Repeat after me, parents-to-be: have your babies in the spring or summer. Do not have an autumn baby. Got it? Good. Now, if you’re already pregnant, and you realise that you’re going to give birth to an autumn of winter baby, do not panic. It’s not too late. Just make sure it’s a girl. Otherwise, you’re in for it.
I did not expect any trouble with my four-year-old son Holden’s starting school (kindergarten grade) when we moved states last year. The cut-off for kindergarteners to turn five in NSW is July 31, and Holden (born July 21, 2003) made it, albeit barely.
I had never even heard of kindergarten “red-shirting,” the term for university athletics benching an athlete for a year so he can “mature.” But as soon as we moved, we noticed that many of the parents we met were obsessed with the “winter birthday boys.” People we did not even know were concerned that Holden, if he entered on time, would be “too immature” and “socially unready” to handle kindergarten. Everyone insisted that we hold him back.
My husband and I were totally confused. Why was everyone so concerned that boys be six when they enter school, when the rules say five? And, why were the winter birthday girls ready for kindergarten, and the boys were not?
In October, I attended Holden’s parent-teacher conference at pre-school.
His teacher gave me a photocopied list. “Here is a state-approved list for kindergarten readiness. I’d like you to take a look at it.”
I quickly scanned the list. Recognises Own Name. Check. Identifies Colours. Check. Recognises Letters / Sounds of the alphabet. He’d been reading since his third birthday. Check. Able To Follow Directions (More than two in a row). Check. I read the rest of the list, and Holden had mastered every single task save one, Takes Turns To Talk / Doesn’t Interrupt. We were working on that one.
“I think you should hold Holden back from kindergarten,” she said.
“Are you joking?”
I felt myself getting defensive. I started talking too loud. “He reads! He’s fully reading! He meets every criteria on this list, except one! Why on earth would we hold him back?” My mind was racing. I was thinking there must be some explanation. He was smart, social, pretty well-behaved. He definitely had his moments. But still, I could not think of what would make the teacher want to hold him back from kindergarten.
“Yes, Holden is a very smart boy. But, he acts very young.”
“He’s four.”
“How Holden acts is perfectly age-appropriate. But, he does act young.”
Okay, things were getting a little weird for me now. I could not follow the conversation. Holden was acting young, and by young, we mean acting four—which was perfectly okay, according to her—but young acting was not okay for kindergarten? The other children, the ones not being held back from kindergarten, how were they acting? Old? Older? Older than what?
“What is he doing that’s so young?” I began to have nightmarish visions: Holden yanking down his pants and peeing on another kid. Hurling toilet paper wads at the bathroom ceiling.
“Well, for one, he sucks his thumb.”
Sucks his thumb? I knew kids who sucked their thumbs in high school!
“I think if it continues, the other children will make fun of him.”
She cited other examples of his immaturity: when they did a silly song and dance on Fridays, he participated. (The other boys did not.) Also, he liked to play by himself.
Holden’s teacher explained to me that, generally, most young boys were considered unready to face the “social challenges” of kindergarten—though she could not pinpoint what those challenges were actually—and were held back. Angry, I argued that she had not taken the time to observe my particular child. In my mind, somebody had to be the youngest, and why were we picking on the boys? Did not the girls undergo the same scrutiny toxic for “immaturity” that the boys did?
“The little girls are so much better at sitting still” was her only comment.
She said Holden was right on track, but that I’d have to hold him back because all the other boys his age would be held back. My perfectly sweet, smart, socially normal four-year-old was being told that he needed to be held back, because that’s what the other boys were doing. Peer pressure for preschoolers!
“Red-shirting” is a trend mainly in affluent areas, since parents unable to afford an extra year of child care continue to abide by the July cut-off. But the trend is growing. In Victoria in 1992 there was one six-year-old for every four five-year-olds in kindy. By 2002 the ratio had grown to 1:2.
The change flows on to the sporting field too. In rugby, parents mutter about growing numbers of suspiciously oversized children.
Part of the increase in holding kids back can be attributed to Stevbe Biddulph, The author of the 1997 best-seller Raising Boys. He has been the most influential advocate of the theory that boys, especially, suffer if they go to school before six. His statements are backed up by the British Medical Journal, which claims that children who start school early are at greater risk of developing psychological disorders than their older classmates.
