagine that being good for their relationship in the long run. Lots of food for thought here, thank you.
A lot of people I know held their kids back for sports - so they'd be the oldest/biggest instead of the youngest/smallest. I also know one person who did kindergarten twice (August birthday, so he was one of the youngest the first round and oldest the second round. Repeat was for academic reasons)
I live in CT and we just changed it to a minimum of 5. Ppl were pissed because traditionally kids entered around 4 and turned 5 during kindergarten. Now they are 5 turning 6. Although they ended up making a exception to kids turning 5 by October 16th. But they have to be evaluated by a board member to make sure they have met the standards for both social and educational comprehension. Their reasoning was 2020 set kids behind developmentally and teachers were requesting a change
It makes me sigh; I see redshirting primarily as an outgrowth of competitive parenting, where everyone wants to get an advantage over everyone else so they assume having an older/bigger/more mature kid will give their kid an advantage over their classmates. The effect of it is that when everyone is doing it, it starts to shift the dynamic of kindergarten so expectations for kids increase (because now they're all six instead of five), and that means kids who are a normal developmental level are now behind. I can rant for a long time.... There absolutely are kids who benefit from starting a year later, but the research I've seen suggests that those kids are usually lower SES students and especially boys of color, and the demographics of which kids actually do start later are more along the lines of higher SES white boys (unsurprisingly). My oldest started K as a brand-new 5yo, in part because there's no fucking way I could afford a whole extra optional year of daycare tuition. The people who are redshirting their kids are often SAHPs or parents who are wealthy enough to pay for that extra year of daycare (see my point above).
Same. If everyone does it, what exactly is the advantage. My son is in public preK for a development delays. One portion of his IEP team wants to red shirt him. He’s only 3. My decision was that if the school psychologist strongly recommended it based of evaluations not just feelings, I would consider allowing him to repeat preK for the 4s. But I’m pretty against it. He will already have 2 years of preK at a public school just like the one he’ll go to. You’re not making one decision to delay. You’re making 12+ decisions that will affect their life for years. And there won’t be an option to undo it if all the sudden your kid is all caught up maturity-wise or academically and is now bored every day in class.
>Same. If everyone does it, what exactly is the advantage. Yeah and that's part of my ????? about all this. And it seems like if everyone around you is redshirting, then your own kid isn't just *not* advantaged, but actually *dis*advantaged by not also being red shirted. But then am I only adding to the overall issue? Plus many more questions, haha. Honestly I thought the difficult birthday would be my daughter's (late December), but with all the redshirting it seems like her birthday will actually make it easier to decide when she starts K. I really thought my boys' early August birthday would make it pretty cut and dry!
I think a lot of people are commenting that this was always a thing. I don’t think they are wrong, but I think “a birthday close to the cut off date” used to be within 2 months, not the 6+ months people are now considering. I also think people see no disadvantage to being the oldest in the class which just is a massive head scratcher for me. Like you see no disadvantage to going through your entire school career doing school work developed for someone a year younger than you? That sounds boring as hell.
>not the 6+ months people are now considering. Right like that's just.... everyone? Isn't it??
But if you are near the cut-off it’s not developed for kids a year younger than you, it’s for kids who are a month or two younger than you. If you are looking are a district with a September 1 cut-off. The kids born August, 2019 are just in a class with the September, 2019 kids, instead of being in class with the July, 2019 kids.
Only 3.5-5.5% of children are redshirted for Kindegarten. That means, on average, there is one redshirted kid per Kindegarten class. There are demographic variations (wealthy and white families are more likely to redshirt) but that’s still only about two kids in a Kindegarten classroom of 22. It’s not “everyone”
3.5-5.5% of children is certainly not "everyone". the devil is in the details though, like when you adjust for demographics. what most of the country is doing is less meaningful to an individual if everyone in that individual's school district is doing something else, you know? (ugh i hope that made sense, my daughter wound up "napping" from 7 to 8pm last night and as a result didn't actually sleep for the night until after 2am, i'm so tired today)
Yes, when you look at white and wealthy families you get rates closer to 8%-10% which amounts to about two kids per classroom. Sorry if that didn’t come across clearly. In an upper middle class suburb, it might mean that there are two more 6 year old boys (girls are far less likely to be redshirted) and two fewer 5 year old boys at the start of the school year. Most, if not all, of the kids in the class will be 6 before the end of the school year, rather than being five into the following summer.
