Q&A: Red-shirting for Kindergarten

Tricia writes:

"how do people feel about academic red-shirting, ie, the practice of holding kids back before starting kindergarten?

I have a boy with a late July birthday, and am hearing a ton of conflicting info about whether this is a good idea or not.  Regardless of the consensus, the decision to hold back does seem to be increasingly popular.

Data points: My son has been in full-time child care since he's been 6 mos old, he's totally developmentally normal on all scales, and his current preschool (a wonderful Reggio school) says they believe he'll be ready for Kindergarten next fall. (he was born in July '06, so will turn five in July '11, and would be scheduled to start Kindergarten at our public school in September '11). 

My own sense of him is that he's a pretty sweet little guy who excels in the verbal / cognitive areas, is solidly average in physical /emotional areas.  In other words, I think he'd be fine.  but. . .he is pretty easily led.  meaning, he definitely is a "follower" in terms of behavior, and we see a lot of acting out when he's around older kids, or kids whose parents maybe don't share the same parenting philosophy (eg, he seems to relish engaging in more destructive or mean-spirited play when he sees it demonstrated, probably b/c it isn't tolerated at home or at the Reggio-based school).  In a public school, my sense is that there's a lot more of those sorts of opportunities for that behavior b/c it's a different environment. (note that i'm not saying a bad environment--just different.  i'm a believer in public school for many reasons, and the exposure to all sorts of different experiences is one of those reasons).  I wonder if holding him back a year will leave him better equipped to hold his own among his peer group.

i also get the sense--no hard data to back this up, just discussions w/ other moms who work in public school systems or moms who are teachers---that kids who are held back are indeed more capable of exhibiting the skills required in school:  listen, follow instructions, control impulses, etc.--in part b/c they're older, but also in part b/c there then exists a feedback loop.  an older kid who is "better" behaved is likely to get more positive attention from a teacher, and the child is further inspired to a standard of behavior, and so on and so on.  So, i worry that by sending a younger child to school who maybe would not be as equipped to exhibit those standards of behavior due to age, he'll be pegged as a "not-as-good" kid, and thus not get the positive attention and feedback.

am i making sense? overthinking?  did you ever think about this w/ your boys?  have any of your readers?"

I have no dog in this hunt. I didn't have the option, as in NYC public schools it's totally determined by when your birthday is and I haven't heard of anyone ever getting an exception. But both of my kids' birthdays are in the first half of the year anyway, so I wouldn't have considered it for either of them.

So I don't really have an opinion, but I'd like to point out one thing: Cutoffs are all arbitrary. They're different across the country, so when your child starts Kindergarten is solely determined by where you happen to live and when the cutoffs are there.

If the cutoff is "Has to be 5 by the first day of school in August," then a kid with a July birthday is going to be one of the youngest in the class, and red-shirting might make sense. If that same kid lived in NYC, where the cutoff is "Must turn 5 by December 31 of the year in which s/he starts Kindergarten," that same kid with the July birthday would be older than half the kids in his class, so red-shirting probably wouldn't make sense.

So I don't see this as any moral issue at all, just making a decision based on the logistics of when your kid came out (what if school starts next year on August 23 but the pitocin induction you had 4 years ago didn't happen to take so your kid didn't come out until August 24, which was two days before the first day of school in the next school district over, etc.) and what the cutoff date happens to be where you are.

Now, those of you who have a strong opinion, or who have done it or who considered doing it but not done it, or who had kids in your kids' class who were or weren't red-shirted, or are teachers, or just want to talk about how hilarious it is thatw e call this "red-shirting" to begin with, have at it in the comments, please.

Comments

[Shannon]

I am pro-redshirting.

I grew up in CA, where the cutoff was Dec. 1. I had several male classmates who had fall birthdays and had been redshirted. They were good students and well-rounded. I think they also liked being able to turn 16 first, and, later, 21.

As a teacher, I developed the opinion that, unless your child is extremely physically large for his age, there is absolutely no academic harm to be done from redshirting.

Can I ask whether it's full-day or half-day kindergarten? I personally know a mom who is debating red-shirting because her kid will be young and it's an all-day program at her public school. (Again, arbitrary, because if she just moved a few blocks east she would be in a half-day district.)

[Michelle]

I do find it sot of hilarious to refer to this as "redshirting". Hee!

But in general I find the notion of holding a child back just due to their late birthday sort of silly and it kind of drives me crazy. Particularly since sports often gets brought up as a supporting reason (not that Tricia did but it happens A LOT in my experience). Which is sort of insane because its not really a factor until middle school or high school even as most team sports for younger kids are still based on ages, at least in my area.

I mean certainly if your child isn't ready for kindergarten, then that's one thing. But Tricia has almost a whole year for her son to mature and to have some conversations about doing what is right, etc. And his personality probably isn't going to change just by holding him back another year.

For a data point, my oldest son has an early May birthday and will be going to kindergarten next year. Frankly he could have started this year as he is very verbal. My youngest has a late July birthday and I'm not planning to "redshirt" him. Unless there is a compelling reason to do so. But seeing as he just turned 1, I have some time. :-)

[cat19]

I was a December kid, right in the middle of the pack by age.

I was a geek, and also academically ahead of my classmates K-6, so I was bored in school and had increasing social problems. The geekiness was a huge part of this; it left me out of step with them socially; I was reading matrix algebra for fun and other girls were into the Hardy Boys, KWIM? Finally my parents and the school decided to have me skip 7th grade and go straight into 8th. It didn't fix my social problems (it made them far far worse), though it helped briefly with the school boredom.

So my thought is twofold:
1) if you're going to skip your child, it's better to do at an age when everyone is switching schools (entering K, entering middle school or high school). My jump/switch was in the middle of middle school (6th-8th grades in my hometown); NOT a good idea.

