What will my rank be if I join with prior experience?

[sensei8]

This is the type of discussion that I have pretty regularly with my 6 year old son. He has been a white belt 3 times now. His first time was with a guy who came to his day care once a week, and he eventually got promoted to yellow belt there. His second time was with ATA, and he left that school when we moved to Denver.

Now he is in a Uechi-Ryu school with an instructor I have high regard for. However, he was very upset when he found out he would have to start out as a white belt again. He did earn his yellow belt (9th kyu) very quickly, but at that point he was put into the regular testing/promotion schedule (2-3 months between stripes/grades). This frustrates him to no end, because he is always wanting to earn his next belt/stripe. What I haven't yet told him is that even if he earns his junior brown belt next May, he won't be able to test for his junior black belt until he turns 11 or 12, and his senior black belt at least 3 years past that.

So, I'm trying to teach him the value of patience, the value of doing his very best each class, and trying to learn everything he can, because I don't want him getting even more frustrated when the time in rank requirements get even higher.

I believe that what you're teaching your son with the regards to rank does justice across the board.

With students, and very much so with children, the ranking structure can not only be overwhelming to understand, but the ranking structure, can frustrate to no end. Rank can be all over the spectrum from style to style, etc., for no reasons whatsoever, but what's a child to do?!

Focusing on anything except rank for students under age can be far much easier said than done...adults are not much better in this regards.