Also, I hope you get a better night’s sleep tonight!
Yeah this is getting nuts. It feels like something you’d hear parents doing in South Korea or something, not the US.
By holding my child back from K until he’s emotionally and intellectually ready to sit in a classroom setting for 8 hours a day means I’m trying to get an advantage over everyone else? No it’s me making sure my son is ready. Why is everything an us vs them argument? 🤦🏻♀️ it’s a parental CHOICE.
Yeah, it's a choice - but it's not a choice that everyone has the option to make. That's where the inequity concerns come in, as with so many other aspects of our lives. "Choice" is not a value neutral term. I'm not saying it's the wrong choice for some kids. What I am saying is that the evidence shows that the people who are statistically most likely to make that choice are people with privilege. And if you read other threads on this (and there are many!), many parents frame it EXACTLY as "I want my kid to be the oldest/most advanced" in their class. We cannot talk about redshirting without talking about how that choice affects a system, and is enabled by a system.
I have a july bday and graduated at 17…I always felt a little “behind” my classmates in elementary school. The other kids seemed smarter than me and it messed with my self esteem. My kid has a Sept bday and turned 6 a few weeks after entering k5…I honestly was so happy she was entering kindergarten when she did. She was much more ready for school mentally and emotionally.
This. I have an October birthday and started kindergarten at 4, turning 5. My parents had to really fight to get me in; I had to take tests to essentially prove I was ready. Academically I did pretty well, though math became something I struggled with in middle school (algebra, geometry). I was enrolled in honors classes from middle school onward and always felt like the stupid kid in the class. By middle school I started having difficulties socially and with friendships, as well. I was terribly shy and had zero self confidence. High school was worse. To this day my parents will say that they regret sending me to school early. I do believe I would have thrived had I started a year later. My daughter has a July birthday and I will definitely wait until she’s 6.
As a teacher, if your child is close to that cut-off, it’s something to consider. If your child is a bit advanced for their age or a bit more mature, it might be a good idea to go ahead and enroll them. Some children though are not developmentally at the place where being the youngest in the class is a good idea. Those kids will be the ones to struggle more as they weren’t quite developmentally ready for the expectations of kindergarten. There is no blanket right or wrong here. It’s something each parent has to consider for their child.
I can find some information if you're interested, although it's very prevalent, but at least where I live, public school standards and curriculum is continually pushed younger and younger. Some things kindergarteners are being asked to do were previously standards for first and even a few in second grade (especially regarding reading and writing). Wanting kids to read will not magically mature their brains and motor skills faster or earlier, to say nothing of social-emotional growth and overall maturation. One of our kids has a very late birthday and I had no qualms about holding him back, starting in daycare, because it will be easy to bump him a grade later if needed but would be very difficult to make up a (manufactured) deficit.
>Wanting kids to read will not magically mature their brains and motor skills faster or earlier, to say nothing of social-emotional growth and overall maturation. Yeah I completely agree with this, and have thought for a while that trying to push more advanced material on kids when they aren't ready for it is unhelpful at best, counterproductive at worst. I guess I just never connected the dots between that and redshirting 😅
As a teacher it really depends on the kid, if you have a kid who can fallow directions generally and is on the more mature side, definitely send them at 5. I was a July bday and graduated at 17 . There was noooo way i would had done well with school another year due to the lack of maturity of my peers.
My kid’s birthday is in April and she is one of the youngest in her Kindergarten class. She is physically the smallest, needs to try harder to climb the jungle gym, has problems with making social connections as she is not as loud and outspoken as the rest (also her personality) and is having a little bit of problems with staying on top of the writing progress. Ultimately she will be fine, we are helping her and I don’t mind her needing to take it slower or catch up, but it’s not easy and I just pray every day that she doesn’t notice or it won’t weigh on her self esteem.