2) skipping is an all-or-nothing solution to possible academic or social problems. I would've been much better off with some intensive social skills training (I was clueless about how to get along with kids around me who acted like *kids*: I always preferred adults) and some outside enrichment activities that got me a chance to meet other kids with similar interests.

So if, as with the OP, the issue is your kid being a follower or being affected by toxic behavior in other kids, then there are likely other approaches to work with him (or the school) on that, and those other approaches can have other long-term benefits. Plus it is taking a big leap of faith on time making or not making a difference, as opposed to targeting a specific concern.

For example, if you take the year's worth of preschool money and put it into some other thing... what could you do? Can you put some fraction of the money into having biweekly playdates at your house with parents of kids with similar concerns, to try to build a group of classmates that fight bullying? Can you see if your school has an anti-bullying curriculum or could you and other parents use some of that redshirt money to help fund one for the school? Can you find a thing he's great at and give him lots of chances to practice it and build confidence?

I'm not inherently opposed to red-shirting, or to letting a kid jump or stay back; I just think it can be a global approach to a local problem.

[Slim]

My boys have late summer birthdays and we didn't red-shirt. Most of his friends started on time, too; kids in the oldest's class who were red-shirted are now, in late elementary school, generally behind the curve socially and academically. So there may be underlying issues that are none of my business, and it needs to be the parents' choice.
I will, however, urge that you learn more about your school options and the expectations for kids. It is very popular to say that kindergarten is the new first grade, and in some school districts, that is the case. But our district believes in treating five-year-olds like five-year-olds. I don't think it's the only one out there.
It's also popular to say that schools aren't designed for boys (until at some point, schools are designed for girls, and we need to do something about including them in class discussions). Again, that is true in some places, but not true in many.
A neighbor redshirted her son, and the school can accommodate him academically, he is not interested in socializing with kids a year younger. So recess kinda sucks for him.
Finally, don't think of this in terms of private vs public school. The environment of a school isn't solely determined by who's paying for it.

[Mary W.]

In our school, I would say it is about half and half as to whether a parent will delay a year for a kid with a summer birthday (Sept. 1 cut off) and they are more likely to delay if they have a boy. My daughter's birthday is July 31 and there was no question of redshirting her last year, she was more than ready and has done beautifully (she was in a Reggio child care center too!). Since we are in a private school they do screen the kindergartners in March prior to the school year, and the K teachers have been known to recommend waiting a year. I think you really need to look at your son next year and make the decision then. I certainly would not automatically redshirt, but leave your options open.

My husband has a November birthday so he was the oldest in his class when he was in kindergarten. He was always ahead of his class and his family moved alot so he ended up skipping 5th grade at one of the moves and ended up being the youngest. That worked out for him.

[Brooke]

I think the biggest point here is that the mom here has a whole year (well, almost) to decide. I think you'll have a much better idea next summer what you should do for your son.

We lived in a state with a hard and fast Sept 1 cutoff when my son was born. We now live in a state with a Dec 1 cutoff. My son (of course!) was born in Oct. I expect he'll start when he is almost 6 instead of almost 5. We just had that mindset from when he was born.

My mom was an elementary school teacher, and she always recommends that boys be held back. Of course she is talking about fall not summer birthdays.

We have friends whose daughter misses the Aug 31 cutoff by two days which is really frustrating since her school doesn't even start until after Labor Day.

[Mama Fuss]

I think you have to evaluate your kid individually. If socially and mentally and emotionally, you think he's ready for school, then go for it. Here in FL, the rule is September 1st - I was born a week before that and my mom always wishes she had held me back - that maybe I would have had an easier time academically if I had been a little more mature and not basically the youngest kid in my class.

It sounds to me like all the school-related stuff he's ready for, but maybe the social stuff you're worried he won't be strong enough yet to withstand peer-pressure. If you think another year will develop that maturity in him, and it works to hold him back, then go for it. But if he's a laid back kid who is naturally a follower, regardless of the age of the other kids, then that's not likely to change in the next year and you're going to run into it next year, too... then, why hold him back if it's not going to be all that beneficial?

[Jane]

As an elementary school Speech Language Pathologist for 20 years, I would encourage you to wait a year to send him to kindergarten if you are questioning it at all. So many ways it can be beneficial for your child with almost no downside except for paying for another year of childcare/preschool. We factor in late birthdays all the way to 2nd grade as being possibly related to academic and social/emotional issues that come up.

[zed]

I liked the discussion on this topic in Pink Brain Blue Brain by Lise Eliot. She comes out basically against the idea, and mentions it's driven mostly by competitiveness. There's also an element of redshirt 'creep' where the cutoffs keep shifting later. And I think I remember a study she mentions where redshirting is much more common in affluent/white communities, which does make you think about the underlying motives. Obviously this is all about general trends and doesn't help make an individual like Tricia make a choice for her son, but I thought it was an interesting discussion.

[B]

I think if your gut is saying to hold out another year, you have to trust your gut don't you? If you lived in my area, you'd have till at least February to decide so you've definitely got some time to witness his behavior and see how he develops.

My daughter is a few months older than your son and I think she's on target to start next fall. For one, she's psyched about the idea from watching PBS shows - she thinks school is the bee's knees and can't wait to get there. But if I had any sort of doubts that she wasn't ready ... I'd just hold out on her a bit longer.

As for data points? How about my marriage. My husband and I are both October babies; he's 19 days older than I am. I started Kindergarten at 4 and was already reading. He started Kindergarten at 5 and learned to read while there. When we met at the age of 21, I was a year ahead of him in college but otherwise, we're basically just as smart and socially adept as the other. My high school class reunions are just one year earlier than his. He has no lingering trauma from being one of the older kids in his classes; I have none from being one of the youngest.

