Do you send your kids to school on their birthdays?

[charliecat]

My dds have the same birthday and this year I am planning on keeping them off so they can enjoy their birthday.
The alternative is sending them, them not having 5 mins to open their pressies let alone play with them and then with a heavy heart sending them off crying. Not for me.
If they got up at 5am and had chance to play I wouldnt mind but we barely have time for anything in the morning as it is so it would be chaotic...anyway...how much trouble am I going to get in for this? Do I lie and say they both had tummy bugs or what? What do you do?

st, I think there will be so many things in a child's life that will show them, often painfully, that life doesn't revolve around their desires. This one treat seems incredibly harmless and basically just rather nice.

Reading this thread, I'm quite glad that my kids won't be at school with cc and sm's kids. That sounds nasty but isn't meant to be - I'm sure their children are lovely and this isn't in any way a personal comment.

However, I wouldn't want my children in a class with kids who believe that school is a) optional or b) a treadmill. Surely it's just making trouble for the rest: "X's mum lets them stay off school to go ice skating, why can't I?"

Would be seriously annoyed with anyone putting ideas like this into my children's heads.

But they can still have a great birthday and go to school!!

I have sent ds to school on his birthday (although it's often in half term), and will send dd too (although it will probably usually be on the first day back at school). Birthdays at school always seem quite a highlight for them, and when they miss the actual day (like dd this year) I have sent them in with a birthday treat to share (usually biscuits or cakes that they have made - doesn't have to be sweets!). But then we don't really big up birthdays in our family (mainly because dh has forgeten them in the past, so I have a tendency to feel upset ) Then also ds loves school - the best bit he tells me is "learning"! Not sure if this will persist (he's in yr2 right now), but here's hoping!

Um, some kids are invariably going to think school is a treadmill (or worse if the feature on bullying in the Observer is half true). I'm sure they won't think that just because either a/their parents do or b/because another child in their class does or c/because the parent of a classmate thinks so!

What if a situation ever arose where one year you were unable to do something rather special on your child's birthday, due to unforseen circumstances?

e.g. re spidermama - what if she had been as poorly on her kids' birthdays as she has been over the past week and been hospitalised and therefore unable to celebrate the kids birthdays as they had expected? I know this is extreme circumstnaces but if the kid had come to expect to be off they would be rather unforgiving whether ill or not. Would they accept having their birthday on a later date when mummy was better do you think?

I was just thinking that aloha, about bullying. To read this thread you'd think ALL schools are absolute bliss. I went to a really strict Catholic school where birthdays weren't even mentioned. It was no fun to have a birthday at school.

Plus, as I said before, there will be tons of things that other kids do / don't do that we'd rather didn't influence our kids. Surely this is a very minor one?

QE, unforeseen circumstances happen all the time and ill health can spoil many plans. In that case you'd just deal with it. If you were in hospital on your child's birthday whether they were at school or not it would be difficult, no?

I think there is a lot of projecting going on on this thread

Mostly those who had negative experiences themselves of school are expecting that their children will too and feel it is their duty to 'save' them from these horrid experiences at least on their one big day a year.

The reality is that we can help our children most by doing all that we can to make their experiences of school highly positive ones. They are not us; they will not share our views of school, either positive or negative.

Spidermamma has never really had anything positive at all to say about school - and her views are so negative and anti-establishment that I believe she will only truly be happy with educating outside the school environment (and that is not meant as a criticism, just an observation over many threads).

I think CC may or may not be right - her children may love going to school on their birthdays - perhaps she needs to wait and see what they want?

My DD would chop her own arm off rather that miss school on her birthday. My DS would leap at the chance to stay at home!

We always celebrate birthdays on the day itself with presents and close family birthday tea. At the weekend we do party one day and big family trip out somewhere nice the other day!

Traditions are what you make them - and in our family they don't need to be big affairs on the day itself. Indeed I think the day is as much a celebration for DH and I (with champagne when they are in bed) as a reward for a bloody hard job done as well as we are able to!

swings - my point being that if unforseen circumstance were to occur to postpone a birthday celebration, and the parents were happy to have the celebration on, say, the following weekend, then why not get the priorities right in the first place and have it later anyway as school is a circumstance that is a necessity.

God I am so tired and probably not making a lot of sense....maybe I will try posting in the morning when my brain is a bit clearer.

Regarding projecting: that's a good point. i think we're all swayed by our own experiences.

I hated school. Hated hated hated. There were no alternatives for me, but if a child of mine were in that situation, I'd fix the problem, move them or home school them, whatever it took.

However, I think schools nowadays are far easier places to be (mine was very old fashioned), and I love it that most children enjoy school and look forward to it. So my views on school are not too jaundiced. And I'm an academic so am very sold on the idea of education generally.

Aloha,
Yes, of course there are children who are intensely miserable at school, and boy, do I feel for them, having been one myself. But I think (hope!) they're the exception rather than the rule. I think the "average" experience has ups and downs, but is quite liveable-with.

For a child having that "average" experience, I'd be careful not to suggest that a day off is a wonderful treat.

I perhaps didn't make myself clear: I'm not sure that children will pick up the underlying attitudes of other parents directly, but I think if children see their classmates taking days off, it does suggest a different approach to school, and not one I'd like to be seen as normal iykwim.