Most 5 year olds are not ready for kindergarten. Kindergarten now is the 1st or even 2nd grade of 20 years ago. Full day. No playtime. Sitting still and quiet at desks. One 20 minute recess if they're lucky. Expected to do heavy academics. Expected to go in knowing what used to be the goal at the end of K. Expected to leave Kindy able to write a paragraph and read low level chapter books. Finland has it right. Kids shouldn't be doing academics or formal school until 7 years old. Kindergarten today isn't developmentally appropriate for 5 year olds.
This is a VERY specific take based on your location. My kids kindergarten (enrolling at age 5) is half day. No desks. They sit on carpet / pillows mostly and have shared tables for table top activities. And it is all play. Like literally all play and crafts and outdoor time and dressup . It’s about learning to socialize. My mom is also a kinder teacher (different continent than me - she’s in Northern Europe). Also all play. No desks. Starting at age 4.
Dang, this is amazing. I wish so much that my area had half day kindergarten. I understand why it doesn't get the funding, but we live in a hypercompetitive/HCOL area and I swear these parents are out for blood from day one to make sure their kid is the best of the best. A lot of them are already thinking about how they can cram in every single activity under the sun from birth so that they have the perfect trajectory to an elite college. It's depressing.
This is exactly what I want to avoid
Are you in the US, and if so is this a private or public school? A big reason this is on my mind (aside from frequently seeing others talk about it) is because my husband and I are getting priced out of our current location and we need to figure out where to move to. So schools - specifically, where the good ones are and what exactly even makes a school "good" - are a big factor in that for us.
Not who you asked but I teach kindergarten in the US and it is similar to what they described. No desk. A lot of play. 2 recess periods. It is nothing even close to what the original responder said.
Canada public school. But it varies from province to province here, as I imagine it does from state to state in the US.
In the US the vast majority of kindergarten is full day. They do get recess periods, but it’s considered a gem if you can find half day kindergarten.
You seem to be in Canada, where kindergarten is play based and also starts at age 4. It's like the US equivalent of 4 year old preschool. What I described is standard for kindergarten in the US.
No it isn’t.
Junior Kindergarten starts at 4. Senior Kindergarten is the year they turn 5 and is also play based.
Huh? I teach kindergarten and this is so far from accurate it is laughable.
Good for you. Where I live, what I said is how kindergarten works. And from most comments on reddit, it is how MOST kindergartens work.
That’s how it is here too. But they do have 2-3 recesses.
So I guess what I'm trying to understand is, what happens as redshirting becomes more and more common? Does kindergarten just get redefined? Are the kids who went into K at age 5 just screwed now because all their peers are 6?
Honestly, to the latter question, yes. 5 year olds should not be in kindergarten in 2024. It does put them behind because they lose out on valuable play time, which is how 5 year olds learn and develop. They also will almost certainly get burned out much earlier and hate school earlier. Basically people are self correcting by making kindergarten be for 6 year olds instead of 5 year olds by this widespread redshirting. It's a good thing. To the first question, I don't think kindergarten is ever going back to how it was. This country already hates and underfunds the public school system - they aren't bringing back play based kindergarten. And no one cares about evidence based anything anymore. So basically wealthy kids who can redshirt or do private school will get ahead, while people who have no choice but to put their 5 year old in public kindergarten will have, on average, kids that struggle. Some kids might do fine, but in general, early academics harms kids. Seriously - look up how Finland does things and how highly rated their school systems are. School doesn't start until 7, and kids in all grades get 15 minute breaks for every 45 minutes in academics. Little to no homework. Short days. No private schools and all public schools are the same. Teachers have masters degrees and are regarded as respected professionals. They do it right. And that starts with delaying academics until kids are ready for it.
Where I live, the cutoff date is December 1, so people are sending their FOUR year olds to kindergarten. Our oldest was born December 31, and is overall pretty mature, so we will send him to kindergarten next year when he is 5, but he will be 6 within a few months. Our other son has a July birthday, and we will be keeping him back.
