There’s an excellent article in the New York Times today addressing the practice of redshirting, or delaying a child’s entrance into kindergarten by a year. The reality is that the parents who are doing this are trying to give their child an edge because, of course, a child who is a year older will be larger, smarter, more ready to handle the challenges kindergarten throws their way. When they get to high school, they’re more likely to get the varsity sports positions and, therefore, more likely to get picked for college scholarships. It’s a scary thought!
But is it scary enough for most parents to engage in the practice? For working low-to-middle class parents, I’d wager not. We pay an equivalent amount for our mortgage and Pumpkinhead’s Montessori tuition. The idea of continuing that for two years instead of one is quite off-putting. And we only have one child. For those parents who have two, I can only imagine how excited they will be to get rid of that monthly financial burden. We haven’t had a second child in part because the childcare costs would be crippling. The question is whether there is such a high percentage of parents are engaging in this practice as to make it detrimental for our children to enter school “on time”. If everyone holds their kids back, would we be hurting Pumpkinhead to send him on schedule? I hate that we even have to think about it.
Oh, The Joys
August 21, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Thanks for directing me here. It has been so helpful to get a full range of perspectives. I think the sanest thing any of the comments have said is to base this kind of decision on your individual child, right?!
Gunfighter
June 4, 2007 at 10:51 am
soccergirl missed our cutoff date, here in Virginia by just a couple of weeks… so she had to wait a year. We thought it was a year well-spent.
I was a late birthday baby, too… by over a month. My mom, a single parent, plain ol’ lied to the school about my age, and stuck me in there anyway. I don’t think that she did me any favors.
ptlawmom
June 3, 2007 at 3:40 pm
LawSchoolMom, I guess I should be glad I at least have a choice. Ick. You’re right, you can’t win! On the plus side, if the experts are right, your kid should be larger/smarter than most of his peers since he’ll only have September and August kids ahead of him.
LawSchoolMom
June 3, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Holding Bubba back a year is an issue we often discuss but something we most likely will not do.
His October birthday means he misses the age cut-off by more than two months, which would make him a seven year old kindie if we redshirt him. The only other way for him to start school at five is if we present written verification of attendance at private or parochial kindergarten.
So, we either pay for private kindergarten or an extra year of preschool. We can’t win either way.
ptlawmom
June 3, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Zuska, I have a December birthday, too, which makes it harder to decide whether its worth it. Pumpkinhead was a mid-summer baby. When I was in elementary school we were in another country where school was year-round so it wasn’t as much of an issue.
zuska
June 3, 2007 at 12:34 pm
My older daughter (now 10), has a late September birthday. I really struggled over when to send her, because I have a December birthday, and was always the youngest, and didn’t really like it at all. I also went off to college at 17, and so would she if she started kindergarten that year.
So I held her – even though preschool/daycare was very expensive in the SF Bay Area. I do not think that I would have made a decision which I saw as affecting my child’s well-being for her entire life (I was looking ahead to driver’s licenses, graduation and college) based on one year’s expenses. I had NO money at the time, either.
Guess what, though? By the next fall, she was reading proficiently, and had a hard time making friends with the other kids going into kindergarten, b/c she was on a higher cognitive level. She ended up going straight into 1st grade, on the recommendation of preschool, kindergarten and 1st grade teachers after evaluation.
I do not, and never will, understand the idea of holding your kid back to give them an “edge.” It never occurred to me that holding E would give her an “edge,” and I think it’s a nasty concept. It’s also screwing with class ages and school enrollment, from things I’ve heard.
It was such a hard decision, I swore that the first advice I’ll give to anyone who’s thinking of having kids is “don’t give birth in the fall!”
Christa
June 3, 2007 at 11:41 am
We’ve been contemplating this too, but not to give Hamlet an edge – more like, to give him a fair shake. In addition to being one of the youngest in his would-be class, he’d also be one of the smallest. Even if he’s exactly where he should be intellectually, I know from my own experience that this actually matters less than where he is emotionally.
What’s a shame is that parents took the logic of people in our position and turned it around to make it still more of an advantage for their own.