Good luck! I think you are on track to keep him out of school one final year. Trust your gut.

[nella]

I'm so glad this came up becuase we are grappling with this at our house, as well. My oldest is an early fall birthday (he'll be 4 in just a couple of weeks). He's just starting 3 half day/week preschool this year and we expect that he'll do preschool again next year before entering kindergarten. So for now, we have made the choice to hold him back regardless of what the cutoff is for our area.

This is mostly due to the fact that my husband, his father, has the same birthday and when he was little he was sent to kindergarten at age 4, something that, to this day, he's a little upset about because he always felt like he lagged behind socially. Academically he excelled (now holds a doctorate from an Ivy League), but he was never as old as everyone else and that really bothered him his entire school career. Since I am a spring birthday I was always right in with the rest of the pack so I just have to take his word for it.

We also don't really feel like our son is going to be ready for kindergarten at such a young age and really, why should he be? He has the rest of his life to be in school all day everyday and we don't want to make school a miserable experience for him if he feels he is falling behind the other kids. There's also the fear of him being labeled a problem kid at school if he is younger and unable to keep up academically and be on the same level socially with his peers(e.g. the recent report that many kids are diagnosed ADHD when in fact they are just young).

Anyway....I think it's up to the parent to know their child and what they think is best for them. I know as a society we want to push our kids to get out there and excel in school as fast as possible but I think it's most important to just know your kid and how they would handle being at school.

[marci]

i don't have this to worry about yet - he's 3 1/2 - but i feel pretty sure i'll be holding jameson back. he's been held back in preschool, for goodness sake...(former preemie, developmental delays).

so i have nothing against it, but also agree with many previous posters that it seems the original poster is confident of her son's abilities in all areas but one, so perhaps the better choice would be bolster that one area & let him go to k 'on time'.

[Mogget]

I have some experience with this concern. My son's birthday is in early June and school starts for us in early August. I had concerns right up until the middle of July that he might not be ready for school "on time" emotionally. I was certain that academically he would be fine; I just had concerns about how well he would integrate and behave. (FWIW, I had never heard of this as "red shirting", I called it "delayed entry". "Red Shirting" sounds more fun). At the end of June/early July, it was like someone had flipped a switch and he was just so Grown Up! so, with just normal reservations, I sent him off to Kindergarten this year.

Fast-forward three weeks later, and due to over crowing (28 students per Kindergarten class) the school decided that they needed to create a Kindergarten/1st grade split. After assessment of the Kinders’ emotional, academic, and behavioral abilities, my DS was selected to participate in the split class. I had severe concern about this (but that’s for another day and another cup of coffee), but he has been in this more challenging class for a week now and seems to be integrating well. He has homework (which he didn’t have in the other class), is making friends, and comes home exhausted but happy.

So, my advice to Tricia would really to be to wait. Don’t make any decisions until you get closer to time for school to start. You may find that the things that concern you now are no longer a concern 6 months from now. A few posts back Moxie talked about getting your groove back when your youngest turns 5. Although my DS is not my youngest so I haven’t gotten a full taste of this, I was really shocked about the amount of change I saw in my son, literally in a few weeks after he turned 5.

[anon]

I am really frustrated about the whole "redshirting" issue. My 4yo daughter has a late August birthday in a state with a September 1 cutoff. I know people with very typical 4yo with Feb-March birthdays who are considering holding their children back from kindergarten next fall. One family, because the child still naps. The other, so that their son would have a better chance of being a "leader." I don't get it. If they do this, their kids are going to be 6.5 when they start kindergarten! This is one of the things that freaks me out. I'm supposed to possibly put my barely-turned 5yo in a class with 6.5-year-olds?

Anyway, our daughter (who, incidentally, still naps every afternoon) is generally very reserved and timid in classroom situations. She's very similar to my husband and me in that regard, so I'm guessing some of it is her personality. (My husband, with his December birthday, was always one of the youngest in school.) Our plan is to talk with her pre-K teachers and also to tour our neighborhood school this fall. My friend, who is a kindergarten teacher in another district, recommended that we talk to the principal/VP to explain our concerns and ask if there is a particular teacher who does well with children like my daughter.

If we don't feel like the public K will be a good fit, we might put her in an accredited kindergarten at one of the preschools and then start her in first grade at the public school the next year. That way, she'd have another year in a small class.

Also, I don't like the advice of "if you have any questions whatsoever, just hold them back." I think we should examine what exactly our concerns are. I know for me, I'm nervous about something unknown, about what the future holds for my daughter, whether I'm making the right decisions for her, whether she's going to go to K with hulking 6.5yo boys. :) But I don't have actual concerns about whether she is ready for kindergarten. I just think that sometimes we can confuse normal nervousness and uncertainty for red-flag sort of instincts, if that makes any sense to anyone but me.

[Slim]

Mogget: "red shirting" is from collegiate sports, which to me is the opposite of fun, but on the DC Urban Moms & Dads board (which has some epic debates on the topic), one of the reasons people give for holding their five-year-old sons back is the potential to do better at sports. So there is a gender issue at play, and ugh.

[SarcastiCarrie]

I have blogged a lot about kindergarten lately at my blog, so to plug myself, feel free to read up on why I chose half-day kindergarten, why I didn't hold him back with a May birthday (when that's the fashion in my area), and so on.

There are a lot of things you can do depending on whether there is a kindergarten program at your day care (or Pre-K), whether your local school district is all-day or half-day kindegarten, whether you can afford another year of day care, whether you can send him to half-day kindergarten and then re-evaluate if sending him to kindergarten a second time in the whole day class is an option, you can talk to the district and have him tested and talk about their theory on what they think is best for him.