Actually, it's interesting the underlying assumptions about birthdays, isn't it?

For me, the importance of a birthday is that it's a nice way to mark the passage of time, but I don't place great importance on the actual birth day iyswim.

It's all very arbitrary, isn't it? I mean, you were going to be born around then, just happened to be born on that particular day.
If you were born by elective section or induction, your birthday is probably determined by the obstetrician's golf schedule...

LOL WM! It's for the same reason that I loathe New Year's Eve.

Mind you, my birthday's very special. It's a second longer than anyone else's (except other people born on 30th June) some years

haven't read all the thread - read the first part the other night - while drunk and thought it was a wind up - read the end just now.

I had the cr*pest time at school until I was about 16/17 - was bullied all the way through school (and I went to several) up until then - still vividly remember my first ever day at school when no-one would play with me.......kind of stayed that way for over 10yrs.

HOWEVER, I would never dream of letting my children have the day off school on their birthday's!! They can open someo f their presents in the morning before school, come home, have a 'birthday dinner' (McDonalds ) and, just like every other child I've met - can have their party at the weekend.....I doubt many of the other parents would be impressed about being given an invitation to a birthday party at 1.30pm on a Wednesday afternoon.......

Sorry - am now reading the rest of the thread

"Yep am planning on doing it every year and as its November I dont think it will bash with any exams "

hmm - don't know when they do them now - but I did my mock Higher Exams in November when I was at school...which turned out to be vital - as I was ill for the one of the actual exam papers so I was given a mark based on my mock exams and the paper I had managed to sit - I should have probably got a A for it, but ended up with a B - had I not done my mock exams I'd have failed that exam.

i wouldnt dare to keep ds off school for a birthday. nearly two years ago now i received a letter from them telling me, that they knew how poorly ds was with his asthma, that he had been hospitalised several times etc...but this amount of time off was unacceptable and affecting his education. well no sh*t sherlock. i did mention the fact to the headmaster that they were now so paranoid about his illness that he only had to cough and they sent him home. there's no way i would even consider it for a birthday!

"but going out celebrating the birthday on a different day is just not the same. "

ermmm - well 100,000's of people do it every year - and don't seem to have a problem with it...

Rhubard - re handing out invites - that's fine if you actually know the kids/parents - I had no option but to have them handed out at school as he'd only been there 2 weeks!

"I find it really odd that all these children enjoy school. I am sure if you say they do, they do, but I simply can't imagine it."

As I said above - I was bullied - but I know I was an exception rather than a rule.....and if my son doesn't enjoy going to school - why is he always up and dressed (to the shoes!) before our alarm has even gone off??

"Ah, the bliss of home and peace and books and telly! "

telly - you dreadful woman

Mugface - you say you're talking about primary school kids not secondary......but what happens when they reach secondary school? They've just spent 6/7yrs being allowed to have their birthday off!

"So, i wondered what the difference is, a two week trip or a day trip...nonne if you ask me. "

mug - perhaps because a some parent have to take holidays during term term if they want a family holiday......day trips can be taken at the weekend.

re watching world cup matches - I know a few of the schools round here let the children watch the matches because they knew that if they didn't lots simply wouldn't come in (same reason many businesses allowed TV's/Radios to be on where they wouldn't usually have been...better to have them in for most of the day and get some work done than have half the class missing because they're watching the match).

"Quite possibly for holidays as their grandparents live in Australia and it would be hard work to take 2 children to Oz for a 2 week holiday and I dont want to do it in the Australian winter"

ermm Jenkel - I have family in Australia and Australian winter isn't that cold ! I always have family in Zimbabwe........(winter at the same time as Australia) and I consider the 6 week summer holiday ample time to go out there.

"I DO want to spend my kids birthdays with them."

ahhh - but do you kids want to spend their ENTIRE birthday with you

"I think making them go to school on their birthday sends out the message that their birthday isn't such a big deal and school is the be all and end all. School is flawed. You'd have to be crazy not to see it."

ROFLMAO - you have to be joking - nothing more exciting for a child than the expectation of getting home, opening more presents, having a special dinner (maybe even going somewhere after school - after all it does finish - in most places - about 3.30.....). Birthday's at home are a bit like Christmas - really exciting in the morning, u ntil about lunchtime.....then as the day drags on (especially if it's cold and wet) it starts to lose it's appeal......you'd rather be playing with these new toys with your friends....

"I think they should reinstate school on Christmas day too and Easter."

From 12-18 I went to school over Easter....our Easter holidays were always the week afterwards because of the Chorister

still interested to hear what the RL friends of the 'Birthday Skive Parents' (TM) think?

God, it would never occur to me to keep my children off school for their birthdays! My b'day is in August and I always longed for a term-time b'day so I could get fussed over a bit at school and actually have some people turn up for my b'day party instead of all being on hols.

I have told dd1 that i will send a cake in on her birthday (at play rehearsal, last day of school) and she is beside herself with excitement.

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I think you'll also be surprised that the most wonderful celebrations and events are not remembered by your children when they grow up, memory just doesn't necessarily work like that..

it's a lot more random

Hunkermunker, I didn't know that about 30th June. It's my mum's birthday and was my EDD (but I came early... would have held out longer if I'd know I was going to get second longer on my birthday).

Otherwise (re. this whole thread)... parp, parp, parpity, parp.

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