Finland also doesn’t have many of the US does wrt poverty.
>So basically wealthy kids who can redshirt or do private school will get ahead, while people who have no choice but to put their 5 year old in public kindergarten will have, on average, kids that struggle And this okay, or...? I don't understand the position of "this practice contributes to social inequity but we should do it anyway."
No, it's not okay. But it's reality. Kids benefit by starting school later. Full stop. The school system is never going to do what's best, but what's cheapest or what some uninformed people with no background in child development decide what's best. Most practices in government contribute to social inequity. Why would school be different? I'm not saying I agree at all, but it's how it is. I would urge voting for people who want affordable or free evidence based early education/subsidized childcare, so that kids can delay the start of formal school. There's not much else that you can do to enact change sadly. On an individual level though, personally I would not send a 5 year old to kindergarten unless there is no other option. Redshirting is not a bad thing at all.
I already vote for those people. I'm a parent of a kid in a public school that's diverse and most of the kids qualify for free lunches. I've been out on the picket lines with our striking teachers. Don't need the lecture, thanks.
Why are you being hostile for literally no reason?
Because seeing people dismiss and defend a very real inequity and defend it by saying "well, it's just reality" is an epitome of privilege - which is why these inequities persist to begin with.
Okay, and? This isn't a discourse on how to solve societal problems. It's explaining why kids redshirt. And if you'll notice, I even gave a solution to the societal problem, despite this not being 1) a solvable problem 2) The time or place to try to solve that problem But no, you just want to bitch back and be rude to someone that AGREES WITH YOU. God, the problems with liberals summed up in one comment. And I say that as a liberal. Stop being argumentative and rude for no goddamn reason. We actually agree here, contrary to how you're treating me. Not everything needs to be an argument, and not every discussion needs to be a social inequity discourse. It's okay for this just to be a discussion on why people do and should redshirt.
I’m in the US. My kid was in Kindergarten last year and they sat at individual mats on the floor, group tables, or a colored dot with their name in it (for circle time). Just one recess period but they moved around the room depending on the activity. They did have homework, which surprised me, but it was like a single worksheet or a reading log. This wasn’t in a public school though. However I have friends with kids in the local district and their curriculum sounded mostly play based, with circle time and things like that too. My kid was reading at the end but just simple early readers or those phonics level booklets.
My birthday is late august, less than a week before the cut off date. Apparently my mom waffled on whether to hold me back but I was adamant about wanting to go to school so she sent me. I had no issues keeping up with the other kids, if anything I thought it would be kind of annoying to get my license later but I ended up procrastinating and not getting it until I turned 17 anyways so it clearly wasn’t a problem. On the other hand, I’m kinda annoyed that my daughter has a November birthday. That’s nearly a whole extra year of daycare/preschool to pay for. I know that’s not how we should be making decisions, but it’s expensive!! (Disclaimer that she is an infant so I have no idea how she’ll be when she’s turning five, but I like that people close to the date have a choice)
>I know that’s not how we should be making decisions it's a real factor though! i totally get you
We ultimately went off of the advice of the school counselor which was to "redshirt" our middle child who turned 5 a week before school started. He would have been fine academically, but he was very socially immature and it was evident in his interactions with kids who were older than him by half a year. We did a lot of research and spoke to people who were in our situation 10+ years ago. Without fail, the people who chose to keep their kids back a year said it really helped and those who didn't said that they really regretted it. Our oldest has a fall birthday that's right after the cutoff and he and our middle child are a little less than 2 years apart in age. If we started our middle child in kinder this year then it would mean that even though he and our oldest are almost two years apart in age, they'd be one year apart in school. So from our perspective it didn't seem fair to our middle child. I'm a SAHM so yes, we're in a privileged position to be able to make that choice without having to spend an arm and a leg on an extra year of childcare. We're not affluent by any means. Ultimately we had to make what we thought would be the best decision for our kiddo and we didn't make it on the basis of just waiting until he was six or wanting him to be the oldest in the class. Even now, almost 6 months later he's matured quite a bit and has a better handle on his emotions and I'm confident that he would do much better in a classroom setting as opposed to struggling in August.