Call the principal of the local school or talk to the social worker (in a few weeks or months). Talk to him day care center and see what they think.

Personally, if he's academically ready, I would not hold him back. I would work on resisting peer pressure. Those are skils that will serve him well for a lifetime.

[Kara]

I was one of the youngest kids in my class, and I was academically bored silly all through school and identified socially with older children. My niece who just missed the age cutoff was well-prepared by her preschool for kindergarten the year she turned five and instead spent the following year being bored in kindergarten. On the other hand, my daughter and another niece the same age, both with winter birthdays, were academically ready but barely socially ready this fall and are still adjusting to kindergarten despite attending the same preschool as my other niece. So I would say that it depends on the child as much as the kindergarten program.

[Chris]

I have been dealing this issue as well. My son will turn 5 in early July and I have no idea if we will hold him back or not. He is not as academically advanced as his sister and is more socially immature (also more likely to follow like the OP)With his sister, there was no question, she was ready in every way to go to Kindergarten when she was 5.

I recently was talking to my mother in law (who is a teacher's aide in a class for 5 year olds who are not ready for Kindergarten), and she told me something that has been sticking with me. She said she has never had a parent come back and say that they were sorry they held their child back for an extra year.

We will not make the decision either way until next summer. I will go ahead and do his Kindergarten registration in March, but he may not go.

[Clare]

I have a boy with an early August birthday, and unless we move to a state with an Aug 1 cut-off, he will start K right around his 5th birthday. I have absolutely no problem with his potentially being one of the youngest ones in his class; he holds his own with his brother, who is 3.5 yrs older.

My older boy has a winter birthday, so it wasn't even a discussion for him. He started K at 5.5. I am not a fan of redshirting, honestly. He started K in the deep south, where the trend is to do that. It seemed to me that the boys who were nearly a full year older than many of their classmates (6 at the start of K), were bored and therefore disruptive.

If his pre-K teachers think he's ready, trust them. Some children may really need an extra year, but I think most will do just fine without one.

[Lynn]

My daughter's birthday is August 30th and the cut-off date at our school is September 1st. We did not hold her back and for the most part that was a good choice. I do think that if we had waited a year, the whole process may have been easier in terms of her being more emotionally mature and responsible for her homework and assignments. She is in third grade now and has done very well academically and socially.

One of the factors that influenced my decision was that I was one of the oldest kids in my class and puberty arrived for me quite early so I was dealing with getting my period and wearing a bra in fifth grade. I'm sure this is less of a factor for boys than it is for girls. It has been very interesting that whenever I've mentioned the puberty factor to other women, if they also had the experience of entering puberty at age ten or eleven they totally agree with me and if they entered puberty later they think I'm insane to worry about something like that. Sort of like the comments about how "red-shirting" can give an advantage later in sports.

[Cathy]

I have all December kids in my house, so this was never really an issue.

Except that when the 16 year old was suggested that he be held back in kindergarten, he was already on the old side for his class, so it was hard to really consider that.

I suspect there's a much larger difference between young 5s and old 5s than there is a difference between young 12s and old 12s or young 16s and old 16s. So, I think the advantage of 'red shirting' even out over time. I read an article about study results that show that the younger kids in the class are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than the oldest kids in the class. Here's an article about it. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38740077/ns/health-kids_and_parenting

[obabe]

i have three boys:
aug 14
oct 29
sept 3

the cutoff for our private school is oct 31.

we are "holding back/red shirting" the middle b/c of his birthday. EVERYONE has said you never regret holding back a boy- including my grandfather, who worked in primary grade edutcation (teacher, principal, dean) for his entire working career. even though my middle is mature, a leader, smart, etc, when we had him evaulated by the school (the school we send to is for Kdgn and up) while he was in preschool, they did mention that if he suddenly became the youngest in the class (if we moved him ahead to go to Kdgn this year instead of 4s preshcool) he may lose some confidence/leadership skills, etc.

my oldest has some learning issues and we do wonder if we should have held him back to make life easier- however, his grade has a ton of august birthdays so he isnt the youngest/only young one in his grade.

[JCF]

My son has a mid-October birthday, and we used to live in a state with a September 1 cutoff, so I was relieved that the decision was made for us.

We've since moved to a state with a December 1 cutoff, so he'd be starting K when he's not even 5 yet. We still have some time (he's just turning 3 this October), but my suspicion is that we'll hold him back. I think he'll be academically ready, but my guess is that he won't be socially ready, and that he may have trouble sitting still and listening to directions. Even if we hold him back a year, he still won't be quite 6 when he starts. Again, he's not yet 3, so we won't make a final decision anytime soon. My daughter has a mid-January birthday, so the decision is made for us, and she'll be 5.5 when she starts, which is fine by me.

My sister is a K/1 teacher, and in her experience, the really young boys (and girls too, but mostly boys) who are held back tend to do better.

[Jeannie]

Someone always has to be the oldest in the class, and someone the youngest. I'm sure there are some rare circumstances where kids need to wait the extra time, but for the most part, I think the social and academic pecking order will sort itself out within a couple years whether your child starts at almost 5 or 6.
I think its being made a bigger issue than it needs to be. Its hard for people to imagine our children as "average" and we all want to give our own kids a head start.
But that's just my 2 cents.

[Nmom]

I live in Maryland and the cutoff is 5 by September 1st. This topic inevitably comes up when people find out that my son has a Sept 5 birthday (yes, he'll be 1 on Sunday -- yay! we survived the first year!). Both moms and dads have said to me, "Oh how lucky - he'll be the biggest/oldest in his class!" I've even had parents tell me that, for a boy, this is best because he'll be "chosen first for sports teams". Seriously??? The kid isn't even walking!

