Redshirting
When I was pregnant with my son, Scott, I was involved very actively with a message board comprised of women all due in September with me. I was due September 21st. It was called “The September Due Date Club.” I remember at some point during the 40-odd-weeks of pregnant talk some women wanting to be induced early so that they would make sure to make the school cut-off date for their area for entrance into kindergarten. I remember being kind of appalled at the idea.
I’ve kept in touch with MANY of these women on Facebook. Now that all of our “September Babies” are turning five (despite Scott being born in July, he is still one of the “September Babies”) I’ve noticed a major tendency to discuss redshirting the kids.
Apparently, the term redshirting is some sports metaphor when they would put a redshirt on a JV and let him play with the Varsity team but the Varsity players were not to hit the kid. The result is that the redshirted younger players had an unfair advantage. They redshirt quarterbacks at practices today. [And additional definition from my dad: “Red shirting” as it is understood in sports today is having a player practice but not play, retaining a year of eligibility. So the expression “red shirt freshman” would be an academic sophmore who was red shirted the previous year.] Redshirting in this context is holding your school-aged child back an extra year, and starting them in kindergarten at the age of 6 (or first grade at the age of 7).
When Scott was born at 30 weeks, Gregg and I agreed long before he even started crawling that he would not start school at the age of 5. He had so much physical catching up to do, we had no idea what the mental ramifications of his preeminess would be, and we were already bent on “he wasn’t due until the end of September, so we likely wouldn’t have started him in kindergarten anyway.” The closer we got to this summer, the more we felt like redshirting Scott would be the best decision. So, even though I’m homeschooling and the social aspects of school won’t affect him, we will be starting a full time preschool curriculum this year and not a kindergarten curriculum.
You hear all the time that “boys mature slower than girls.” This is really not true, per say. The difference, according to National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, is that boys and girls brains develop in different sequences (to read the results of the study, click here). The order and trajectory of brain development is different between boys and girls. And, typically, public elementary schools are geared toward girls and the way girls learn.
According to Parents magazine:
Statistically, they’re [boys] at least four times more likely to be expelled from preschool than girls, and they’re twice as likely to be diagnosed with a learning disability or to be held back at some point during their education. Girls rule in today’s classroom. On average, they have outperformed boys in standardized reading and writing tests for years and have recently caught up to boys in math and edged ahead in science. Indeed, the gender achievement gap grows over time. Boys lag in almost every subject by middle school and are four times as likely as girls to drop out by high school. Now, more than 58 percent of all U.S. college students are women, who obtain the majority of associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees.
Why are boys being left behind? In part, it’s because they start out at a disadvantage. “Three out of every four boys in a typical kindergarten class are more physically active and developmentally immature than the girls are,” says Parentsadvisor Michael Thompson, Ph.D., coauthor of It’s a Boy! But schools (including many preschools, which have shifted their emphasis to academics rather than teaching social skills) may require students to quietly complete worksheets rather than let them run around and play. This trend has made the classroom a far less friendly place for boys.
My brother-in-law is a high school math teacher. He’s been a high school math teacher for longer than I’ve been a parent. His son was born two weeks after Scott, and they’re redshirting him. He told us that he sees the difference in boys’ math scores between the older and younger boys, and the difference is major enough often enough for him to be a proponent of boys being older when they enter school.
One of my best friends has a son who turned 5 two days after Scott. She and her husband are high school and middle school science teachers, and both of them believe that holding their son back will do nothing but benefit his academic future.
As my friends have discussed whether their not-quite-5-year-olds will enter kindergarten this fall, I have been surprised at the number of mothers (of both boys and girls) who have decided to not do so. I realize that the controversy that tends to surround redshirting doesn’t exist as much in our group, because most of the babies born were born in September – so it’s not like we’re holding boys back who were born in and turned 5 in January. But after so much conversation five years ago about school cut off dates versus due dates, it’s interesting to see the shift now that we all know our children and how our children learn and behave.
