I never knew there was so much strategy involved in birthday party planning… at least during a transition year from one school to another. Kindergarten has turned out to be a whole new ball game.
We start with a simple question: who should we invite from the old school? We don’t see her; we don’t play with him, OK done, these few.
And then it gets complicated when we start to discuss who to invite from the new.
“Who do you want to invite?†I ask. And the answer changes every day.
“OK- who do you play with?†I try.
“Who do you want to invite?†I plead.
“I play with him but, only when she’s not around.”
“Those two are friends but maybe if I only invite one, he’ll be my friend instead.”
“I used to like her but, now she says she doesn’t like me.”
“I don’t want to invite anyone.”
Am I planning a birthday party or a political campaign?
Maybe that’s why so many times the whole class is invited to kindergarten birthday parties. Maybe that’s why kindergarten birthday parties often seem to take the form of a trip to the amusement park with just one or two friends. Maybe that’s why many families do a “family party†that year.
Maybe we won’t invite anyone after all…. sigh.
by MC Milker
[tags]kids, children, parents, parenting, birthday, party, planning, politics, kindergarten, classmates, friends, decisions, choices[/tags]
Photo graciously provided by kga245, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved
2 responses so far ↓
IntheFastLane // Feb 11, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Personally, I try really hard to avoid hosting these parties. The family parties are enough. With several boys with summer birthdays, it works out fine, anyway.
Karly // Feb 12, 2008 at 8:24 am
When my son was in public school they had a policy that if you passed out invitations at the school you either had to invite the whole class or if the boys had to invite all the boys and the girls had to invite all the girls. That can be a lot of kids, but it does cut down on the who to invite/who not to invite thing. And half of them don’t show up anyway!
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