I’m Redshirting My Kindergartner

My sweet boy, Brady, will be turning five next week.  He’s an incredibly bright little guy with an impressive vocabulary, strong athletic skills and is generally pretty darn smart.  I have no academic reason for delaying his kindergarten debut, but I’m doing it anyway.

Redshirting My Kindergartner

Since he will barely be five at the time of enrollment, I have a choice: to let him be the young kid in class or the older. For him to graduate high school as a (hopefully) more mature 18 year old or as a 17 year old. I can buy an extra year of growing and maturing before he leaves high school and my nest and I like having that ability.

In the near term, I feel like kindergarten is too much for such a young kid. Seven straight hours of school, a desk, structured learning… I just don’t think it suits many five-year-olds.  It may be wonderful for your child, I have no idea, but I don’t feel like it would be good for mine.

I’m basing this decision like I base every parenting one.

My gut. Kindergarten just doesn’t feel “right” to me and I trust that instinct with every fiber of my being.  It has never let me down.  What is the rush anyway?

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When you tell people that you aren’t sending your child to school when they assume based on his age that he is, they assume there is a different reason for it. That he must be behind in some way, either academically or socially. For us, he’s not behind at all. His pre-school teachers think he is right where he should be. Socially, he is probably even a bit advanced.

I loathe the fact that so many people assume there is something “wrong” with a kid because he is redshirting kindergarten. That just isn’t the case.  We are taking the next year to stick with the simplicity of pre-school and let him learn and grow in the same way he is now.

So, is it possible this choice will hinder him in the future?  Help him in the future?  The studies can’t really seem to find a solid answer but the good news is that there is no glaring indication that I would be hindering him what-so-ever.  In fact, I feel quite certain I’ll be doing the opposite.

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