this was originally written July 2014

When I first started daycare in this house Elise was 4 months old. She couldn't sit up yet, let alone crawl, walk or talk. One of my first daycare girls was Kelsey who was 15 months old. She was talking, walking and doing toddler things. Five and a half years later Kelsey and Elise started kindergarten on the same day. Elise had just turned 5, that day, Kelsey was a month away from turning 6. Both started by the legal cut off start date for the district, but was Kelsey at the same level as Elise? Obviously not, she was 11 months older. So, should kids wait till they are closer to 6 yrs old or start when they are able to by age, most being 5 years old? This note is to examine that issue.

As they say, hindsight is 20/20.

I was reading some articles on why parents were going to "red shirt" their child by not sending the child who is 5 yrs old before the district guidelines to kindergarten. Since I have summer birthday kids who are now about to enter 7th and 10th grade I feel I can speak on this in the hindsight view. Tara was 5 years and 2.5 months old when she started kindergarten, Elise started kindergarten on her 5th birthday. Additionally I do home daycare so both of them had only ME as their first teacher. We did make sure to have them experience other adults in charge through library story time, swim lessons and other sports, but I was the primary teacher in their lives.

I must say that they both had the most amazingly fabulous kindergarten teacher, Miss Nowak. I think that was essential in their schooling going smoothly that first year. Neither of them had any anxiety over school, only excitement. Tara started with a speech problem not being able to say her /th/ or /y/ or r controlled vowels. Elise had lots of fevers and missed about 30 days of school each year up until 4th grade when she had kidney reflux surgery. They were average as first day of kindergarten kids, but very confident in themselves and in being away from home for school. Our kindergarten is a half day here so they still had lunch at home that year.

So, today I am reading articles about redshirting. I often read such things because although my kids are old I work with parents of preschoolers. Here are some reasons the parents gave to not send their child to kindergarten as a 5 yr old, and my hindsight view.

1. Wanting their child to be the oldest. My children are tiny, skinny, and short. Sorry kids, you know it's true. But they never suffered for being the last to grow tall, the last to develop. Yes it was hard when Tara was in 6th grade and only wearing a size 12.5 shoe and finding shoes that weren't Dora, sparkly or little kid looking was next to impossible. And it was irritating that both girls were told in 6th grade gym class they MUST have bras on even though they were not anywhere near needing them. But there were other girls that didn't need them yet either. The girls that had issues were those that started having to wear a bra in 4th grade, or those that started their period in grade school. Those kids were friends with my girls and hated being the mature ones. Next year Tara would have taken Driver's Ed, but instead she is going to a school that won't offer it and will be so academically challenging that she isn't going to even try to take it until after she is 16 anyway, driving is not something she wants to do yet just like half the kids her age.

2. Wanting to wait to start their formal education. As the person who taught my kids for preschool I knew my kids were ready academically for kindergarten. They knew all their letter names and sounds, they could count out objects, add and subtract, count by 2s, 5s and 10s, do patterns, and many other things. One of my daycare boys missed the cut off and spent an extra year of preschool with me, he was reading by Thanksgiving just like the kids that went to kindergarten. He's now about to enter 5th grade and doing math and reading at the 6th or 7th grade level and luckily is at a school that will let him do that, otherwise he would have been bored or had to skip a grade (which is harder to do then holding back a grade). Tara went to school with a set of twins that were literally hours younger then her. They struggled in school and repeated 3rd grade. It was their choice and they are about to enter high school confident and academically ready. It was no big deal for them to stay back that year, no one teased them, they made new friends easily and fit in fine. Being held back a year was easier then skipping ahead, we had to fight to get Tara into advanced classes and she was never "allowed" to be in the gifted program but is going to an elite high school this fall and is 2 yrs ahead in math. So, starting sooner or later can go either way but from what I've seen it's easier to repeat a year of school instead of skip ahead. I didn't want to hold my kids back. Oh, that boy who missed the cut off - the day he turned 5 he thought he would be allowed to start kindergarten even though it was a month into the school year, the poor boy was so upset that he wasn't allowed to start school with his friends who were only months older. I think this was harder on him then starting kindergarten early could ever have been.