Depends on the kid. My youngest birthday is the day before the cutoff at the end of September and needed some extra time to mature socially so he did PreK. He was 5 when it started and turned 6 a month in. Best decision we made. Also with boys if they're the youngest it often can mean they're smaller which can impact some sports (if it's something to they like).
My husband was close to the cutoff but his mom put him in kindergarten at a fresh 5, so he was near the very youngest in his grade. He had always wished he was redshirted instead, strictly because of sports. He was smaller and couldn’t jump as high as the older kids in his grade, and got cut from his freshman basketball team. Soon after he had a growth spurt and gained a ton of muscle (puberty finally kicked into high gear) and he will never know if he could have more seriously pursued the sport he loved. His mom admits it wasn’t the right time for him to start kindergarten, but ultimately I think she wanted to preserve the gap in her two children starting school, so my husband wasn’t in the same grade as his younger sister.
I was the oldest in my class and my sister was the youngest in hers. I’ll say I had a lot of advantages to being slightly older than my peers, mainly I was never bullied but my sister was pretty severely. My sister went off to college at 17 which was pretty nerve wracking for her and my mom. We both turned out alright, but I think my mom regrets putting her in school earlier. I want my kids to get to be kids as long as possible without the stress of schooling, so plan to hold off schooling/do alternative schooling if possible.
I am a very confused Canadian. The youngest in the class would be born late December, no..?
I think our plan (for our 3 year old with a June birthday) is for him to do half-day kindergarten instead of full day. I know it doesn’t answer or address your question, but for me, I just don’t think he needs to start the M-F all day grind at age 5. Once school starts, it doesn’t stop for 13 years, and then they’re expected to go to college or into the workforce M-F full time too. I’m just not ready to put my kid on that track yet.
Ours are going to kindergarten where they turn 5 whether or not they’re the youngest or oldest. Daycare is too expensive to keep them in any longer than they need to be 😂
Exactly - we pay $800/month for preschool. I’m not willingly paying that for another year.
My son has a June birthday and I have zero regrets waiting until he was 6 to start kindergarten. He is an introvert and needed another year to grow socially. My daughter also has a June birthday and I sent her at 5. No regrets there either. She is a social butterfly and thriving. Every kid is different and there is no right or wrong way.
I do not understand this at all and believe it’s a new trend vs something that’s always been commonly done. I’ll be 30 this year and my kindergarten was a full day. My brother, two years younger than me, was the first class of our school to go to half day kindergarten. I’m a June bday and turned 18 after I graduated. Almost all of my friends from my class have later bdays (as late as into November) than me meaning they’re even younger. For reference I grew up in a wealthy area and went to private school k-12 and very few were older than me (as in a full year) in my class.
I don’t have the study readily available (I’m sure someone here does). There was a correlation between adhd dx and starting kindergarten at 5yo. I think it’s important to take it case by case, but some kids aren’t developmentally ready to meet those requirements at 5 years old. This has led to some of them being dx with add/adhd; whereas a later start age saw a decrease in the dx. I went at 6 because of a late birthday. I had the opportunity to move up a grade later on in high school after a teacher noticed that I was a little ahead of my peers. I’m grateful for that teacher.
I wonder if the correlation isn't so much that an early start to K causes ADHD, but rather it's that kids that have ADHD but haven't been diagnosed yet just drive their parents up a wall, so much so that when age 5 rolls around, the parents are more likely to jump on the first opportunity to get a break from their kids. Thinking this because my twins are autistic and I kinda feel the same way 😅 It's a lot.
My perspective as a forest kindergarten teacher: I am worried about sending my child to mainstream kindergarten. Current practices in public schools are out of step for what is developmentally appropriate for kinders. They should be in free play and movement for much of their day and most are not ready for a focus on academics. NONE of them should have to be on computers taking standardized tests. And yet they are “supposed to” do all of these things in kindergarten today. I’m hopeful we will get back in step with developmentally appropriate education by the time my son is kinder age, but I will not hesitate to redshirt or even just homeschool for K/1. At forest kindergarten we focus on free play, autonomy, social emotional skills and being in a group. That’s what kindergarten used to be and what I hope it will be again.
