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If you have a child in preschool or who has already gone on to elementary school, you have probably already been faced with the decision as to whether or not to let your child go on to kindergarten at the age of 4 or a young 5. Many parents are turning to redshirting their child.

Redshirting is a term referring to the practice of holding a child back a year at the kindergarten level in order to give them an advantage. Parents are choosing to hold back their children for several reasons: educational advantage, athletic advantage (size) and maturity (developmentally).

SHORT TERM EFFECTS: As a group, redshirted kids do appear to have advantages in motor skills and size, and they are more confident than peers who began school young. However, when they are much bigger than classmates, they may feel somewhat alienated. Large spans in age and ability may also make it harder for teachers to manage a class.

Personally, I feel that unless a parent has a legitimate reason for redshirting a child, like a developmental delay or the child being extremely young for their age in size or maturity, then the parent should not hold their child back. It gives unfair advantages. The idea behind redshirting should be to give your children an equal chance to succeed, not a leg up on the other children.

If the consensus is that four and five year olds are too young to start kindergarten, then maybe it would be better to just change the start age to 6 in the first place so that the playing ground is level.

Honestly, the kids who are inclined to excel academically or physically eventually will do so, no matter how we try to stack the deck. I started Kindergarten at the age of 4 and was top of my class all throughout my education.

What do you think of the practice of redshirting?

Photo Source: JenniferSchwalm

Remember in elementary school when Officer Friendly would come to class and teach you all about stranger danger? Well, it seems that world has only gotten to be a scarier place, or I am more frightened by the things that go bump in the night because I am a mother now.

Either way, one of my biggest fears is that my child will be abducted or hurt. I don’t know that I could survive the pain of the loss.

I am very adamant about teaching my girls a few key tactics to try to avoid being abducted or at the very least help them get away if some monster were to ever attempt such a horrific act. More importantly, children need to be aware that sometimes monsters come in the form of someone they already know. Sometimes the stranger is a beautiful young woman or a handsome neighbor boy, but if they are not a child’s parent they should not be taking a child off by themselves, ever. Read more…

Mother’s Day is right around the corner and I know all of our children are racking their brains to figure out what they can serve us for breakfast in bed. Right? Well, I’m going to make it easy on them.

I found this amazing lavender scone recipe in this month’s issue of Bon Appetit. I can almost taste those warm flaky sweet lavender scones with a cup of warm creamy coffee or a piping hot cup of chai tea latte. Yum. Now that’s how every mother should get to start her Mother’s Day. Read more…

Google+ is Google’s latest foray into social media to compete with Facebook. I understood Google Friend but honestly I am kind of lost with Google+. Like most social media savvy people, of course I have a Google+ account. Hell, I was even one of the few who got an invitation, but that’s about as far as it has gone. I just don’t get it. Read more…

What do you do if you can’t stand your best friend’s husband or boyfriend? Many of us have had this situation come up at some point in our lives, whether it was disliking your high school bestie’s meathead boyfriend, or in college when your BFF’s lover was some brooding, pretentious artistic type who lost his mind the minute he left home. Read more…

We all know that Disney World is a magical place filled with fairy dust and fueled on the laughter and happiness of children. It happens to be one of our favorite places, and when I say “our” I mean my husband and I.

For some reason, it seems like since we had children we just haven’t had the time or money to go. Nonetheless, we love Disney and our girls desperately want to go. Read more…

I was so sad when Picnik went the way of the dinosaur on April 19^th. I was seriously afraid of what I was going to do to edit my photos. I have Photoshop but I don’t have the time or the inclination to work in Photoshop. Then I found PicMonkey.com and choirs of angels sung. Read more…

It was reported earlier this week that a woman, Karla Vanessa Perez, a 32-year-old mom of three from Coahuila, Mexico was due to give birth to nonuplets, 9 babies (yeah, I had to look that up too) on May 20^th.

Nonuplets: A set of nine offspring produced during a single pregnancy. Read more…

We’ve all had “fat” days. Whether it’s “that” time of the month (shark week as I like to refer to it), around the holidays, or during the heat of the summer when we retain water. Or maybe we’ve just given up on spin class in the name of some much needed sleep.

Or maybe you are newly pregnant and the hormone change has you retaining water and bloated out to the size of a 6-month pregnant woman. Our body’s ratting us out to the world. Thanks to Mother Nature, we all have “fat” days. Read more…

I remember the day my husband and I bought our first puppy together. She was a beautiful, tiny little brindle Boxer. The sweetest dog you have ever set eyes on. We fell deep and hard in love with her big brown eyes.

She was the runt of the litter but she was the one for us. She immediately grabbed my husband’s eye. He loves a damsel in distress. I wasn’t so convinced that buying the runt was a good idea. He told me to pick her up and upon doing so, she immediately pooped on me. That was it. She was the girl for him. We took home our first “baby” together that night. Read more…