3. I want my oldest child to stay close to her younger siblings. Really? Maybe it's cause my child went to afternoon kindergarten but it has not hurt their relationship at all. Elise napped when Tara went to school. There were some very cute photos of Elise waiting at the corner of the yard for her sister to get home from school, but it just made the bond between them stronger.

4. I want her to be a leader in school. My daughters have both been leaders, and some of the older kids in the class have not been. It has nothing to do with age, everything to do with personality.

5. Along the same lines as 2, I want my child to be able to enjoy childhood longer. My kids were lucky in that I do daycare I guess, but they played with toys until they were 11, their friends would come to our house to play cause we still had lots of toys. And as recently as last week they were playing on the swings out back.

6. I want her to be more emotionally mature. My girls were very emotionally mature, again, personality more then age.

7. (The parent) is just not ready. Who is schooling for? The parent or the child? As a parent there are many times that we must make a sacrifice in order for our children to get what they need. In the case of my kids this meant me letting go of them when they had just turned 5. As an early education expert I have looked at actual research, peer reviewed studies, and those say that starting them when they are legally able to (usually at 5 yrs old, it varies by state with when cut offs are) is the best option.

Now MY main reason for sending kids to school at the age they qualify is, as this article http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/dont-delay-your-kindergartners-start.html?_r=0

so clearly states - the one main way to increase academic success is by being IN school. I had a daycare boy who had a spring birthday who was very behind in skills. No matter how I tried this child would not understand and retain information. I encouraged his parents to send him to kindergarten on time, knowing full well that his new daycare would say the exact opposite. My main reason for saying he should go was that in a formal school setting he would get the help he needed from people trained in that area of education. Being in elementary school was the best thing that could happen to him, it would give him daily academic help in ways he needed. Another year of daycare, even good daycare, would not do what he needed. I have not researched this subject since 2004 when Tara was turning 5, so I revisited the studies to see if my earlier findings were still true, that the studies prove it's best to send them with their cut off age. It seems that the studies still support my view.

this article seems to indicate that poor families should hold their kids back, but for non poor families it doesn't matter http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9082/index1.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2140009/

this study says that it's other factors instead of age that need to be considered, and that knosing the age of the child makes the teacher biased in expectations

https://www.utexas.edu/lbj/chasp/research/downloads/kindergarten.pdf

another article, I found this one interesting because it follows kids that were born in 74. Page 161 in the report (it is not that long, just think it was in a journal that had it there in the magazine) shows the results. Basically saying that redshirted kids have MORE issues. However if kids were redshirted for them to "get more mature" it seems that this would mean that they did not need that year to get mature, they just were more prone to behavior issues. This article followed kids through college graduation and first years in the job market and surprised me when it said that younger students did better on test scores in high school. Page 171 states that there is no difference in economic status or gender of child either.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/09/youngest-kid-smartest-kid.html

this article shows results of long term studies, and sorry, redshirting hurts kids in the long run

this article is much more current, 2008, and says any edge disappears by 8th grade http://www.news.illinois.edu/news/08/0818kindergarten.html

http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=282

this article talks about a 1998 study, but it says there are mixed results

http://illinoisearlylearning.org/faqs/redshirting.htm

and here is a list of cut off dates by state that I thought was interesting http://users.stargate.net/~cokids/kindergarten_cut-off_dates.htm

and this one had a few different dates on it http://www.superpages.com/supertips/age-to-start-kindergarten-by-state.html

referenced links http://thehumbledhomemaker.com/2013/08/10-reasons-why-im-not-sending-my-5-year-old-to-kindergarten-why-im-redshirting-my-daughter.html