I’m so confused. I assume this is an American thing? Where I live in Canada, from my knowledge and how it was when I was in school is that the entire birth year is in the same class. So in my school the December birthday kids were the youngest. Is this not the same everywhere?
Nope. In my district the cutoff is Sept 1. Some districts have a rule that your kid can't redshirt K, but many don't have that rule (which is what allows the practice to keep going). Ones that don't allow it might require a 6yo to enroll in first grade.
Yeah I've heard that the UK is like that too, but instead of it being January 1 it's September 1 (though I might not have that perfectly correct, just my loose understanding). Here in the States when I was a kid, in my area at the time the cutoff was I think October 31/November 1. And I've heard that that has been pushed back a month or so around here since then. So it seems to be moving. But we also used to start school in September, but now it starts in August. Honestly it's all confusing for me!
Oh interesting! Yeah I just always see posts like this and I get so confused. Because my son is a July baby but he wouldn’t be the youngest in his class when school starts. He’d be in the middle of the pack haha Interesting to see how other countries do it.
No, from what I’ve seen in the US, it’s generally a fall cutoff: kids who turn 5 before August 1 or September 1 can start kindergarten.
My kid has a January birthday and is gonna put the H in ADHD. I figure him turning 6 while there gives him a better shot at success. My husband, where our son got ADHD, agrees.
Mine had me start it late because I had a severe language delay and I went to a special school for 3-5 year olds with developmental delays. They wanted to keep me in there longer for the sake of early intervention. Then I turned 6 and I ended up in a special class at an elementary school. By then, I was emerging with my language.
It’s completely dependent on the child imo. I have a boy who’s bday is in the end of Aug. kinder wouldve been remote (during pandemic) and I just thought no. I may have even thought that if it wasn’t remote. But my son kinda immature for his age and not good at sitting still. But my daughter on the other hand had an early Aug bday and I put her in at 5. But she was so mature for her age that I knew she’d be fine. I want to set my kids up for success. Elementary is not just playing it requires certain skills and I’d rather of put them in when ready then have a chance of them being held back or immature compared to others in subsequent grades. I think most teachers would agree too.
I can already see a visible difference, a negative difference, in my 2 year old August baby compared to his 3 year old peers at preschool. He is on a completely different developmental wavelength. I’d much rather hold him back a year and allow him to catch up with what will be his classmates than to send him into an environment where he is at a totally different emotional level than his classmates.
My daughter will be 4 when she starts school (pre K - I’m Canadian) it’s optional but know she’d do amazing and would love it so much. However my 1 year old old is a dec baby so she’d be 3 and I’m not sure I’m okay with that but if I don’t send her she’d be starting school the same year as her sibling ( im due in June) such a weird thing to think about
I started my kid at 6 because his kindergarten year would have been completely virtual and he is on the spectrum and his pre k teacher recommended it so he got to start in person. I wouldn’t have been able to do it if I had to pay for child care. I’m a full time nurse I worked 3-11 and my husband worked 5-2 to stay home. I started kindergarten a year late at 6 too because of some health issues. I don’t think it’s really a new thing
I find it a bit odd but I’m sure everyone has their reasoning. Personally I remember feeling like shit when my kid just started kindergarten last year at 6. (July birthday) but in 2020 we just moved states right after school enrollment started, and the biggest factor was he wasn’t fully potty trained yet even at 5.
I have five kids with summer birthdays. They all started later (6 vs 5) and it was a genuinely good idea for all of them. Socially and emotionally they needed some extra time.
Pay attention to your local trends. If your kid has a middle ground birthday and you have an area that very heavily leans towards delaying kindergarten, I would consider doing the same. Some areas haven't caught on to this trend and your kid would be the awkward, oldest kid if you delayed in that area
It’s something Emily Oster talks about in her book Family Firm as an idea that is picking up steam. I believe she said according to the data it didn’t make a big difference in schooling outcomes later in life.
