Youngest in Class - Average in School

Haven't dealt with it, but I would sure give it a great deal of thought before holding him back a year.

I would not make the decision based on sports.

Hi Southern Belle,

I have only posted a couple times, but am an avid reader and student of this site. I don't post, because there are ALOT more people here who know ALOT more about baseball than I do. However, I and my son have been in the same position as you and your son.

My son is 16 going into his senior year. He begged me to let him repeat his 10th grade year, because he wanted to gain size and strength for baseball. I actually went and talked to his HS coach and counsler. What I found was that, at least in AR, players only have 4 years of HS sports "eligabilty", so if he had repeated his 10th grade year, he would not have been able to play baseball his senior year! (because he was on the team in 9th grade)

Not sure if all states have the same rule or not. Although it doesn't sound like you will take that route, if you decide to consider it, you may want to check on how many years they are allowed to play HS.

There are ALOT of challenges for "young" student/athletes, the list of reasons he wanted to repeat is way too long to post

Best of luck to you and your son!

Southern Belle,
Oddly enough, that sounds just like me. My birthday is Aug 14th, turning 16 and I will be a JR. And also I dont have good grades at all. I have a cumalative GPA of 2.08 through two years of HS. The only thing that isn't the same is that I have four sisters.

Good for your son! You have taught him to make good choices. If he were unable to academically succeed, the school system would have held him back. Help him now and encourage him to buckle down and raise his grades. He says he wants to...hold him accountable. Help him respond to his challenge.
My son is also a "youngest" and has done very well in both school and baseball successes. And he is better for it because things have not come easy for him and he has had to work hard for his accoplishments.

My son just turned 17. He is starting his senior year this year. He is 6'0 185. He always tells me I should of held him back of year and he would of been the stud of his team. The D1 schools look at him and say he hasnt hit a growth spurt yet, and once he gets in there weight training program he will will be a stud. His friends on his team our bigger and are all turning 18.

This is why were are leaning toward more of the Junior Colleges. A D1 school will probably red shirt and he wont see any playing time for awhile.

gpa 3.0 which he could do better

Your son many be the type of student/athlete that could use a year of prep school. It would allow him to focus on academics in an intense academic enviroment, have small classes, mandatory study hall, live away from home, and play baseball. This could be a great option before going to college.

SouthernBell,
I have mulled this over before because my son has a July birthday and was 17 when he graduated from high school (Probably just a few months older than your son). I agree with your son. Let’s not go backwards but instead, let’s make our goal more defined and go forward. I can appreciate what Texan says about not making a decision based on sports...but...in reality I know my son and probably your son could find a challenging curriculum at just about any college. I’m not advocating that you to de-emphasize academics, but with your son touching the high eighties at 15 years of age I would probably allow baseball to weigh heavy in your son’s decision. Cbg does make a suggestion that could be a good solution if his academics continues to suffer. In my son’s case I never felt the age differential was a negative factor. If anything I felt it pushed him to compete against the older players.
How does your son’s birthday fall as it relates to his summer team? The way I figure it, your son would probably be one of the “older” players on his summer team?
Fungo

Since entering High School my son has always played "up" so to speak. He's played on a couple of different summer teams that are 16U and 18U. His birthday falls after school starts in August.

Thanks to everyone for the input.

My oldest son started school early like your son. In the 6th grade he was struggling a bit with his school work. I made the decision to hold him back a year for two reasons. #1 I thought it would help him with his grades. #2 I wanted him to mature a bit and be with kids more his age I figured this would help him with his grades as well. At the time he was very upset with me. This year he graduated from HS and will be going to college next year on a football scholarship. His grades improved and it definitely helped him with sports and being a more mature young man while in HS. Now he thanks me all the time for holding him back a year. Sometimes we just have to do what we feel is best for our kids wether they like it or not. JMHO

It is an individual choice that each family needs to make. It is not a black and white issue. My son was young and struggling with socializing not grades. We held him back after his 8th grade year. It was the best thing that we ever did. A. He adjusted very well and did much better socializing. We moved him to a private school so as not to stigmatize him. B. had we not done so, he never would have been drafted and maybe not even gotten a scholarship because of the moving from state to state that we did. It worked out great for us.