Despite how smart Scott is (and he is smart – his pediatrician has labeled him “scary smart” – haha) Gregg and I both know that he will do nothing but benefit from waiting to begin a kindergarten curriculum. Even though he’ll be learning at home in an environment that will accommodate his naturally ingrained desire to move and run regularly through the day, we just believe that waiting until he’s older to start a more academically focused course of study will give him the best intellectual advantage we can give him.
Hallee
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This is the great thing about homeschooling. As the parents, we can do what we think is best for our children. You do what you think is best for Scott. The only negative aspect of it would be comments you might get from “the village”. God Bless you in educating Scott.
I really appreciated this post today. Around here, with have this horrible thing called Junior Kindergarten where the kids start school at the age of four, which I think is way too early for boys or for girls. It drives me crazy that my son could be starting school in September, but he’s still not four yet. (He’s a September baby, and we don’t have school cut off dates around here.) Everyone asks about it, and I always tell them I’m keeping him home yet with me this year, but I do still worry about the social aspect of it. I’m not worried about him academically because he’s a very bright kid, but we have been considering having him in a twice weekly half-day program for the socialization side of it. Reading this today has helped me to feel like I could still maybe hold off putting him in yet until next year when he might be more ready. The last thing I want to do is force him into something that’s just going to make him hate school.
I was in a similar sitation – my son was a late September baby, scary smart too. I chose to start him when he was not-quite-5 and although the first couple of years were challenging, it was worth it to me. In particular I had issues with his 2nd grade teacher (she made it sound like he was coming unglued) but I made it a point to talk regularly to his ‘specials’ teachers (art, music, gym, etc.) that had seen him over the years, who assured me it was just my son being himself. It at least gave me perspective that when I dealt with his 2nd grade teacher that my son wasn’t suffering some emotional breakdown, but merely that he was immature and she had no tolerance/patience/desire to deal with it.
They don’t do redshirting here (that I’m aware of)… although to be honest, whenever I see that term I think in terms of Star Trek. Kinda the opposite effect than what you’re describing :)
The Star Trek term came up all the time when I was trying to research the etymology of the term! LOL
Think Geek has an AWESOME Star Trek redshirt: http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/unisex/popculture/9722/
The cutoff in my area is currently 12/31 which is insanely later than most of the country. Having two boys who were born in December (one actually on the cut off date), I can tell you that I had NO hesitation in holding both boys back. My eldest who will be 20 this year breezed through school. The younger one is doing fine academically, but would rather be home…outside…working with his Dad. ;)
Boys are definitely wired differently from girls from the get go although that doesn’t mean that girls don’t benefit from redshirting as well. My eldest daughter probably would have been better with another year at home for maturity reasons although she has always loved school (social aspect) and yet her younger brother’s birthday is 3 days earlier and he’s done great and really has blossomed.
I agree with your perspective completely.
My oldest son was born July 26 (today!) and by the time he was 18 months old, I had decided to wait & start him a year later. 2 factors contributed, I was teaching Pre-k at the time & was blown away at the difference between the sexes & during this same time I read Dr. Dobson’s Bringing Up Boys. And in his book, he recommends starting boys later.
My son didn’t have any developmental issues & everyone wanted me to start him the year he turned 5. Now that he is 11, we are seeing the benefits of waiting. He is the oldest in his class & he breezes through school.
My 2nd son’s birthday is Sept. 19 and so he will miss the cut off to start Kindergarten this year, which is fine by me. And we’ve decided not to send him to Pre-K, which people don’t seem to understand. But I just do not believe that a 4 yr old needs to be in school from 8-2. He has shown lots of interest in learning to read, so I’m going to work with him this fall. We may just becomne accidental homeschoolers! ;)
I have 3 out of 4 kids that started Kindy later out of luck. My only girl’s birthday is 9 days after the cutoff. (Sept 10) She wanted desperately to go to kindy at 4 (2 weeks later, she’d be 5) but we HAD to wait, so she turned 6 two weeks after kindy started, her disadvantage – she is super tall, and towers over the kids. She has been the object of bullying simply because she is taller than most kids in the NEXT grade as well. But she is super smart, and adjusting very well.