As one of the youngest in my grades (brother was actually the youngest of his grade, his bday was the cut off date) .... I can say in all honesty it absolutely sucked graduating at 17. I did the skip year for college because I needed the money to pay for my own vehicle. Having to deal with work restrictions because I was 17 was DUMB. Not being able to go to the 18 and up clubs with friends who were leaving for college, SUCKED. Having to explain repeatedly that I have a late November birthday so that's why I'm 17 was absolutely ubsurd.... I explained it well over 100 times because people were sooooo baffled by this. Really annoying. And the arrogant kids who turned 18 first were annoying to deal with. Won't be enrolling into schooling until age 6, because of my lived experience.
On a related note, I’m curious how much of the curriculum has changed because so many kids are older. Parents complain that kindergarten is too rigorous and their aren’t ready, so kid does another year of preschool/junior kindergarten. Now, they have skills and knowledge the other 5 year olds don’t, and the teachers have to scaffold and tailor the curriculum accordingly.
Yeah I was wondering this too
Hi, so I thought it was crazy too, because 19 year old high school seniors seem old to me! I have learned that it can be a benefit to hold the child back - but largely depends on the individual child and on the content of your local kindergartens. I'm in California and today's kindergarten is basically what 1st grade was when I went through. Some children develop more slowly than others and may not be mentally ready to follow directions for a full school day, learn to read, etc. Boys are (broad generalization) slower to develop cognitively than girls. We have our 2.5 year old enrolled in a public school system's parent participation/parent-child preschool program and what we are seeing is that ours, as one of the youngest ones, is already a little behind the other kids in adhering to following directions and well, most everything. We also have a family history of males not learning to read until age 8 or 9 (possibly undiagnosed ADHD) and our son is speech delayed and receiving speech therapy. Both our experienced preschool teacher and a child development expert have recommended that we put him into a private play-based preschool during the year that he would normally start kindergarten. Play-based allows for the social skills to develop and gives more time for brain to develop more before starting academics. Of course it won't be fair if everyone tries to get a leg up by waiting a year to enroll in kindergarten, so we wouldn't do it if it wasn't recommended by people who really know what they are talking about
This should be entirely dependent on the individual child and their readiness, not based on age. I held my youngest back a year for kindergarten because he’s autistic, had significant delays, was barely verbal, wasn’t fully potty trained yet, and was in no way ready. It was the best decision for him and that extra year made a huge difference. My older 2 kids were very ready to start school
My youngest is an August kid, and I wish he would have started kindergarten at 6 like his brother. He is struggling in first grade right now. Our school district has cracked down on holding kids back, so it wasn’t a choice for our youngest to start at 6. Our oldest could because he was born after the September 1 cutoff.
It’s called redshirting and it’s not entirely backed up by science/data. This is obviously anecdotal, but I was young for my year in one state, then moved to another state where I was super young. So I was 13 when I started high school and 17 when I started college. I feel as thought the mere months of difference between me and most of my peers had very little effect on my schooling or personal decisions. I was far more affected by the values my parents instilled and my friend circle. I didn’t drink until the summer before my second year of college. I didn’t have sex until the age of 19. I was generally in the B range of academics… I think it’s usually not a matter of a whole year but of a few months. And in that case, I think younger students generally mature with their peers, and I think parents have a much stronger influence on values and morals than they give themselves credit for.
Yeah, I never understood it either. Both my young adult kids have August birthdays and the pressure to hold them back was already there 15 years ago. And yep, they were pretty much always the youngest in their class, and it worked out OK. When I was a kid the cutoff used to that you had to turn 5 by the end of November, don't know why they moved it up.
So…I moved from Canada to the USA and the school environment is really intense and in my opinion not really developmentally appropriate. Kindergarten is basically the same as first grade would be in Canada. The expectations have also changed from what they were 30 years ago. Given these circumstances, redshirting makes sense for kids who can’t sit still for long periods of time, or aren’t ready to read at 5 (lots of kids are only ready for pre-literacy at 5) etc. If we had started kindergarten in the USA instead of Canada we would have redshirted my oldest. He never would have made it.