I feel like this topic is really out of control in this area where parents are so competitive and where the cutoff date is closely aligned with the first day of school. It's as if people are so desperate to have academically "best" kid or the "best" athlete, they'll do anything to give their child an advantage.

I was 4 when I started kindergarten (cutoff was 5 by December 31st, my bday is in November). I was also really small and painfully shy. It never occurred to my parents to keep me out of school for another year, just in case I might grow and come out of my shell (neither happened until much later).

Because several kids were held back in first or second grade, I was a full year younger than many of my classmates by the time I got to middle school. It didn't matter - I was always at the top of my class and was a 3-sport varsity athlete who went on to play sports in college. So, I would say that I was never really at a disadvantage despite my late birthday.

There will always be a youngest/smallest kid in class, even if we ALL redshirt our kids. And there will always be kids who are leaders and those who are followers. Can we really predict which your child will be, in the long run, based on what he's doing on the playground at 4 years old? If a child is developmentally on target and there are no serious learning challenges/concerns, then I don't see any reason to keep that child out of kindergarten.

My advice to Tricia is to try not to stress out about this too much. You probably will see alot of changes in your son over the next year as he gets closer to 5, so I wouldn't make any decision right now. I would also suggest that talking to the principal/teacher of the prospective school, to see what they think based on their experience.

[Marketing Mommy]

I'm in the opposite situation, about to skip my 5 year old kindergartener into first grade. Her teachers recommend it, and I know it my heart it's the right thing to do for her, but thanks to redshirting, she might be 2 years younger than her classmates instead of 6 months-1 year younger.

She's a whiz-kid, but also very small for her age.

[birdie]

Personal experience:

I have a late August birthday and my parents 'red-shirted' me...I started kindergarten right after I turned 6. I was very successful in school both academically and socially. The only drawback maybe was that I was super bored by my senior year in H.S. but that could be unrelated.

My husband, on the other hand, also has an August bday and his folks sent him along right after he turned 5. Was always one of the youngest kids in his class and always did well academically but suffered socially. Now will tell you he wishes he'd been held back until he was 6 to start K.

My own son has a late Sept. birthday so we won't have to make that decision. My assvice, though, would be to follow your instincts about your son and make a list of pros/cons associated with starting early/late. It will probably be pretty obvious to you as the time approaches.

[Julie]

I have not read the comments, so apologize for repetition. I am a 4th/5th grade teacher. I am all for holding kids back and having them start K later...especially for boys.* Most (not all) schools are not set up for boys. They require students to sit still for long periods of time, there is very little opportunity to do what boys are wired to do - physically interact with their environment. They are required to listen, keep their hands and feet to themselves, wait their turn, use fine motor skills much more so than gross motor skills...I could go on and on. What I have observed happen for boys who start too soon is that the effort required to conform to traditional school squashes them. They are often unable to focus on the academic aspect because they are working so hard (and often failing) on the social/behavioral aspect of school. By 2nd grade, these boys have fully absorbed their identity as "not being good at school" and will continue to fulfill that prophecy without intervention. By the time they get to me, they are often behind, they are often unable to sustain their attention, follow directions, etc. Of course,I am speaking broadly, and all kids are different, and there are some boys who start on the earlier side and do just fine (my older brother is one of them, however my own son is not). I have never come across a kid who started later who has difficulty with the curriculum, following directions, behaving within the expected traditional school norms. Teachers are much happier differentiating their instruction to challenge and motivate these learners than they are to be constantly dealing with behavior and/or intervention instruction to bring kids who have historically had difficulty sustaining attention/behaving appropriately to learn at a reasonable pace.

As a parent, I would rather have my child on the older end when starting high school and college. I would rather my child be the first one to drive and be the designated driver and not the last one to drive and hope that his friends are as responsible as I know my kids will be. I want my son's early experiences with school to be positive ones rather than frustrating ones, for I know that the first 2-3 years of elementary school often determine the kind of learner kids will be for the rest of their lives. If learning is difficult and frustrating, it will most likely continue to be so. With the exception of having a couple really gifted/exceptional teachers to undo early damage (and we all know that having these kind of teachers at least two years in a row is highly unlikely), kids will not be able to pull themselves out of a downward spiral easily. And it would require kids to have an exceptionally gifted teacher for AT LEAST two years in a row to undo that damage.

The original poster's son was born in July. I consider that to be kind of on the cusp. I think she could go either way and her son would probably be fine...but I would think about his ability to sit still, follow directions, I would think about his fine motor skills and how developed they are, I would think about how he interacts with peers - she mentions he's more of a follower rather than a leader, and that aspect would lead me to tend toward waiting an extra year. Even if her son knows his numbers and letters (sometimes this is what preschool teachers go on as kindergarten "readiness") I would think less about what he is able to do academically and more about what he is able to do behaviorally, socially, and emotionally.

How kids see themselves as learners is critical to success in school and beyond. It requires a great deal of confidence and success early on. I think kids who are not quite ready for kindergarten would benefit from an additional year of preschool and/or a pep/pre-k program that some states/schools offer. In my opinion as an educator, you can't go wrong with waiting an extra year. But there is a chance that starting too early would make your child's early school experience more frustrating than it needs to be.

*(Please note that I have not observed the above patterns with girls who start on the earlier end. Research shows that girls do a much better job on the whole at playing the game of school, and adjust much easier than boys do.)

[kakaty]

My daughter's birthday is 7 days before the Sept 30 cut off next year. We are already questioning what we are going to do about that. If she goes as planned next year she will be 4 for the first 6 weeks of school. That kind of scares me. She is in a great preschool/daycare now and we might have her attend their K class next year then move to the full-day public school the following year. But we won't make that decision until Feb or March when we talk to her current teachers and the school she would be attending.

