Comments on: Kindergarten "redshirting." What would you do?
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- Dads are taking advantage of this "loophole" so that their "boy" can make that "monster tackle" in football, or throw 10 mph faster than the other baseball kids...while they pound their chests like gorillas in the stands.
Moms are doing it so their kid can go up to the podium to receive their annual "do gooder" award, while they can run up to front of the audience and take their favorite "my kids better than yours" facebook picture.
And let me tell you something... every parent that didn't "Redshirt" their "underdeveloped" kid for "this or that" b.s. reason, despises you everytime you do it.
90 percent of parents that do this are doing it to have an advantage over other kids. And they could care less about the other kids they are effecting. They are the same ones that call the teacher all the time and pressure them to change a "B" to an "A" so they can get into Harvard.
And what is interesting is that when you point out the truth in someone doing this, they get really mad. It's like telling a kid you know he did it, and he has no other response but to get mad about it.
"Oh, you don't know my kid"... blah, blah, blah. You're right, I don't know your kid, but I know you. And what is sad is that your reproducing like rabbits, without any regard for the other kids.
Quit lieing to yourself and the intelligent people here that know that is what you did. - Reply to this comment
- I find it funny that parents think that holding kids back will give them an advantage. Kids are smarter than you think and know which kids don't belong - every child in my class that was born before the age cutoff had a stigma of being "slow" all the way through school and never escaped it. As for sports, all competitive sports should be cutoff by age only and not have any consideration for grade (i.e. - older kids should have to play on after-school sports teams with kids that are in higher grades and the same age as them).
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- I wish 60 Minutes had aired the Overtime discussion during your on-air broadcast and given more in-depth coverage on both sides of this issue. The broadcast, as aired, came across as being very one-sided, presenting parents who hold their young 5-year-olds out for another year as types who are out to dominate society and give their kid the utmost advantage. As a parent with a child approaching kindergarten but only making our state cutoff by 2 weeks, I agree completely with Deidre Naphin's opinion on this issue. I am not looking at this decision as a way to insure that my child is better equipped than the rest, but rather, as a way to insure that I am not starting him off in life at a disadvantage - one that may only compound throughout his school years. In an ideal world, we'd be able to enter all children at 5 and a half, but school only starts in September, so the only option for some parents is to have your child enter at just 5 (youngest) or just 6 (oldest). I, too, have read numerous opinions, reports, and anecdotes on this issue, and find it interesting that there is considerable evidence and advice out there that supports waiting. It would have been considerably helpful for those of us in this predicament if 60 Minutes had given the other side of the debate adequate coverage. Why not ask the opinion of educators and child development specialists and give more coverage to some of the studies put out by educational and government bodies? And was the fact that most Kindergartens are now covering the First Grade curricula of earlier generations (i.e., expecting ever more from young children) ever addressed? Furthermore, I applaud the coverage regarding how redshirting puts disadvantaged children at even more disadvantage. This is a serious, ethical dilemma that our society should address. However, the answer to this part of the problem is much broader than simply setting limits on parents and school start dates, and I feel that your coverage wrongly placed blame on parents. As a society, wouldn't it be best for us to support universal preschool or pre-K for all disadvantaged children (or all children, for that matter), or to better address other factors that put such children at a disadvantage well before kindergarten entry? And, while we must weigh our own well-being alongside the well-being of greater society, isn't it still a parent's job to do what is best for their own child, and still every society-member's job to ensure that we are reaching our full potential? I also find Morley Safer's comments on helicopter parents during "Overtime" a topic that could be further developed. Yes, it would be great to allow our kids to "just be kids", but are we, as a society, adequately understanding why helicoptering is occurring? For those of us in this generation of parents, it seems to be much more a reaction to society's changing structure, and the expectations and preparations needed to deal with such a changing world, than it is that we are self-imposing our own helicoptering. Now that could be a 60 Minutes topic.
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- Oh my goodness, there is SO much more to this topic! I moved to Texas in 2007, with a 1st grader and a preschooler. My oldest son was born May 14, 2000. He went into kindergarten in Boston at the age of 5 years, and I never noticed much difference in him from the other kids. When we moved to Texas, I became very aware of "redshirting." Alex, my son, was one of the youngest kids in his class (with a mid May birthday). Then, when he played flag football, which was age based, pretty much everyone on his team was in the grade below him, some of them were a month or two OLDER than he. In Texas, it does not happen with only the summer birthdays, it happens with kids born in April, May and June too! It is all for sports, football mostly. But the schools encourage it, because guess what, with older kids, you get better test scores! Teachers are now evaluated on standardized testing, so having older kids benefits the school system. In our town, we have a much larger percentage of "Gifted and Talented" children, but is is all because this city is affluent enough to hold kids back. My son is now going into 7th grade, he plays sports, and the difference in size is unbelievable. He is extremely smart, so academics have never been an issue, but the size in sports, regardless of his skill set, is scary. When parents hold their kids back, they may be doing it to give their kid an edge, but as they get older, especially in the middle school years when kids enter puberty at different times, they put my child, who is not held back, in danger. With concussions, hits, competitiveness etc, I feel like I may have to have my kid take a few years off from lacrosse because of how physical the game is. He has kids, in his grade, and on his team that are 1.5 years older than he! In Texas, this has gotten out of control. I wish you had me for this segment! I know of a family in my town, with 3 boys, all of which were held back twice!!!!!
