"I got paid $100 for that shot," one of my players told me as we warmed up for our basketball game, referring to a close-range layup the prior week. No, I'm not an NBA coach. The player wasn't referring to some elaborate point shaving scheme cooked up by would-be sports agents to high school prodigies. The player was six years old.
The kid's parents had paid him to make a basket. I was floored. Speechless. He said it in passing like it didn't really matter, like even he thought it was kind of weird.
Pretty soon the boys were laughing and chasing each other around cones I had set up, trying without much success to dribble the miniature balls while playing tag. Clearly, having fun was way more important to this kid than any parent's $100 payout. But it stuck with me as a sign of something profoundly wrong with our generation of parents, and a potential danger to the generation of kids, especially boys, that we are raising.
It reminded me of what a kindergarten teacher at a private school in Boston recently told me: "I was cornered by an applicant's father who asked that if he sent his child to me in pre-K, could I promise that his child would get into to Harvard in 14 years."
Most particularly it made me think of the increasing number of families who are holding back their sons at the age of five, particularly in private schools, in order to increase their competitive advantage, following, perhaps without knowing it consciously, the line of thinking that has been used to produce professional hockey players.
In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell discusses the odd distribution of birth months among NHL players. In Canada, youth hockey is a highly policed sport where players are registered strictly by calendar year. The oldest, therefore, at each level are those born earliest in the year. Just by virtue of age they tend to be bigger and stronger. Gladwell argues convincingly that a disproportionate number of successful hockey players end up being born in the first few months of the year (see graph below). This selection process starts as early as age 8, and the effect persists all the way up to the NHL. It has been very consistent over time.
Source: http://behindthenet.ca/blog/
I asked one admissions officer what he says to the parents of boys entering kindergarten about the idea of holding their son back. He said, "I often tell parents that if allowing their children to be on the older end, rather than the younger end, results in any of the following: starting for a sports team as opposed to sitting on the bench; being one of the first to drive as opposed to one of the last (huge social advantage); the possibility they will be an A and B student as opposed to a B and C student; (for the dads) getting the girl or not getting the girl, then it is worth considering." (All the sources for this article asked to remain anonymous given the sensitive nature of their day-to-day relationships with children and their parents.)
But a different admissions officer disagreed strongly: "The trend is disgusting, but it fits with any arms race or conflict cycle model. I've been wondering more broadly about what age we push kids through all the school factories. All they have in common is age and since they all develop at different ages, that system often makes little sense anyway."
What I have noticed is that more and more boys are being held back. As a result, the classroom dynamic is changing so that the kids who play by the rules are disadvantaged by those who are bigger and more mature. As one teacher put it, "While I do believe there are some cases where a child is served well by being slightly older, I do not think this is true for most children. The problem we repeatedly run into is that as some parents hold their children back, it wreaks havoc on the class dynamic and turns a pre-K classroom into an 'almost kindergarten' one."
If we keep our curriculum to what we feel is age-appropriate, we get parents who demand to know why we don't challenge their child. If we cater to those in the class who are developmentally more advanced, we lose those children who are being children and are developmentally where they should be. I would argue that those children, both boys and girls, who are pushed at an early age, end up at a social disadvantage later on, as not enough attention was given to their emotional development, and far too much was given to developing skill sets. It is also these children who lose their love of school. Most children want to participate in pretend play, for instance, but it is shocking to see those who have already internalized the idea that pretend play is too young for them, and that being older is somehow more important."
A psychologist in Boston who works intensively with children agreed with the danger in holding boys back: "The press to perceive a child's development in a competitive, cutthroat 'I win you, you lose' mindset ... appears to be extending to younger and younger ages. Although delaying school for a year may ... benefit individual children, the larger pattern seems likely to fuel collective anxiety among parents and children in destructive ways."
Part of this problem is gender-based. "We know that the development of verbal skills for boys at that age can be 12 to 18 months behind girls, yet they are in the same classrooms with similar, if not identical, expectations," said one admissions officer.