I will say that I have never heard of someone with a spring/early summer birthday being held back unless it was for developmental issues. IME it's only been those kids who won't be 5 on the first day of school or just turn 5 in the month or so before who's parents consider holding them back.

Also, having a September birthday myself I was ALWAYS the youngest in the class and I hated it. Last to do everything...

[mom2boy]

September 1 cut off for our schools.

With a late September birthday, T will either be one of the youngest or oldest in his class all the way through depending on when I start him - if I choose private school as an option to start him early. At three he's not a small boy and he's very verbal - the grocery store manager bagging our groceries the other day actually said to T "wow your kindergarten teacher is going to love you" based on their conversation.

I'm torn except that it just occurred to me that as a boy with a lesbian mom and alternative family structure, he might need that extra year of growth to defend himself, both verbally and g-d forbid physically...

[SarcastiCarrie]

@kakaty - If she's ready for K next year, send her at 4. We did the day care's kindergarten classroom at 4 and then on to public school kindergarten at 5, and the doubling-up of it is not working out well.

Chuckles is coming home saying he is bored and school is too easy. We're getting "frownie" faces for not drilling flashcards of words he already knows (so now I show them to him once so we can say we did them). I thought it would be super-awesome to have the academics down so all he'd have to focus on in kindergarten was social and maturing, but it turns out the school wants to focus on the academics! Frustrating.

[Alice in Wonderland]

First of all, gotta say that I'd never heard the term "red-shirting" before, and I was disappointed to learn from Slim that it comes from sports, because as I read the first half of the discussion here I was assuming it came from Star Trek. (Therefore: slightly disturbing. But amusing!)

Anyway, I'm fascinated by this discussion about the merits of red-shirting vs not red-shirting, because I've been thinking about this question from exactly the opposite perspective.

I have a 2-yo son with a late October birthday. The school cutoff here is October 1st, so he'll be about 5.8 when he starts, by default. BUT the school system here allows parents to start their kids in school a year EARLY, if the parents get a letter from a psychologist (at their own expense) attesting that the kid is developmentally ready. From anecdotal evidence, this early start thing seems to be very common, at least among the middle-class parents who form my extended social network. (Pretty much any time someone learns of my son's birthday, they ask me "So are you going to start him in school a year early?")

My answer has always been wait-and-see, btw; he's not even three yet, so who knows what he'll be like in another two years. But I've been leaning towards sticking with the default entry age, for basically the same reasons as other posters are giving for red-shirting: I've heard that boys do better in school if they start a bit older.

(Other data points: until he starts school, he's in $7-a-day government-subsidized daycare. And when he does start school, the language of schooling won't be his mother tongue.)

[M in TX]

Julie's post is right on. Every word of it.

My mom told me her biggest parenting mistake was not holding my brother back. Wow!

Good luck with your decision.

[Katy]

A quick logistics question - if you do hold your child back, what does s/he do for that year? Repeat Pre-K? Our son has a June birthday and is developmentally delayed, so it makes sense for us to hold him back. But our state subsidizes Pre-K, so I don't know if you are allowed to repeat it. Anyone encountered this scenario?

[Charisse]

My daughter just completed kindergarten and I'm not a fan of redshirting. Mouse is an April bday, so we didn't have to think much about it - but I would have gladly sent her a year earlier if it had been an option. SF has a December 1 cutoff, and I've seen parents of kids even with July or August birthdays, kids who were already reading for goodness sake, redshirt them due to worries about social stuff. Not developmental issues, just kids who might be a little bit shy. This then creates the situation where teachers have a 20 or sometimes 22-month span of ages to deal with, and they rightly are concerned. But the concern usually manifests in saying anybody under 5 doesn't belong in kindergarten, which I don't think is right.

It also is very much a socio-economic issue. Our public school is very diverse that way and all the less wealthy kids are in school as soon as possible because either their families can't afford more preschool or because they couldn't afford preschool in the first place. And as such they're more likely to lack the skills that kids who've been in great preschools have. Bringing in 6- or 6 1/2-year-olds makes it harder for them to keep up, and makes the district consider moving back the cutoff...which makes it harder on the very families who need this kind of instruction from the public schools.

So I would say, please don't redshirt your kid unless there's a very specific issue. (In which case of course you should do what is best for them!)

[td]

Hi all--OP here. Thanks for the thoughtful responses thus far--love reading everyone's take on this. In answer to a few questions:
1) it's an all-day K (although, they define all day as like 8:30-2:30)
2) sports has zero part of my thinking on this. i'm extremely non-athletic, my husband is moderately athletic, neither one of us were varsity athletes, etc., so i'd be surprised if our son even ends up interested in sports. no hockey mom stuff here, believe me.
3)great article on redshirting in the NYT last week, although i can't find the link.
4) Julie does a great job of exactly articulating what i've heard from other teachers, and that truly is my main concern.
5)our public school K classrooms are pretty large. 28 students minimum, and from the experiences i've heard of other parents in my neighborhood, teachers are stretched extremely thin. so that's part of what's driving my concern about the 'feedback loop' i mentioned in my OP.

[Lisa]

I have two boys. August 10 and June 17. Our school cutoff is September 15.

With my first son, he had never been to a preschool or a daycare (my MIL kept him) so I was a little leery of sending him to K since he'd only been 5 for a couple of weeks (School starts the 3rd week of August). He's a lefty, and his fine-motor skills were quite delayed. He also has sensory issues.

