Redshirting

[howardcoombs]

A new word and concept that I had not heard of before:
Redshirting: Holding kids back from kindergarten - CBS News

 

[Sage]

My partner and I discussed this at length for our child (end-of-year birthday). I think it depends on many factors. One of them is if we are moving the kid to another school in our home country and which year is she going into. I have a friend in Korea who opted to send his son to Y1 when he is 8-9 years old. His reason? The kid would be physically bigger (bullying is a problem where he was going) and more advanced in many areas.

Ultimately, depends on the child. We decided not to because, well, if she can't cope, we'll know she can't cope, don't we? Crossing the bridge when we come to it.

Here is another one of the many articles on the subject from The New York Times.

 

[penguinsix]

Redshirting is an American football term. It originally developed from the practice of placing a 'red shirt' on a quarterback such that when the team is practicing they know "don't hit this guy" (QBs are the lead offensive player of a team and highly vulnerable to injury when in the throwing position). In then started to get used in college sports (where a player only has 4 years of eligibility to play athletics) to describe the process of preserving a year of eligibility if they are injured or need some time off to grow physically, etc. Basically their eligibility is on hold while they take a year off from athletics to develop or recover from injury.

The term is now also used colloquially for the practice of holding kids back from kindergarten, as you noted. This is another good article on the practice from the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/dont-delay-your-kindergartners-start.html

Similar issues arise when people move from the UK education system starting at age 4 to the US system which generally starts at age 5. Many UK parents consider their kids 'ahead' of their same-aged American counterparts, but it can often lead to problems with the kids being the youngest and smallest in their class. This was an interesting thread from another board concerning the problems that can arise from this:

Getting put down a grade at school : British Expat Discussion Forum

 

[penguinsix]

There is also the new novel called Redshirts which relates to the Star Trek use of the word (i.e. those who are expendable)

Amazon.com: Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas (9780765316998): John Scalzi: Books