But a study by University of California paediatrics professor Robert Byrd found that children whose school entry had been delayed had more behavioural problems during adolescence. The fact is, someone has to be the youngest in the class.
Let me stop and rewind a bit: I am not talking about children with learning problems or developmental delays. Kids with learning problems and delays are a different consideration altogether. None of the autumn birthday boys in Holden’s class were being held back because of developmental delays. They were being held back so they could have a perceived advantage over other children.
I could not help wondering if Holden’s teacher had not mentioned something about my conference tirade to the other preschool mothers, because each, in turn, began grilling me about my decision.
I met one mum and her kids at the park one afternoon. “What are you going to do with Holden next year?”
“He’s going to kindergarten.” I tried to sound nonchalant.
The mum clucked. “Ooooh. That could be a mistake.”
“Why?”
“Well, Billy had a winter birthday, and we went ahead and sent him to kindergarten. His preschool teacher warned us to hold him back, but we were out to prove her wrong.”
Gulp. This “story” sounded a little familiar. “What happened?”
“It was not good.”
I wanted to drive back to South Australia that minute. “Did he do poorly?”
“Well, no. He did quite well.”
“Did he have behaviour problems?”
“Well—no. He did all right there, too. It’s just that… I hate to say it, but…”
“WHAT? WHAT IS IT?”
“It’s just that the teachers were prejudiced against him. They think that the younger kids are a pain. We were so stubborn about it, out to prove a point, and as a result Billy had a miserable year.”
At this point my blood started to boil.
In the next four weeks, I had seven more conversations with mums who insisted that I not send Holden to kindergarten. They told me their own success stories. One mum told me her son acted “effeminate,” and she held him back a year to ensure that he was larger than the other boys, so they’d be less likely to pick on him. Another told me that she was holding her younger son back so there would be more room between him and her older son. “That way he (the older son) can enjoy high school without baby brother in his business.” Still another mother was concerned about dating. “Tommy will be able to get his driver’s licence with all the other kids, be able to drive, go out on dates a year earlier.” I listened in horror. Nobody mentioned academics. These parents were more concerned with the social advantages that came with being older and bigger: dating, driving, and—oh, yeah, one more thing.
There was one more reason, a blip on the radar, every single mum mentioned to me, however sheepishly: sports eligibility. In a country known for near-deadly sports competitiveness, wisdom is that the bigger the boy gets, the more he’ll be competitive at sports, especially in high school. And the older ones will be bigger first.
“He loves soccer, and he’ll have an advantage.”
“With his size advantage, we’re looking for a scholarship.”
“Do not you want to give an advantage Holden? Keep him at home one more year, give him an edge.”
I felt I was surrounded by lunatics.
By the end of Pre-K’s first semester, I was worried that I needed to jump on the bandwagon. I could not help feeling pressured to hold back my son so we’d fit in. I began losing sleep. I became afraid of running into the other mothers.
In defence of Holden’s teacher and all the insane mummies who were browbeating me, I want acknowledge that kindergarten as we remember it does not exist anymore. That half-day colours-and-letters playtime with dull scissors is gone, replaced by preschool. Kindergarten has gotten harder, and more competitive. I can see how parents might get nervous that a young child was not going to do well.
In December, I took Holden to a local school’s “Kindergarten Round-Up,” and I witnessed the kindergarten there is a full-day, five-day-a-week endeavour. There, Holden would wear a uniform of khaki or blue shorts or pants, and a white collared shirt. He would have one twenty-minute recess a day, and art, music, and PE only once a week. He would attend both Mac and PC computer courses. He would have homework assignments. If he was sick for more than one day, he would have to produce a doctor’s note upon his return. Unexcused absences would result in suspension.
Okay. For a moment, I saw what the kooky pres-chool mums were saying. This seemed like a very grown-up world for my son, who still has to be reminded to wipe his behind and cannot yet tie his shoes. I went ahead and signed him up for kindergarten at the “round-up,” but I worried a little that I’d been hasty. That I was just being stubborn.
We all want our kids to be the best they can be. I want Holden to have every advantage, because he’s a good kid with a tonne of potential. But red-shirting seems to me like thinly disguised one-upmanship, a show of force and a way that rich, white kids can gain yet another advantage over the other children. And frankly, it seems unfair—especially to the kids who could probably use another year in preschool if their families could only afford it.