My oldest, born in Nov, was too smart for kindy and developed a “boredom” with school that lasted his entire school career. He barely graduated because he was just so darn bored with school, he slept most of it away. He was my only child that was in daycare at 3 yrs old as I went back to work because he WANTED to go to school! (backfire?) hee hee
My July son (due in July, not a preemie) succeeded in every grade and was a straight A student…He graduated cum laude (3.8 gpa) and is the one that attended fire academy and became an EMT at 18 yrs old.
My youngest son’s birthday is Dec. He will be starting Kindy in 4 weeks. He is 5 1/2 and is exactly where he needs to be. Even though my expectations may be a bit higher for him, I have to remember, he is only 5 and was language delayed and had signs of Autism when he was around 2 1/2 – 3 1/2. He is doing beautifully after preK.
My point is, each kid is different, and you know EXACTLY what will work for your child. So don’t fret about the redshirt… he is going to be excellent at what he does, because he has parents that are so in-tune to what is right for him! <3
One of those September Due Date Club moms here—I don’t remember the “scheduling a c-section talk”—yikes!! Back then I didn’t even know what the state cutoff was so I wasn’t worried. I started thinking about it last year when Mia was turning 4. She was staring her 2nd year at a Montessori preschool. Initially I thought having her wait would be fine. (Her birthday is Sept. 18–17 days after the cutoff). As the year progressed I was less sure. There were friends of hers in her class (kids are 3-6 years old) who were moving on to first grade this fall, and there was NO way she was two whole years behind them. We went back and forth. Our school district said if she completes kindergarten somewhere (like a private school or montessori school) they will allow her to start 1st grade in 2012. So the plan is she will do “kindergarten” at her current school and do all the testing but if at some point we decide she isn’t ready, she just stays and does another year. So we’re not locked into anything either way.
I do think kids are all different. My son Henry is not like my daughter. He is very physical, very outgoing, very energetic, and does not like to sit still for anything. He just completed his first year in a 2 year old program. If he were the one past the cutoff I’d probably keep him another year.
my son is a November baby…there has been talk on our ddc/bdc about starting kids early…our cut off here is sept. 4. and i believe most of their cutoffs are the same, but there are STILL people who are starting their kids early.
I know my son is intelligent..but it’s the social/emotional I don’t think he is ready for so I am ok with him waiting another yr. He will be almost 6 by the time he starts and I do think this is the best decision for him and us.
It was scheduled inductions, not c-sections. I wish I could remember who started the conversation, but there was a long thread about it.
Ah, ok. I guess that’s not AS extreme, but still a little strange. I mean, I only feel that Mia is ready because I have now known her for (almost) 5 years. I’d never want to decide when she was starting kindergarten before she was even born! Frankly, I was glad Ruby was born in January because I won’t have to think about that at all with her!
I think redshirting is great depending on the child. I think the key is watching your child’s development and deciding on a case by case basis whether they need to stay behind. I struggled with the decision to wait a year with my middle child. After speaking with a lot of different teachers, we learned that many boys are not socially mature. The question was, where does your child fall academically? My son was already reading, so we chose not to redshirt him. My son was 1 month premature and also has a June birthday. He is one of the youngest in his class, but has excelled academically in reading, math, and science. Although we still struggle with some of his other behaviors, he is not the only one in his class facing the same behavior. He has also learned from piers that are older than he is.
My youngest child has an October birthday. He is more mature than most of the children in his class and is older than the students in his class. I find that he could have done better starting school earlier. He even scored on his first Kindergarten as qualified to pass and that was at the begininning of the year. He is also one who is always with the first graders when he attends the after school program. While yes, I boast my childrens’ success acedemically, I only do so to point out that each child is different and requires different needs. The key is making sure you are envolved in your child’s learning process and being aware of the needs of each individual child.
