They don’t hold their kids back because they are young, small or not ready.
They hold them back because they want their kid to be the oldest, largest, and most socially and athletically dominant child in their class. They want to make sure their kid is always the Louisville Slugger, and never the ball.
Nothing like setting your kid up to hit their peak in life sometime in middle school!
People have read and misunderstood Freakonomics. They think that holding their kid back a year will lead to Alpha tendencies. The reality is, if your kid is an Alpha, it doesn’t matter when they start school. I was told by the preschool teacher that I would be doing my daughter a disservice by holding her back, so I didn’t. She’s a September baby, and the youngest kid in her 1st grade class. The teacher said that she was concerned about her age at first, but it turns out she’s as well adjusted as anyone in her class. It’s possible that we did her a service by letting her fend for herself with older kids. I guess my point is, don’t try to engineer your kids’ personalities and social status. They have to do that on their own. If you are so insecure that you need to mess with your kids like that, odds are you’ll do more harm than good.
9:56 That may work for girls, but not boys for whom the ability to complete physically in games and playground “shoving around” is more important. We made a bad mistake not holding our son back. It took him years to catch up
See Olsen, Chris or Toal, Greg.
I’m told that the quarterback at River Dell, Estavez, repeated 8th grade….
So, being male is a recognized learning disability?
To send a child early you must have him/her tested. Why not to hold back? There are now June babies staying back. In first grade the delusional parents think that they are geniuses and need “gifted” classes. JUST PUT THEM IN THE CORRECT GRADE
They hold back the child, then demand gifted classes? Talk about trying to have their cake and eat it too… What a joke. They shouldn’t have held them back if they were so smart.
If you want an article like this written about your fine young son, 1:46pm would advise you to make him repeat eighth grade:
NorthJersey.com : Sports : High School Sports
OCTOBER 13, 2016, 6:11 PM
LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2016, 10:27 PM
A rare breed: River Dell football unbeaten since David Estevez’s return from stomach surgery
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River Dell quarterback Dave Estevez is a playmaker with his arm and legs.
BY JJ CONRAD
STAFF WRITER | THE RECORD
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ORADELL – The pain was unbearable, unlike anything he had ever felt.
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David Estevez, River Dell’s starting quarterback, awoke from sleep one night in late August with a shooting discomfort in his stomach – just weeks before the Hawks’ season opener.
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Hours later, the junior was in the emergency room. Surgery was required immediately to tend to appendicitis and an intestinal issue.
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“I was literally crying,” said Estevez, whose status for the season was jeopardized by the emergency procedure. “I didn’t know what to do or what was going to happen.”
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Post-surgery, doctors delivered some relatively good news: Estevez would be sidelined only 4-6 weeks. Just 10 days passed before Estevez – a competitor by nature – was back on the practice field, albeit unable to face live contact.
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Ultimately, he missed only two games, against Pascack Valley and Wayne Valley, which the Hawks split.
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“By the two-week mark, he was doing everything that everyone else was doing in terms of practicing,” River Dell coach D.J. Nimphius said of Estevez, who served as the scout-team quarterback while he recovered. “But he never could have any contact or combative situation. The first real combative situation of any kind that he was in was against Westwood [on Sept. 23]. That was it.”
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And did Estevez ever make his return in style.
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Trailing the upset-minded Cardinals, 20-14, in overtime, he fired a game-tying, 20-yard touchdown pass to Matt Monaghan on a fourth-and-15.
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The Hawks, ranked No. 10 in The Record public school Top 20, won it with the ensuing extra point.
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Just like that, Estevez was back. River Dell (4-1) has not lost since his return, taking a three-game winning streak into tonight’s contest against Ridgefield Park (5-1).
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In the past two weeks alone – in victories over Cliffside Park and Bergenfield – the Hawks have scored 104 points.
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It’s the highest two-game scoring output for River Dell since October 2011. And Estevez has been at the center of it.
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“The thing with Dave is, he is extremely, extremely bright,” Nimphius said of Estevez, also the team’s starting free safety. “He’s just a really bright guy, and I think that’s what you want in your quarterback. You want your quarterback to be the smartest guy on the field.
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“And he is always the smartest guy on the field.”
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Estevez, a multisportstar, has been a rare breed since the day he arrived at River Dell, according to Nimphius.
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The Hawks’ starting shortstop, Estevez returned kickoffs as a freshman during their run to the state final in 2014 and nearly broke two for touchdowns in a 31-23 loss to Sparta in the state final.
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As a sophomore, he rarely came off the field – playing offense (receiver), defense (safety) and special teams (kick and punt returner) – during River Dell’s run to MetLife Stadium for the third straight year on a team driven mostly by seniors.
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“No one ever plays here as early as he did on both sides of the ball,” Nimphius said. “But Dave did.”
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But he not only played. He thrived.
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He emerged last season as one of the most dangerous players in North Jersey, and in the North 1, Group 3 final against Ramapo, he scored one rushing touchdown and added five catches for 131 yards – a lone bright spot in a 45-15 defeat.