As a friend said to me recently, “The competition is so fierce. Kids just are not allowed to be kids anymore. There’s so much pressure on them to be something spectacular. You are not allowed to just be a regular kid. ”
Finally, I opted out of the winter birthday boy craziness. I took the summer to research other schools, and we found a public school with a wonderful principal who sticks to the rules. Holden is going to kindergarten and is totally excited. He will be among the youngest in his class, but he will not be the only boy who’s not six.
Now that it’s all over, I only have one wish: that Holden had saved us all this trouble by being born in December.
Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you for this article! We are currently in exactly the same situation – our son was born in July and we are already getting the insinuations that we ‘have’ to keep him ‘back’ a year. When asked why, no-one can give a particularly good answer, but it seems to have now become such (middle class) common wisdom that no-one dares question it. You just do, because it is good for your child, don’t bother asking why.
Rewind a few years, and travel halfway round the world, and this was the exact situation we were in. A boy who hit all the marks for ‘ready for kindergarten’, including being able to read, at age 4. So we signed him up, in the full knowledge that many, if not most of the children in the class would be older. In fact, many (boys especially) were more than a year older than him. Yes, red-shirting is rampant here (suburban middle class Orange County, California).
We were adamant that we were in the right. Another year of Pre-K for a kid who was already at first, maybe even second grade educational standards? It seemed like insanity. He was eager to learn, read everything that he could get his hands on.
However, from the first kindergarten report card onwards we were proved wrong. Not that his behaviour, work, social skills or whatever were inappropriate for his age, but that the de facto standards had changed. Because most of the kids in the class were older, he was expected – no, required – to behave like a kid a year or more older than his actual age. The disparity was a problem from the outset. With a girl it’s different – they generally mature faster at that age, no secrets there.
I didn’t understand it at the time. I just thought he was like me – smart but lazy (“could do better” was my mantra at school). Of course, come test time, no problem (for either me back then or him now).
Toward the end of kindergarten though, things started looking up again. The year ended pretty well, positive comments and so on. Perhaps the teacher was just happy to be rid of the class.
But when first grade started – same problem. A much better teacher than in kindergarten, but the same story – concerned parent-teacher meetings, endless worry and so on. End of first grade, things got better, tests were passed, the last term/semester/whatever was a good one.
Second grade, another great teacher. But the same story, more or less, except this time during the year he’s also identified as ‘gifted’, and for the following year we’re persuaded to move him to a ‘better’ school in the district. Perhaps third grade would be the year when it all comes together? Perhaps the teacher would be more understanding?
Well, a month or so into third grade and it doesn’t seem that way. It’s the same story again, now in its fourth showing. Latest ‘concerned teacher’ meeting: “He seems immature”, she says. “He’s a year or more younger than the other kids”, we explain, as if she doesn’t know. “But he acts younger than them” she says. “He IS younger than them”, we counter. What’s not to get? She shows us that his writing is messier than the other kids. Not surprising – fine motor skills develop quickly at this age, and quicker in girls than boys. This can’t be a surprise? Sure, everything is spelt and punctuated correctly, but oh! the mechanics! SO messy! And to end the conference – perhaps, she suggests, he should be referred to a child psychologist. For what exactly? Because he’s an almost-eight-year old who’s been under extreme pressure for his entire school ‘career’ to act a year older than his actual age? Honestly, given that he’s been put through the educational mangel, I think he’s pretty f-ing normal, if you’ll excuse my French.
We’ve been down the ADD/ADHD route. Nope. Just a boy, behaviourally normal for his age. Should we put him on Ritalin anyway, so he can ‘act his grade’ to match the kids who were red-shirted? It really almost sounds like that’s what’s being suggested.
So what to do now? Two options really: stick it out, reliving the immense, constant stress each year and each teacher, until the developmental/behavioural curve hopefully starts to flatten out and the gap becomes less obvious. Or somehow find a way to give in and hold him back, admit we were naive and wrong, make him do third (or second) grade twice, despite the test scores. Because, it turns out they’re right. It’s not about academics.
Neither option is particularly appealing, to be honest. The best answer would be to have never got in this predicament to begin with, or at least to have dealt with it earlier. But I honestly didn’t get it. Guess I’m not as smart as him, eh.
Honestly, there aren’t many things in my life that I regret so much that given the choice I’d go back and do them differently. But this one, yes, I would. In a heartbeat. I’d hold him back. Not because I think it’s ‘the right thing to do’. I don’t. I think children should start school at a predefined age, and that nobody in a given class should be more than a year apart. It makes it difficult for the teachers, for the parents, for everyone. But the fact is that when the majority of parents hold their kids back, the kids who aren’t held back are going to be at an automatic disadvantage, because they will be held to impossible standards.