I left out the word assessement. He scored passing Kindergarten on his first assessment at the beginning of the year.
When I enrolled Amelia in school last year I had NO idea that it was even an option to hold her back. They claim that they told me, but if they did, they sure didn’t explain it well enough because I had no clue what they were talking about. They told me she wasn’t ready, and I didn’t know that that meant we’d struggly hard all year. It was a terrible first experience with school for our family, because it was nothing but hardship.
That said, Amelia learned a lot, and so did we, and we are going to consider it a wonderful pre-k year and have her repeat Kindy. It makes me sad sometimes, but I know that the benefits are far better than any downsides there might be, which I really can’t think of any. I know she’ll flourish this year, and I hope that I will be able to do it all the right way with the other girls, since I really feel that it was almost all my fault that she wasn’t ready for Kindy last year. But, it’s over and done with and a moot point. She’s ready for Kindy now and I’m excited to see her learn and grow this year.
Sorry, don’t know why I’m rambling about that. But I’m a big advocate for the “redshirting” now. I will not hesitate to do it with my other children if I have to, especially after this experience.
Hallee, as you guys know both are girls will qualify this year for school. we are going to do pre-k for both. we have even discussed having Elizabeth tested for kindergarten due to her birthday bing the 9th. but we decided to let her be an older kindergartener then to force her to be in school when she isn’t ready. Thanks for this post!!
I have a mid-Sept birthday and was held back in kindergarten. I just remember being terribly sad that I wouldn’t go with my friends to the main part of the school. When Avery was born on Sept 8, 2006 we pretty much decided that she would wait until she was 5 going on 6 for Kindergarten. I didn’t want her to have to go through the emotional part like I did if we had to hold her back. We also consulted with my uncle who just retired as a elementary principal and he advised us to wait a year. He felt confident that she would do well if we entered her this year but felt she would be a star student if we waited a year. Up to this point, we’ve had her in private home care. In 3 weeks she will start Pre-K. I’m excited to see the progress she makes in Pre-K and I know this option is what is best for her!
I’ll go back and read the comments in a moment. I first wanted to reply to the post. Ben turned 5 on March 31 and will be starting kinder in September. I think that your decision to homeschool is one that supports holding an extremely smart five-year old back. However, if you were putting him in public school, I might have a more in-depth discussion of it with you based on my experience with Ben. We have been casually “homeschooling” him, in addition to his 3 hours a day of community preschool, for the past 2 years. It was in no way meant to make him more advanced, but rather to feed his natural love of learning. As of today, he can read full books by himself, write words with proper spelling and do multi-digit addition and subtraction in his head. It is…amazing. Each concept I introduce him to is absorbed with fascination and eagerness.
This has put him in a very problematic place. In June, he had to do entrance exams for public school kinder. His peers at community preschool (who are the same age as him) were told to red shirt. I was told Ben was the most advanced student they encountered and he is placing into first grade (though I will still put him in kinder). What this means is that he will be bored out of his mind. I, of course, will continue to supplement his education at home…but it is a vicious cycle (until 2nd grade when I can get him moved to the gifted-program, if he is still very far advanced).
This is also problematic because Ben is SMALL. Very small. He went from IUGR to FTT to Immunocompromised in his 5 year life. He has grown a lot this past year (since his immunologist got involved), but he is still small. So, I will be putting a boy that is a year ahead of his class in with kids that are a year+ older than him and a foot taller. I am worried.
I don’t have a great point today, except to voice my concerns over this phenomenon. Did I do a disservice to Ben by homeschooling him? kwim?
Ack.
Di, our cutoff is December 1. I wish it was still 12/31 because Lily is a 12/10 birthday and will CLEARLY be ready for kinder at her fourth September (next year).
:) I BOUGHT that shirt for my husband for Christmas a few years back.