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- Can't we all agree that an age cut-off is appropriate for competitive sports (not in-town leagues, but rather travel teams and varsity teams)?
Can't we also agree that it is more impressive for a younger kid to perform academically than an older kid (e.g., to see this, just take it to an extreme where if a kid takes each course twice...should he get a full ride to Harvard?)
Oliver Wendell Holmes presented us with a societal obligation to make rules to stop the "bad man" by taking away his motivations to
game the system.
In short: We should be enforcing age limits on sports and we should use age as a consideration for college. - Reply to this comment
- Kindergarten is not like it used to be. With all of the high-stakes testing that our politicians insist on us using, the pressure is on to teach kids more at an earlier age just to succeed in school. When I went to Kindergarten, it was about learning to get along with others. Formal reading and mathematics instruction did not begin until grade 1. Now Kindergartners are expected to read, add and subtract, etc. The pressure is on teachers and kids. As a former kindergarten (now pre-k) teacher, I believe it is almost "always" best to wait to start school until your child is ready to listen and absorb all that he/she must learn. Let them be kids and have fun as long as possible.
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- Another glaring example in how screwed up our educational system is.
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- I believe each child is different. My son has an August 22nd birthday and he was NOT ready (maturity-wise) to start kindergarten at age 5. He was completely ready about 6 months later, but they won't let you start school in the middle of the year - so we waited and started him the next fall. He is now going into high school and doing well in school. He is rather a late bloomer (although, he will be a a big kid - his dad is 6'4"), so even though he is almost a year older than some of his classmates, you would never know it (most of them are bigger than he is). As far as having a leg up in sports - it doesn't work that way. He has always played soccer and the cutoff date for that is August 1. So, whether we started him in school at age 5 or not - be would have played with kids a year younger. I never felt he had an advantage of any kind by being older. I would have felt bad starting him at 5 - he simply was not ready to start kindergarten (he certainly was smart enough, but socially he would have struggled). I know lots of kids who did start and they are doing fine. It really should be a child by child thing. I do not believe you should hold them back, just to give them an 'edge' of some sort. If they are ready, start them - if they are not, don't. It should be as simple as that.
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- I wish the school district take each child as their own person and judge them on their own, rather than lumping them into a group simply by birthday. I was 4 when I entered kindergarten and 21 when I graduated from college. My brother, born on December 30, also started at age 4, was valedictorian when he graduated from high school, and went straight through to his doctorate. Although he had done well in kindergarten and tested into the advanced class, the school placed him in a class for "slower" children simply because of his age. After two months, his teacher told my parents he was bored and the school moved him into the advanced class. My brother born in November went through the exact same scenario. The school district has since moved the cut-off from December 31 to October 1, and now he and I are fighting the school district to allow our children, both born in October, to enter kindergarten at 4 as we did. Her teachers say my daughter is ready mentally, emotionally and physically. How will spending another year in an over-crowded classroom, being taught things she already knows, be a benefit to her?
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- Thanks for reporting on red shirting. As an educator (have been for over 19 years) and a parent of twin 7 year olds, I had to make the challenging decision to keep my kids back or send them forward. I chose to send them forward, and as a result, they are one of the youngest kids in their class. What the program last night didn't report on was the teacher's perceptive. I have unique insight being a teacher for over 19 years, having a doctorate in education, and having young kids. So with my insight, why did I send my twin girls forward? What I noticed in students' learning over the years is that the kids that were moved forward have an early advantage of grasping the concepts quicker since they have had an extra year to learn them and possibly because of their maturity level, but it all evens out later in education. This happens around junior high and high school. At this time, the students' study habits and work ethic dictate how successful a student will be rather than their age. This is even more apparent in college. I have students in my classes that are older, but do not perform as well as the younger students because they don't work as hard, and possibly, are bored. The best advice to give parents is to establish good study habits early on in age. My husband and I (he is also a teacher) have read to our twins since they were born. Now almost every day (even in summer and on vacation), my kids read at least one book, play the piano, and do some math. We have taught our kids that learning is apart of life; that you will always be reading, thinking, etc. My twins do not know the difference. Lastly, one of my great professors in my education doctoral program told me when I complained to him about how hard his class was and how did he expect all of us to accomplish all of this work in one term, he replied, "students will strive to the level of expectations placed upon them." I have always remembered this and apply it to my teaching today. I also thought about this when sending my twins forward to kindergarten. Yes, they are the youngest, but they will strive to the level of learning placed upon them. Is that a bad thing?
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