8/12/2023 0 Comments Redshirting kindergarten 2022![]() ![]() He also seemed to prefer games and drawing over athletics, so I decided his ability to tackle in tenth grade was less of a concern that maybe it was for others. My second son was around the same height and weight as my first son, though he was 18 months younger, so he’d never been on the small size for his age. Should it matter? We went back to the drawing board briefly. “We don’t want him to be tiny when he plays sports.” I hadn’t even considered this aspect: physical size, not just in kindergarten but throughout school. Until I chatted with another mom with a son with the exact same birthday month, who was redshirting hers for a year. So my decision had been mostly made - we would send him. They’d be just a grade apart, and the idea of having two of them move through school together seemed super convenient for carpools and bake sales and logistics. And what would he learn there? He’d also eagerly asked about starting school after watching his older brother board the bus, come home with library books, and more. Was he emotionally able to make it through a whole school day, with the stamina that required? Could the kid even open his own lunch box and figure out a juice box, let alone tie his shoes and wipe his butt? Mayyybe.īut the alternative was spending thousands of dollars in daycare money. But his personality mixed with pandemic gaps gave us pause. He had already finished the traditional preschool route offered, and could go to kindergarten as a very freshly turned 5-year-old. So we were faced with a more complicated dilemma. His birthday fell just a few weeks before school was set to begin. He is an expert fart joker, spends a serious amount of time pranking people, and therefore isn’t the most mature kid any of us have ever met (but oh-so-lovable). In retrospect, I could have held him another year if I’d wanted, but pandemic living and working pushed us into having at least one child out of the house in public school as soon as possible, filling in those gaps from his missed final months of preschool in lockdown. He was around 5 years and 8 months when August rolled around and seemed about as bored with preschool as he could be, so it was a natural transition. It was a pretty obvious choice for my oldest son, who has a winter birthday. For others, with more borderline birthdays, or who are less mature than their counterparts and maybe not as “ready,” the decision gets a little murkier, and talks of redshirting begin. For some, the decision is obvious - the kid turns six, summer wraps up, and off they go. These are just a few of the dozens of factors my husband and I have considered for each of my four sons, two of which have already boarded the Big Cheese headed off to kindergarten in recent years. Academic ability (again, or lack thereof). ![]()
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