But I *had* to get him away from my MIL. They were becoming quite enmeshed (she. . .is a blog post) so we went ahead and started him. We didn't know anyone who redshirted their kids, other than for learning disabilities.

He did great academically, and after a short adjustment period of "I don't LIKE coloring, I want to play LEGOs!," did great socially. I asked his teacher regularly through the year if he needed to repeat kindergarten again, and she assured me that he was fine. And he has been. He also matured physically very quickly (shaving regularly by 14), so he "looks" the same as his older peers, who really aren't more than a couple of months older than him anyway.

My younger son, however, did go to daycare his whole life. He turned 5 a full two months before school started and I never gave him a second thought. He was 5. He goes to kindergarten. He was ready. But four years later, redshirting was HUGE, and even with a June birthday, he's one of the youngest in his class. He's 13 now, and while puberty has stuck his head in the door, he hasn't quite moved in yet, if you know what I mean. It's been a difficult year for him, and he's made a lot of noise about "I'm too little," and "I wish you would've held me back." I think here in a couple of months, when puberty finally get his shit unpacked, we'll be fine, but dadgum.

Wow. That story was completely unhelpful to you, wasn't it, OP? Sorry! :)

[Cloud]

@Alice in Wonderland- the Star Trek interpretation of red shirting made me laugh! Thanks for that.

I have two girls, so given the "common knowledge" about girls doing better at adjusting to school, I suppose I don't have to worry about this.

The whole thing drives me a bit nuts, though. I think that if your son truly does not have the skills needed for kindergarten and has a birthday near the cutoff- by all means, hold him back. But if you're doing it so that your otherwise ready boy can have an advantage in sports/leadership/whatever down the road? Well, the fact that there are places where this is now the norm boggles my mind. I don't think the research really supports this belief, and in fact, I have seen debunkings of the original analysis of Canadian hockey players that gets referenced a lot in these discussions.

Also- what if your kid doesn't like sports? And wants to be a mathematician or scientist or some other thing where the extra time in academics would actually serve him better?

So I say: Read @Julie's post- it makes a lot of sense. Read Pink Brain, Blue Brain by Lise Eliot (referenced by @zed up there) if you want a summary of what the research actually says. And then decide based on the skills your son exhibits at the time you have to make the decision.

[HereWeGoAJen]

I've seen the opposite, where parents put their kids into private school kindergarten to get them in a year earlier than the school district would have allowed them. This ended up with a six year old in my second grade class. She wasn't ready.

It really is something that should be considered on an individual basis. My sister was eligible for kindergarten based on her birthday when we lived in California, but when we moved, she ended up being more than a year younger than her classmates for the rest of her schooling. My mom wishes that she had kept her out another year.

[sweetcoalminer]

I haven't had time to read all the comments, but I have two dogs in this hunt.

We were lucky to find a public transitional K for the first one, which she starts in 2 weeks, with a different curriculum than regular kindergarten so that she won't have the same lessons twice.

We had her evaluated by Chancey and Bruce (this is what they do) and they have kits you can order: http://www.chancyandbruce.com/ to evaluate your own child's readiness. They're used by pretty much all the private schools in LA, as far as I understand, and I thought it was REALLY reasonable: $50, and we got a very thorough, 3-page, personalized evaluation.

I guess reading Outliers has really cemented my decision to give my 2 fall birthdays the extra year. That, and my pediatrician pointed out that, if we don't hold her back, when my daughter is 13, the boys in her class who were red-shirted would be 15. As it is, there was a boy that turned 6 in her preK class (also public school) when she was still 4, which drove that point home to me.

That said, my husband and I were both the youngest in our classes and we both excelled. But if it means the difference between enjoying school and hating it, as it can for some kids, we'll take the extra year.

[sweetcoalminer]

Sorry, no, the boy turned 5 when she was still 3.

[Laura]

Our state's cutoff is Dec. 1 and my boys' birthdays are early August and late October. We started the August boy right after he turned 5 and waited to start the October boy until he was almost 6. The boys' preschool teachers were instrumental in helping with the decision and we've been happy with how things have gone.

A teacher friend also talks about the "JASON rule". That is, if your child's birthday is in July, Aug., Sept., Oct. or Nov. you should only start them as young 5's if you're confident they're ready. If you have any doubts, it's probably best to wait. We were confident that our August boy was ready (he's now in 4th grade and doing very well) but weren't sure about our October son and are glad we waited.

Lastly, we're in a public school and our experience is that many parents do not have the luxury of waiting. They need the free child care to start as soon as it possibly can. I worried that holding my son back a year would widen the gap in abilities for his teacher and make her job more difficult (he was reading by the time he started K). Actually, she was just very glad not to have one more barely-5 yr old on her hands! It turned out to be win-win for everyone.

[cat19]

While my original comment says it's a personal decision, I'm starting to get uncomfy with all these teachers who are saying (firsthand as commenters and secondhand as quoted by commenters) that schools aren't set up for boys so it's a generally good idea to hold boys back a year.

Don't we then end up with a school system of boys a year older than their girl classmates? Am I the only one who finds that concerning? I'm not eager to end up with a system with girls perpetually a year behind the boys in age and development... and in high school, you're then exposing younger high school girls to 19 year old boys, right? What does this do to lots of other social structures: boys able to drive before girls, in college able to drink a year before their classmates?

If our schools don't fit the pattern of many boys development, I'd rather we advocate to change the way schools run, not have a split system for delaying some boys a year.

[ARC]

I guess I don't have much to add here, since I skipped K and went to 1st at age 5 (evaluated by our public school district). Socially, it was fine, until I also skipped 4th, then socially I didn't catch up until late high school/college.

I'm sort of frustrated by the idea of parents voluntarily holding back kids who don't have maturity/developmental issues. Because it forces the issue for the rest of us - do I really want my not-quite-5 year old girl in a class with 6+ year-old boys?

