Another birthday party?! Groan.

Pre-school had its challenges – not the work, not the routine, not even picking up on time to avoid late fees. The real challenge was the birthday parties. Don’t get me wrong, I like birthday parties. For us, the challenge was understanding that the birthday boy/girl was the one to blow out the candles. I’m sure every parent struggles with that at some point.

But, if your birthday is the first week of school and you don’t know everyone in the class yet, you won’t have a party at home or one of the regular party places. Instead, you share cupcakes with your classmates. Seemed like a reasonable solution to me. But, how do you help the child understand why everybody else is having a birthday party and, oh yes, your party won’t happen for at least another 9 – 10 months?

The first party we attended, I saw her getting close to the cake. It took me a while to figure out that she was getting ready to blow out the candles….yikes! I had to gently remind her that it was someone else’s birthday and she would get her turn at her birthday. Well, they have no concept of time, so each new birthday party, she thought was hers.  At each new party, she was disappointed. The survival technique became finding some kind of distraction when it was almost time to sing the birthday song. That way, we were far enough away from the table to not be a distraction to the blowing out of the candles part.

Discovery – having the party is not as traumatic as trying to understand why you can’t blow out the candles on someone else’s cake. At one party we learned that in one culture, they sing the song several times so that each child has an opportunity to blow out the candles. Certainly, a less traumatic way to share the birthday experience.

At the end of the first year of pre-school, we were able to have HER party. By this time, she had been to enough parties and understood that she was the center of this one. She was excited to see each guest arrive…almost surprised that they would come and share with her.  When it was cake time, she knew what to do and more importantly, she had enough speech to say "Do not touch the cake!". 

Birthday parties are better…she understands the whole concept of someone else celebrating. Birthdays, however, are still a challenge. We haven’t yet grasped the concept that you have to wait 12 months for your next birthday. Now, every time someone else has a birthday, she is slightly disappointed that she won’t turn whatever number that person is turning. Who came up with all of these ‘rules’?

As with the language, we take each new social context and concept at its own pace.  Life is full of written and unwritten rules.  For the sake of building social skills and appropriate language skills, I will endure another birthday party.