Holly, I know I sound like Billy’s mum. I don’t mean to (for a start I’m a bloke
). I’m saying the same thing, but my reasons are really different. I’m not a kooky pre-school mum, I’m a tired third grade dad, advocating red-shirting solely because it has become the path of least resistance. Steve Biddulph’s generic proclamation has become self-fulfilling: the trend itself has increased by magnitudes the likelihood that boys will suffer if they start school younger. Incidentally I had never heard of him before this article.
Anyway, it doesn’t sound like red-shirting is quite as rampant there yet, and I truly hope that Holden doesn’t end up with this sort of experience of school. But if kindergarten turns out to be a tough one, and you get the same kind of push-back that we did, it might be worth considering your options before heading out into what may be a long, hard slog through elementary school and beyond.
I apologise for the insane length of the comment. Thanks for the outlet to put it all into words.
I’m not a dad yet (will be in December) but I’m convinced that the education system in this country is being treated more like advanced day-care than an educational institution.
When I was a kid I was repeatedly punished (by teachers) for ‘reading books beyond my ability’, such as David Eddings in grade 8. My parents taught me to read when I could (I was about 3 or so) and when they enrolled me in school the principal was horrified. She told my parents that, thanks to their ‘negligence’ I would be burnt out before I was 15.
I’m proud to say that the stupid woman was wrong, I’m now 28, married and within a year or so I will complete my PhD in IT. Burnt-out? not yet, but I still enjoy reading, despite the QLD education systems best efforts.
Long story short? Educators are almost forced to see kids as statistics (or averages), you’re the ones who know Holden.
I am soooooo over all the contraversy as I too was in a should I hold back situation, with the slight difference that every fibre of my being tells me my little girl (born early March, currently 3 and a half)) is 100% ready for 4 year old kinder and so she is attending this year, as she should be. Unfortunately surburbian wisdom (or lack of it) and, more importatnly, narrow minded sheep mentality foster the notion that a March child cannot enter school at the age of four and a half, (turning 5 a month or so later) and escape psychologically unscathed. I completely understand that some children are not ready for school at the age of 5 – but lets be honest about what’s really happening here. In Victoria the fact is that if you have a boy (or even a girl) born in or after Dec, it is now de rigour to automaically hold back, no matter what the circumstances. The truth is that many parents simply hold perfectly well adjusted children back so they can have the edge, which of course they will. It drives me crazy beyond words that my March born child will now be be in the same class as children up to 18 months older than her. She seems a clever little girl (as much as one can tell anyway at her tender age) – but it is getting to the point where if you want to send your child to school within what goverment guidelines suggest as the CORRECT time frame and they are nearer to 5 than 6, then they have to be little genuises. I’m unsure of the way forward but can someone please stop the madness?
PS: Do please excuse typos, I get very passionate about this subject!
Thank Heavens we have a few people with some sense on this blog!!! I too am having a conversation with the Kinder teacher on Monday as she has “some concerns” about my daughter. She has been at 4 year old kinder for a month. A month!!! And only this week has gone full time after all the transition days etc. I should mention that my daughter is 13 days younger than the cutoff for kinder/school in Victoria. Admittedly she did fall asleep today in kinder but has had a few late nights recently, is the youngest of 4 daughters so is very able to fend for herself in a lot of social situations, and recognises most letters and has been able to write her name since just after she turned 3.
I am tired of feeling the pressure to hold her back and see all this “redshirting” as total lunacy and snobbish in the extreme.
My eldest daughter was very academic but lacked the social prowess even though she was one of the older kids in her class ( we even had the option of putting her up a year but decided not to as she was so quiet and we weren’t sure how she would cope) and she blossomed as the age of 7.
Our youngest is so like her it is uncanny so we forsee that she will probably follow the same path.
I am really getting ready to dig in my heels as I would like to see what this teacher with no kids of her own is going to say to me after seeing my child twice a week for only one month!!!
I think as parents we need to stop being led, and reclaim our confidence and be the people who do right by our kids- cos I know that in the end, I will not let my child fall down. I will always be there to make sure that she is supported and equip her with everything in my power to make sure she succeeds- I know she is capable of it!!