It sounds like your son made a good decision for him and gottaluvit makes a great point about years of eligibility.

Good luck.

I was 16 entering my senior year. Your son will have to compete against older kids but then again, if he were advanced, he would be on the varsity anyway. With regards to college, again, he will have his work cut out for him. However, he will have a tremendous "up side" and some colleges will take that into account.

And the sports aspect has been good for me, being able to play against older kids. But when I was a young tot, I was smarter than Ken Jennings in his hayday. . But over the years, trying to catch up with the age gap was/is tough. I was always shorter than everyone for a while, last one to hit puberty, just now getting significant facial hair. At a younger age, I was advanced in learning so I was put into school at a younger age. But throughout the years, getting into junior high, I started to realize that I wasn't going to know everything. In elementary school, I don't think I really learned how to learn, and I always had straight A's on the report card. But as I moved on to JR high, things began to change. I dodn't know everything and learning how to fail and ask a question was difficult for me. When I moved into 8th grade, I began to grasp things and I thought I wsa back on track, so to speak. It was hard for me to have always been the best, been the smartest and then to be passed on the smart charts. When I moved into HS, it was the best time of my life. Two JR highs were combined into one and I had more friends than ever. School was going fine, with my struggles along the way of course. 2nd quarter hit and assignments began to get harder and harder. Another downfall of being the brightest was that I never really had to study. So in frosh year was when I learned how to study. Being able to do 6th grade level math in kindergarten was impressive, but math was the hardest thing to learn in 9th grade. All the math teacher and my parents were saying was that math is a pyramid and if you don't understand today, tomorrow will be nearly impossible to understand. I was tentative to hold up class and ask questions because I had never really done that before and I thought that would be a weakness to the class. So I stayed quiet and fought my way to C's for each semester. And around the spring time, baseball tryouts came. In baseball, again I always had the most talent and the hardest fastball all the way up. You could say that baseball was life for me. There was a record number of sophomores out that year and being a freshman with no outstanding qualities, I was cut from the JV team (there is no frosh team). I was devastated and school ended out with terrible results, a 2.16 year GPA. Last year, school was great in the mornings with History and English back to back in the mornings. Then Weight Training pr.3 was relaxing. After lunch came the dreaded CAD (computer aided drafting, like engineering), Chemistry and Geometry. Things just tailed off after lunch. I ended up being academically ineligible for the HS season. And for Legion, I have a shoulder impingement which will sideline me until around, well actually fall ball. The main thing I am trying to get across is that it could potentially end up difficult shouldering the load of HS, girlfriends, friends, baseball, working out, and possibly a job, along with homework. Maybe it is just me that screwed up so bad and your son will be fine. But this message is just a point to keep in mind. Good golly oh molly that was a long post.

An update, two of the grades were changed, so my GPA is now 2.76

Yup, mine is entering his jr yr and wont be 16 until the last week of December. He still isn't shaving. Played varsity since freshman year. Grades are subpar, says hes committed to turning his grades around. Time will tell.....

Truth be told you are not alone. Many parents struggle with their sons with this, especially if they are attending public schools.

It's part of the High School culture to rebel against "the man".

It's part of the hip-hop culture and is manifested in the music. Just listen to the words of the rap, if you can handle it.

It's what probable ruins the chances of a lot of good baseball players.

We had a player that got a full ride to a D-1 university and was sent to the mid-west to play summer ball in an elite league. Then they found out about grades and his GPA and he was immediately sent home. He lost his scholarship to boot.

The thing that is really disturbing to me, that I noticed the most is the very cavalierish attitude the schools have about discipline, and this attitude than is promoted and assimilated by the kids.

At a graduation, the class valedictorian, a UC Berkeley academic full scholarship student, gave a speech called "A Free Lunch" on how she admired Cuba, and Castro since she had traveled there and visited with him. She said she was able to go through four years of high school and never ever paid for her lunch. She equated that to her education in what a free lunch it was and she anticipated that she would continue on her path to getting her Degree at UC Berkeley using her "Free Lunch" scholarship.

I was completely blown away...

It is reallyy nice to know that I am not the only one who has a hard time in school. Thanks for the support everyone.