Recently in the news I’ve seen that some schools in Australia are banning children from handing out birthday party invites at school. If you haven’t seen the story, you can read about it here. I have a few things to say about this topic, and want you guys to share below how you feel about it.
Unsplash – Toa Heftiba
While I don’t condone an blatantly obvious attempt to leave a kid out of anything, as a parent I do not want to pay for or supervise around 25 maybe more kids. The average cost per head depending on where you hold a birthday party varies and can cost anywhere between $15-$30pp. Sometimes even more!
Unsplash – Lidya Nada
I also don’t want to reciprocate gifts for 25 plus kids when the invite shoe is on the other foot. Let’s do the math. $20×25=$500 then times that by the amount of children I have (8 if you’ve just joined us) is $4000!!! Just on birthday presents for other people’s children.
Your child isn’t going to like or socialise with everyone in their class and that is perfectly normal. (Don’t misunderstand me when I say that, It doesn’t buy them a free pass to bully or be an arse.) You can still teach them to be respectful and polite to their class even if they aren’t besties. Truth is they probably have a group of friends that they hang out with daily. Keep it simple for yourself and your child and just keeping invites to that group.
Schools shouldn’t be banning invites, parents need to step in and teach kids some basic manners. We should be teaching our kids some resilience and discretion. Be discrete when handing out or receiving invitations and no one HAS to invite EVERYONE.
If your kid doesn’t get invited, ask them how often they actually play with “Sam” and take that into account. Sometimes kids need help processing how they actually feel. Maybe they are upset/frustrated/angry just because “Sarah” is. They can also be hurt/upset that they were left out, but they need to learn how to manage those feelings also.
We need to teach our kids to stop playing the victim and NOT everyone is a winner!
Bec
3Plus5 