Magnet Angel

I got into an interesting discussion with some parents at my daughter's school regarding redshirting kindergarten students. States across the country are enforcing a mandatory minimum age for kindergartners, where a student must be five by a certain cutoff date. Some states it's the beginning of September before school starts, and in California it's actually December. The goal is to keep parents from starting their children in school before they're ready. That makes some sense, or else, the parents of the "extremely, wildly, gifted out the treetops" might be trying to enroll them in school before the placenta is delivered.<!--break-->

What concerns me, though, is exactly the opposite practice--redshirting. Some parents feeling they will gain an advantage if they keep their five and even six year olds out of kindergarten an extra year. I'm not talking about kids with fall birthdays who are not ready for school at four, but children that are fully five or even turning six during the school year and the parents hold them back one more year so they will be (presumably) even more mature and better prepared for kindergarten.

My son was four when he started kindergarten and didn't turn five for two months. He was reading. He was also a boy and he liked to move. Thankfully, we weathered the storm, and we've been very happy with our decision since. I can only imagine what happens to a class if this practice catches hold when some well-meaning parents send their five-year-olds to kindergarten and have to compete with six-and-a-half-year-old kindergarteners. Do I as a parent want my daughter, a March baby and still the tiniest in her class, having to compete physically with children that are double her weight and six inches taller than she is?

Kindergarten is supposed to prepare children for school. Kindergarten should not be looked at as the gateway to Harvard and Yale. I really wish more people would look at the journey and let their kids be kids rather than look for the destination and strategize their entire lives before they've lost their first teeth.