A kindergarten teacher commented, "Many schools set up their classroom and schedules to reflect a typical girl learner, not a young boy. Asking a 4 or 5-year-old boy to sit at a table and do prolonged work with a pencil and paper is asking far too much, and yet if we examine the kindergarten or first-grade schedule, they are shuffled from room to room, subject to subject, and we slowly take away their time to play and make independent choices, and recess becomes a distant memory to many fifth-graders. I watch parents as they tour our school and see the anxiety on their faces as they realize that their child is not 'ready' for all this."
Fessenden and Dexter (where JFK famously attended) are both private schools in Boston exclusively for boys. These schools neutralize the argument that boys need to be held back to keep up with girls by teaching them separately. Yet the issue isn't purely about boys keeping up with girls. It's about parents putting pressure on their very small kids and the teachers who teach them even when boys are being taught in an all-male environment.
"There are those families that enter with the attitude that they are paying for education and the play-based curriculum in the younger grades makes no sense to them," said one Boston-area teacher. "I will never forget the conference where the parent asked me repeatedly if his 5-year-old was in the top third, middle third, or bottom third of the class. My answer of how that was an inappropriate ranking of a kindergarten child made no impression on him. He explained that he needed to know if this expense was really worth it. There is an enormous lack of appreciation for childhood these days -- people see it merely as preparation for the rest of life, and there is not recognition of the inherent value of childhood experiences."
In the end the issue is about the kids and about how we collectively define learning. Perhaps the intense pressure at a young age amongst those financially capable of sending their kids to private school stems from a national public education system that is profoundly broken, where many kids cannot even read to grade level. Perhaps there is a feeling that if one's son doesn't have every advantage, they will not only not get into Harvard, they will fall between the cracks and become part of the unfortunate mass of undereducated and under-employed young people in our country.
Still, the Race to Nowhere, as a recent film calls it, does more harm than good -- whether boys are learning to play basketball or read a book. They don't really care if they are winning. They just want to play and read.
As parents we should know better than to put our anxiety on our kids like some kind of disease. Education is supposed to be an adventure, one that is largely directed by the child's own passions and inspirations. When it is working well, you see the child's eyes light up like a Christmas tree when he discovers something new and eagerly wants to tell you about it. It isn't a competition. There is no fixed amount of learning that goes into kindergartens across the country, and for which each family has to fight for more than their share. It is quite the opposite: Learning grows like a weed among children when it is shared. One child reinforces another's learning. It's as much a process for the group as the individual.
Yet despite all the negative indications of the broader trend, there are some cases when holding back a child does make sense.
One parent told me, "I have two boys who are summer birthdays -- one is now 28 and the other is 17. My wife, a teacher, and I chose to allow them to be older. While we do not pat ourselves on the back for our parenting, we do for this decision. Our older son had an unbelievable senior year in high school where he emerged as a very good athlete (late bloomer), his academics came together, and he won a bunch of awards -- none of which would not have happened if he had graduated a year earlier! His confidence level going off to college was sky high, which I don't believe would have been the case if he had not had the extra year. Our younger son, a June 1 birthday, had his struggles from an early age and is finally finding himself as a high school junior. Again, our thoughts as parents are that we cannot imagine him ready for college this year, but are very pleased and comfortable with his trajectory and readiness for college next year."
An administrator recently recalled, "A few years ago, my best friend since fourth grade told me that he wished he had repeated. Frankly, I was stunned by this statement because while I knew he was the youngest in our prep school class with a November birthday, I also know that he graduated first in our class in high school, first in his class in college, and first in his Ph.D. program at Stanford. I called him on this statement and asked why he felt that way and his response was, 'I was a late bloomer both socially and athletically. I was going to be smart regardless of which class I was in, but my overall experience in school would have been much more positive if I had had that extra time to develop in areas I was desperate to be successful and comfortable.'"
