‘Redshirting’: Is it cheating to hold your kid back a year?

More parents are holding their kids back a year before starting kindergarten, sparking a growing debate. (AP file)

It used to be most kids entered kindergarten when they
were 5-years-old. But more and more parents are holding
them back a year to give them a leg up socially,
academically, and athletically. It’s called
“redshirting,”
and it’s sparking a big debate about whether parents are
cheating the system.

“I’m just hearing this more and more,” said Bill Radke,
the parent of several kids, including a 5-year-old
daughter.

“Boys tend to start school a little bit academically
behind anyway, so the parents are thinking, ‘If I hold
this
child back then all of a sudden he’ll be at the top of his
class rather than struggling,'” said co-host Linda Thomas
on Seattle’s Morning News.

“The funny thing is, that in the past if you wanted
your
kid to get ahead, you would want him to skip a grade. Now
in order to get ahead, you want him to stay back a year,”
said Samuel Meisels, president of Chicago’s Erikson
Institute, in Sunday night’s 60 Minutes report on redshirting. But
while redshirting may be
appropriate for some kids, Meisels disputes the notion
that it gives kids a leg up academically.

“I think that as children get older that whatever
advantage is conferred by starting school a year older
decreases dramatically,” he said.

But author Malcolm Gladwell disagree. His best-selling
book “Outliers” has become a bible of sorts for parents of
4 and 5-year-olds. He cites what he calls a “cumulative
advantage” children gain in everything from academics to
athletics.

“That is the idea that a little extra nudge ahead when
you’re 6 can mean that you’re slightly better positioned
when you’re 7, and that means you’re slightly better
positioned when you’re 8, and so on. And you can see this
pattern in one field after another.”

Seattle’s Morning News co-host Tom Tangney wonders if
he should have redshirted his younger daughter. She was
born in August and was generally the youngest in her class
throughout her school-age years.

“I’m wondering if she had another year’s life
experience, if she might have been a little more
successful
in drama and gotten a better shot at better roles if she
had been more mature and older and her voice had matured
and all of that,” Tangney said.

There are some questions of fairness. Lower income
families generally can’t afford the option.

“People who can hold their kid back another year tend
to be people who have enough money to afford another year
of preschool or daycare or whatever it is,” observed
Radke. And that means some kids have to compete with
others as much as 18 months older and bigger in the
classroom or on the field.

But ultimately, most parents agree they’ll do whatever
is in the best interest of their own children, giving them
every advantage possible.

What do you think?

Josh Kerns/MyNorthwest.com