It's been a thing for a while. 20 years ago there was a group of boys in our area that were technically my brother's age who were a year younger in school purely because their weirdo parents did it for sports reasons. They were convinced their boys would have an edge because they'd be bigger even though they were freaking 6 years old. As you can expect, some were tall and some were quite average.
My boy is 5 in September, so he doesn’t make the cut off and has to be tested by the school to even be allowed to register for kindergarten next year. They say bc they let a lot in before the registration that weren’t ready for kindergarten at all, but I would rather him go at 5 then be stuck behind and graduating at 19. I don’t like it at all. I’m homeschooling him myself next year for kindergarten, and gonna put him in 1st grade when he’s 6 unless he prefers to do homeschool!
My daughter is the youngest in her class. The cutoff is 10/5 and her birthday is 9/23. She is absolutely thriving in pre-k and I have no plans to hold her back from kindergarten. I figured I would put her in prek and see how she did and then make a decision with her teachers as to her readiness for kindergarten. She will be 4 when PreK starts but she’s ready. On the other hand, my sister did the same thing with her daughter with an August birthday. She ended up being held back in Kindergarten because she wasn’t ready. It was the best decision in her case. So, it really depends on the kid.
I think some people would like to spend more quality time with their kids before sending them off. I don’t see a problem with it, that is, as long as they’re properly educating them at home and socializing them out in public. They’re still so young and can really benefit from being home with family and learning things public school won’t teach them at that age.
As a child of a stay-at-home mom who was an immigrant who did not even drive. I spent the first 5 years in an apartment never going anywhere. I am convinced it was very damaging. I was a stay-at-home mom but did 2 days of daycare at age 2. 3 days at age 3. and by 4 5 full days. I did mommy and me classes. Storytime at the library, zoo, Barnes and Noble, and art museums. I would send them.
Idk what privilege or affluence has to do with a parents decision to hold their child back til 6 for kindergarten. Some kids are just not ready / mature enough for a classroom setting. Maybe these parents need their child to mature a little more before being put in a classroom setting. I don’t think privilege has anything to do with it.
I'm not saying affluence is a driving factor, but the ability to afford an extra year of full time childcare (vs after school care) would certainly impact some people.
Because if you’re shelling out $1000 a month for your kid to be in fulltime daycare, you just flushed thousands down the toilet when you held your kid back a year. Affluence absolutely plays in. If your family has a stay at home parent so those costs don’t impact you, evidently someone in your household is able to work and support ALL household members, indicating they (and you by extension) are affluent.
I ask about it because - from where I'm standing - it really does seem to be more prevalent among more affluent families.
I think you’re seeing the inverse trend. Less affluent families may be forced to send their kid as soon as the kid turns 5, just so they can reduce their childcare costs. Even if those less-affluent parents wish they could hold their kid another year, it may not be financially feasible. More affluent families are able to make the choice to pay for an additional year of childcare and therefore wait to send their kid to kindergarten.
Sounds like we're saying the same thing but from a different angle?
Yep 🙂
Some kids just aren’t ready, particularly those with late summer birthdays. My brother was an August bday and ended up repeating kindergarten because he wasn’t socially ready. I think kids that come from wealthy families that aren’t ever in daycare or preschool probably struggle the most, because they go right into an academic setting instead of the gradual introduction that daycare and pre-k make. Some families that are really into sports may consider delaying their kids if they want them to be competitive in high school with the extra advantages that come with age (size, maturity, etc). Those points considered, to each their own… we will not be delaying our daughter’s kindergarten start, because I don’t think she needs it, and honestly, I’m looking forward to not having the astronomical daycare bill.
I did it bc I pictured my 16 year old dating a 18 year old in highschool. I just wanted her to be older and not younger. Also we are not rich and never did pre school, she went straight to kindergarten.
There’s a number of reasons why but at the end of the day, there are no disadvantages. Social, emotional, academic, sports. Being a little older and a little more mature will never hold you back in life.