Sigh.

Personally, despite all my social issues in school, I still think academics is the most important aspect of education so I'd rather have an intellectually-challenged kid who's socially a bit behind.

Lise Eliot also makes the argument against in her book "What's Going On in There" - I think the gist was that kids' brains get a lot out of school when they're younger, so holding them back is basically depriving them of a year of intense learning opportunities.

[Lisa]

@cloud

Everyone of my younger son's friends who are his age but a grade behind him? Were either started late, or held back after K, BECAUSE of sports. Oh, sure, if you hear their parents talk you'll hear things like "immature" or "not ready," but really? It was because of the advantage they might have in sports.

I have one friend, though, who held her son back in 6th grade (they moved districts so it wasn't as traumatic as all that) and flat-out said, "because he'd be older than everyone else and better at basketball and have a better chance for a scholarship." Ya gotta admire her honesty, I guess.

Another thing to consider is that if a child is held back, they're almost always 18 for their entire sr. year in high school. My nephew was that way, and my brother and SIL couldn't even get his grades without his permission because he was a legal adult. (That wasn't a problem, of course, but it could be.)

[in_ca]

An interesting take from Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman last year in Newsweek

With a physically mature nearly 2 year old born in late December, we don't have a choice in our area (for public schools anyway). I figure we'll take a look at things when we get there.

[hush]

Was it the chapter in "Freakonomics" about male British professional footballers virtually all having Jan-Feb-Mar birthdays (which made them the oldest in their classes all their lives) that helped eventually lead to a NYT piece that popularized the term "red-shirting"? The idea was that early on the older kids in the Kindergarten class tended to be bigger and more athletic so they got tracked into all the right sports teams, and mentored by the better coaches... and eventually went pro and married former Spice Girls. But let's put arguments about the virtues of male athleticism aside for a moment.

All things being equal, if my kid were really close to the cut-off on the younger side (birthday within 60 days ahead of it), I would probably hold them back if we could at all afford the extra year of childcare. WHY? Because, in general, I'd rather have a kid who is overprepared socially, intellectually, and physically for K than one who is underprepared. And because I think the quasi-permanent academic tracking, and mislabeling, and too-early testing in schools happens way too early. And if you believe that chapter in "NutureShock" like I do, that too-early testing is keeping some kids in the wrong academic track for a looong time, I'd rather err on the side of my kid being evaluated when they are older and more likely to shine. (Full disclosure: this is all conjecture for me because my kids' Oct birthdays will make them among the oldest in their classes).

Around here, there are fewer "competitive" parents with money to burn (by that I mean rich white parents who want their kid to play varsity lacrosse & attend an Ivy etc) as someone upthread mentioned. Far more typical that parents around here want to save that extra year of childcare costs by sending their younger 5 year old to K. Which makes "really young Kindergartners who can't sit still" part of the norm around here, and so from what I'm hearing the school professionals already know how to help those kids. However, I think in more affluent places where having a 5yr, 1mo old in K is NOT the norm, and where teachers are actually recommending holding them back, it creates an uncomfortable pressure on parents to follow that norm, hence those red-shirting NYT articles creating anxiety about making the choice.

So, I say find out what your local norms are. Put off the final decision until it is actually time to fill out the K paperwork. That way you can actually see where your kid is, and how you are feeling about the idea, and where you are financially.

Funny story- I have this physician friend who attended an Ivy League school and has 2 boys, who is a big red-shirting proponent. She used to email everyone these articles all the time saying what a great idea it is, like duh everyone should be doing it. However, now she is eating her words because her younger son is 10 days younger than the cut off and she is sending him off to K this year as one of the youngest in his class, despite her own advice all these years! Money is not at all the issue - it's that she feels because he is physically huge, has thrived in full-day daycare, and is highly verbal she feels confident he is ready. I think that's great, and I'm impressed she was able to keep an open mind.

[kelli]

We have a December 2 cutoff in California. I have two boys, November 20 and November 30 birthdays. They both were given the gift of an extra year of pay-based preschool (that's how our preschool teachers put it). My older son (Nov 20) is in 1st grade and doing great, my younger will be in pre-K this year.

They both enjoy school and I want to keep it that way. I figure when they head to college at 18 they'll be the same age as someone who had a September cutoff date.

[MLB]

I have no dog in the fight either, but as the mom of a first grader I saw a classic example of redshirting for a pretty good reason - size. One of my daughter's best friends is a little boy whose birthday hits right at the cutoff, which is 9/1. He's very bright, has been in child care forever, but is teeny. His parents are also small and redshirted him primarily on size grounds because he's on the cutoff line anyway. And I think they made the right call. It wasn't so he could be a super star athlete, but even as the oldest kid in the class, he's still one of the smallest and I think that would be especially tough to take in the next grade. Interestingly I think it may have backfired for him a little bit academically because his (and my daughter's) K teacher was weak and he definitely just coasted last year. So there are drawbacks to doing it too, especially if your kid thrives on peer competition (for want of a better word).

[Devin]

I was a young 5 (July Birthday) when I started K and apparently, although I knew nothing of it until much later, my parents considered holding me back in second grade for social reasons - I was in the gifted program, had been reading since I was 4, so it wasn't academically based, but I was small and picked on alot and a true follower at the time. I'd say given another shot and the ability to predict the future, they would have started me in K a year later...but I would have been even more bored in school that way than I was. My husband was a March birthday, not sure his parents ever thought about it at all. As for the "redshirting" phenom - I could really stir the pot and tell you about the 8TH GRADE HONORS STUDENT I know who repeated 8th grade so he could physically develop to help him with football....