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Now he’s the quarterback. The unquestioned leader. The man in charge of a program looking to reach the state final for the fourth straight season, but this time come out on top.
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Since capturing the 2007 North 1, Group 2 state title with a victory over Pascack Valley, River Dell has appeared in five state finals. It has gone 0-5.
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Estevez, now 100 percent healthy, is looking to change that.
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“The offense is starting to click, and we like how we’re going,” said Estevez, who has accounted for eight touchdowns (five passing, three rushing) in his first three games. “With Alec [Lanza], Nick [Sirico], our offensive line… we think we can be unstoppable once we get going.”
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For Estevez, there’s no more pain. Only state title dreams.
An article in the Atlantic was published to give these greedy, selfish parents the establishment cover they need to justify their misbehavior:
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Your Kid’s Brain Might Benefit From an Extra Year in Middle School
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Repeating eighth grade can give students time to mature academically and developmentally.
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Paul Sakuma/AP Photo
JESSICA LAHEY
MAY 29, 2014 EDUCATION
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The practice of voluntarily delaying school transitions, either by red-shirting kindergarten, repeating twelfth grade, or introducing a gap year between high school and college, is a well-established tradition in the United States. The extra year gives students time to mature athletically, academically, or developmentally.
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Although kindergarten entrance and the transition from high school to college have long been seen as the ideal times to take an extra year, recently eighth grade has been seen as an opportune time for kids to catch up with—or maybe even gain an advantage over—their peers.
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Sports coaches have debated and defended their stances on voluntary repetition of eighth grade for sports-related reasons for years—most believe it offers a real athletic advantage. But the decision to repeat eighth grade is increasingly becoming an academic choice for some students. The tantalizing lure of “stronger, larger, faster, and smarter” has not been lost on academically-minded parents, and as the pace of American education gets more intense, some have opted to give their kids an extra year between middle and high school. An informal poll reported by the Wall Street Journal found that “74 percent of 313 respondents said they would consider having their children repeat a grade, even if school officials said the student could be promoted.”
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Some parents cite increasing pressure on middle school children to distinguish themselves earlier and earlier for college admissions. Others point to the demands of standardized testing. Most understand that this heightened rigor, whether from new Common Core State Standards or pressure for college admissions, only increases with each passing year of school. They fear that if their child is not fully prepared for those demands, high school and college will be a Sisyphean endeavor.
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The recent push for increased academic rigor also means kids need more well-developed executive-functioning skills, or the ability organize, plan, schedule, and self-regulate. These skills originate in the prefrontal cortex, one of the last areas of the brain to develop, and are vital to student success, particularly as students shift from the relatively low organizational demands of elementary school to the more complicated an onerous demands of middle school. Ellen Galinsky, author of Mind in the Making, notes, “Executive-function skills predict children’s success in life and school” because “they enable us to control ourselves, to reflect deeply, and to consider things from multiple points of view.” These skills vary a lot from student to student in middle school, particularly those who struggle with its increased demands. This time can be incredibly stressful for kids are unprepared for the increased academic and organizational pressure, and this, too, can slow down the development of executive functioning skills. An additional year of middle school, with its lower stress and relatively relaxed academic rigor, can be an appealing option to these students and their parents.
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The available research on the effects of grade repetition is largely based on cases of involuntary grade retention and probably has limited relevance in discussions of the relatively new trend of voluntary repetition. That said, according to a report on all grade repeaters—mainly involuntary, but including some voluntary—compiled by UNESCO’s International Academy of Education, a small percentage of students repeat a grade in any given year in the United States. “15-30 percent repeat at least one grade by age 15,” and in a “national sample of high school sophomores (age 15), 16 percent of the white boys, 21 percent of the black boys, 10 percent of the white girls, and 17 percent of the black girls had repeated at least one grade.”
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“I could take a year and focus less on grades and more on learning new things.”
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Opponents of voluntary grade repetition point to the cost to the many in order to benefit the few. It costs taxpayer money to educate students twice, and most districts’ budget projections do not account for voluntary grade repetition. As one critic of voluntary grade repetition wrote, “That we are all paying for successful students to repeat a grade in a public school is bad practice and an abuse of public funds. Add this one to the long list of policies that denies protection of taxpayer investment in education.” UNESCO agrees. “Grade repetition represents inefficiency and wastage of resources for society, but its voluntary forms may be beneficial to students in certain circumstances,” its report said.
A gifted athlete will always shine. Parents hold back because they think that one more year will make their kid a gifted athlete. Doesn’t work that way.
A ridgewood parent held his son back because the boy was small. Got news for them, dad is small too. One year won’t make him taller.
I have heard of parents holding back in 8th grade. Manipulating the system. And yes, taxpayers pay for the red shirting. One year 2 eighth grade best friends were magically held back at the expense of taxpayers. I don’t know if the gamble paid off. Never saw the names in the sports pages.
Do you think all day K will stop this problem? It is just another gift for a minority of taxpayers. Taxes are the gift that keep on giving.
It’s called “red-shirting”… heinous practice by parents who read Outliers and think they are raising future pro athletes…