Maybe we should return to the core principals of what kindergarten is for. This doesn't mean we should never hold back a kid, but it should be the exception instead of the rule. And we must to do more to relieve the competitive pressure among parents and focus instead on how to serve the needs of kids.
"It constantly comes back to expectations," one teacher told me. "What do we teachers expect of our students? What do the parents expect of us? What do the parents expect of their children? An administrator recently told me her mantra is whatever works for the students. What she meant by this was that no matter how difficult the decision, she would always do what she felt would benefit the students, even if that meant firing a teacher, having a tough dissuasion with a parent, changing a school routine, or dispensing with a school tradition. It could all be done if it meant that the students would benefit. It is a motto we could all learn from, as schools these days are so bogged down with competition and politics that we often forget that schools exist to serve students."
Amen to that.
Follow Tom Matlack on Twitter: www.twitter.com/tmatlack
Sharon Duke Estroff: Should You Redshirt Your Child? Tips on Making the Right Call for Kindergarten
Pam Allyn: Early Childhood Education Is at Risk
John Merrow: The Preschool Education Issues in America
The Littlest Redshirts - Postponing Kindergarten - NYTimes.com
Holding Kids Back from Kindergarten: How Redshirting Hurts - The ...
The trouble with older kindergarten. - By Emily Bazelon - Slate ...
still no problem
My youngest daughter is December 15 bday, and could not start school this past year. At first I was bummed, but now, seeing how she deals with pre-school, I'm glad that we had to wait. She may have been able to deal with it, but now she has a whole other year to get there.
My oldest turned 5 two weeks before school started, and her first few months at school were rocky, she had a difficult time sitting still. But eventually she got the hang of it.
My boy is much less mature than his big sister was at the same age. His fine motor skills in particular were lagging and his attention span much shorter. He did jr. K at not-quite-5, "transition" at not-quite-6, and won't start 1st until he's not-quite-7. Not to try to give him any competitive advantage but because he simply is on a slightly slower developmental timetable.
Having said this...all summer borns are not created equally. As has been stated over and over, age is a sorta arbitrary thing, right? My summer born daughter is now a 2nd grader in a private school. There are several summer born kids in her class that operate well above grade level in all areas. It would have been an absolute tragedy to red-shirt these kids. Then there's my kid... on grade level. She is rarely 1st in her class at anything but the teachers assure me she is a healthy, happy average 2nd grader. The work is challenging. Could this be an advantage? Never being bored, always having to stretch from habit instead of coasting with confidence? I don't know. I do resent the small number of red-shirted kids in her class. Someone has to be the youngest...someone will always be the youngest...why should some other parent's decision to give their kid an "edge" force my child to be younger by 13, 14, 15 and sometimes 16 months instead of the usual 12? I wish schools would figure out what they want...set a national birthdate limit and then leave it!
If an asterisk were placed by these kids names and an explanation of the fact that the child is at least a year older, then I think the parents would not engage in this practice as often. These kids should be compared to their age peers, and a designation that they were not "mature enough" to handle being with their age peers would not sugar coat this fact.
Whether all of that should change is a whole separate conversation, but that is the way it currently is.
I agree with the writer that kindergarten itself is broken - my son had one fifteen minute recess and was asked to sit in his seat completing worksheets for the rest of the day. But making your child older to endure this kind of torture doesn't really solve the problem; we parents need to turn our eyes toward what the schools are doing, focusing relentlessly on passing state tests, and ignoring all other parts of our children.
Redshirting is nothing but a perceived advantage that, in my experience talking to parents, was for social and sports reasons only.
Holly Korbey
http://parentsfortexas.tumblr.com
This is what leads me to believe that the move is often about competition and being the biggest and smartest in class, not what is in the best interest of the child. If my child were "bored out of his/her mind" in school, I would look into grade acceleration, ESPECIALLY if my child were 18+ months older than the average student.
Holly Korbey
http://parentsfortexas.tumblr.com
Many truthful parents openly admit they redshirt in order to give their child the opportunity to be the leader, more mature, smarter, more athletic and the opportunity to build their self esteem.