We REALLY struggled with what to do with Ryan (Girl!) for Kindergarten. As you know, she was born 5 days before Scott and also due in Sept. When we were living in CT (her entire 2 year of pre-school) the cutoff is Dec 31st so Ry fell almost directly in the middle of the age category. Holding her back didn’t seem right since her b-day wasn’t near the cutoff. When we spontaneously moved to MD a few weeks back, we fould their cutoff date to be Sept. So we thought and prayed and after some extensive talking with her preschool teacher decided to have her go for it. I know she is academically ready, but it’s the social part of K that I am nervous about. My instinct is to say she is ready, but I have only ever heard GREAT things from people who waited a year. I have not heard even 1 person regret that decision. Whereas I have heard several say they regretted pushing forward. So while she will be a K’er this fall…I am determined to keep an open mind about possibly having her repeat K. (and based on what I know of my boy…if it were him…I would def wait! :) )
I also wanted to add that we will have another decision to make when my youngest gets to K…her b-day is Sept 2nd. Hopefully by then we will have transferred all over to Homeschooling, but if not, we’ll have a decision to make. She is the youngest of 4 so I can only hope she won’t be socially immature. Also, another thing to think about for some parents is if their high school starts in 9th grade…do they really want their 14 year old going to school with 18 year olds?
LOL – I have that shirt!! The Uhura dress, too :)
Sara, I am a Young 5s (pre-K) teacher, and I just wanted to give you a little reassurance about your little guy. Kids come into K with all kinds of knowledge and experiences. Good K teachers know how to deal with this and are amazing at differentiating lessons for advanced learners. I would also encourage you to not focus on your son being “bored” at school. Help him develop the skills to deal with boredom if it comes up, but really, there is so much that happens in a day of K that a child shouldn’t be bored even if the work is too easy for him or her! Also, as the years go by, other kids will probably “catch up” to your son’s abilities, and he will not be alone as a high achiever. Kids also come into school in all shapes and sizes; one of my students last year was the size of an average 3 year old even though he was 5. I never heard anyone tease him about his size. I’m sure your son will find his niche in school, and I don’t know any teachers who aren’t excited to have a child in class who loves to learn! I hope everything goes smoothly for you and your son.
GREAT discussion! we have been in this dillema for several years as our son’s birthday is 6/22. he’s really smart, but in other areas (specifically socially) i am leery of him being involved in a classroom setting. we have a school that we prefer that has a lottery drawning to get in. we decided to get in the drawing and he did get it. we talked with the kindergarden teacher and she said that he can always do kindergarden twice if he’s not ready for 1st grade next year. i thought that might work. but lately i’ve just been wondering if that would hurt his esteem to go through kindergarden twice! so… we’re mostly just praying about it. school doesn’t start for another monthe or so. right now he’s enrolled to start. we’ll just wait and pray. thanks for the post and insight and discussion. :)
Thank you for the reply, Amy! :)
Thank you for this post. It confirms my decision to not worry and push my youngest son in homeschooling until he was ready to learn the material. He learned to read on his own when he was 7.5, I did not stress about it (although I had my days when I was worried) but I read to him a lot, and we did basic schoolwork but I just did not push. He is more of a self directed learner then any of my 3 kids now, he loves to learn. My oldest our only girl spent two years in public school and they told her she had a reading disability but would not name it, simply because she was not reading huge thick books by the end of kindergarten. I spent 2 years decompressing her from that. She now loves to read and by the “public school standards” she reads 3 grades ahead of where they say she should be. Every child learns different. :)
I work in a preschool that’s part of the public elementary school, and although I’ve never heard the term “redshirting”, this is a really common practice now! There are many students who will be turning 6 during kindergarten, or have turned 6 before they even start! It’s definitely a positive thing, especially since the curriculum is becoming more and more competitive and fast-paced, which leaves little room for those who need extra help. When I went to kindergarten, we learned our letters one at a time over the course of the school year – nowadays, kids are expected to know the alphabet and write their names before they even start school! The extra year really helps some kids, not only academically but socially.