Since the trend is for some parents to RS their kids, those kids should compete head to head for RS designated prizes (ie RS winner of 4th grade field day hurdles, RS 3rd grade top science fair winner) or group them in RS composed classes.
This way we keep the playing field level and respect the rights of parents. The RS tag will demonstrate the competition was not quite fair. RS parents should have no problems with this (RS class grouping) if the idea is to give them an extra year to mature. This way the RS kids do not benefit to the detriment of "playing by the rules" students by taking an award or coveted varsity spot that was due to the RS student being older.
FWIW, I was one of the oldest kids in my grade (January birthday) while my DH was one of the youngest kids in his (November birthday). We both graduated top of our respective classes, were National Merit Finalists, scored the exact same on our SAT's, and got accepted to Stanford. Older kids may have a slight advantage in the primary grades, but by high school it's long gone.
I also think kindergarten or 1st grade should have nationally set start date with a battery of testing to prove your child is incapable or unfit to begin on time OR that your child is more than capable and well suited to begin prior to their mandated start date.
You just said your child did not learn to write their name until 5 1/4, but many children in kindergarten don't learn to write their names until then or later. So why is it okay for a 6 year old who has been writing for 9 months to enter a classroom with children who are true kindergarteners and appear as advanced, when in fact your child is a typical 1st grader?
Someone has to be the youngest in the natural age distribution, and your husband, by his stellar academic performance -especially being male- illustrated that being younger and or male is not a reason to hold a child back.
I think it's best exemplified above in the man asking if a Pre-K teacher could guarantee a child going to Harvard, but I see a lot of parents who don't recognize that their child is an individual completely separate from themselves. Dads who cringe at the idea that their son won't be an athletic savant (let alone even interested in sports) are a prime and ready example of this. At the end of the day, it is extremely unlikely that the children of those fathers will go pro, and they probably won't play college ball either. It's really sad to think that in many cases, the interests of the child are completely replaced by the fantasies of the parent.
Another big issue with redshirting is that it might be teaching children that winning is, in fact, everything. This may lead to a financially stable adulthood, but I know few people who landed high-paying jobs out of college, only to lose them due to drinking/drug problems (likely fostered by stress/unhappiness)
The problem with society is education. The problem with education is parenting.
Thanks, Tom.
I blame much of this hyper-competitiveness on the fear that our economy is so skewed to the rich and powerful, parents worry about kids who are simply average.
However, it would seem that both of the prongs on this fork of bad parenting stem from the handle of not actually taking the time to get to know one's child. It's amazing to think how many of life's problems could be solved by talking at dinner.
We make these kids jump through crazy hoops as it is in the quest to get into a good college. Can't they just be kids for awhile, progressing at their own pace in their intended grade level? Do we really believe that every boy in grade school will eventually be a Division I NCAA athlete? There's a difference between challenging your kids and making everything a competition. I just wonder who is actually competing in this game: the boys or their parents?
There are too many factors to predict to in order to engineer "the perfect kid" with the "perfect schooling" like these parents want and it's disturbing that they seek this much control over their kids' lives. I just don't think it will lead to a healthy outcome at all.
If I had my way we'd repeal NCLB and redesign standards to meet children's developmental needs. If the 3rd grade test (or, better yet, a less standardized/more authentic form of assessment) were consistent with a typical 8-year-old's development, we wouldn't have to push fourth-grade work down to third, and third to second, and second to first, and first to kinder. And then kids wouldn't need to be 6 to succeed in kinder, and we wouldn't be having this conversation.
And by the way, my birthday is Dec. 2, I started K at 4 and college at 17, and graduated summa from a top school. And did just fine both socially and academically all along the way, thanks very much. Young does not necessarily equal dumb OR "less mature."
I'm working on a story about redshirting and I'm wondering as a teacher - would you be interested in speaking with me?
Thanks, Nichole Marks / CBS