birthdays

[Tilly]

Hi All

 

My dd2 has just had her 10th birthday and - and how very different to how we celebrate her sisters birthday. We were warned beforehand by my dd2 :-

"not to sing the birthday song,

no candles,

no cake,

don't throw a party for me,

no bouncy castle as it might blow away"

 

Family members did pop into see her with pressies, and she was very polite and calm, she did try very hard bless her <'> . Her sister and cousins were running around the house and dd2 was quite happy to play by herself. Totally poles apart but all quite happy doing their own thing. So how come I often feel guilty as hell not doing the "done thing" where dd2 is concerned when I know fine well that she would hate it.

 

How does your child like to celebrate their special day, is it the typical kids party or a very low key affair as in our case?

 

Tilly

[smiley]

My son has never mentioned his birthday to anyone at school. Last year was the first year he asked for a 'party'. I had strict instructions about who could come to the house, what toys they could play with and exactly what they could all have to eat.

 

He struggles with parties - so i can understand why he felt he needed to have everything set out..

 

Know what you mean though - i do feel as though i'm letting him down by not making a huge fuss - even if i know he'll hate it!

 

<'> <'>

[jlp]

Very similar to the above poster - he asked for a perty the first time last year then became very controlling over who could come, what they could eat etc. We also had instructions for no Happy Birthday song.

 

He gets more and more excited as the day approaches and it usually ends up in meltdown!

[Nic m]

Hi Tilly

I always have a party for Hayley, with this year being the only exception because she wasnt up to it.I have found with Hayley the best thing is to have an activity party and this seems to work because she is focused on the task. She can still get stressed and tearful but she still wants them. Our local pool hires out the small pool for 2 hours and the local gym now does some activities as part of their package (netball etc) and the choice is quite good.These options are quite reasonable too.

The food i give out is things she can eat and she loves blowing out the candles on her cake.

NICOLA

[stressedmumto2]

My son would probably like to have a party but I honestly do think even though he's very popular there wouldn't be many that would come, which is a sad thing. Myabe one day I will do it.

 

Every year for both my children we go out and do something, their birthdays are only a week and a day apart. my daughter is quite aware that we dont have parties and she wants a party with all the trimmings, but we couldn't, due to his unpredictable/disruptive/violent behaviour unless he wasn't there which I couldn't do or unless we had lots of people supervising.

 

His cousin always has a big party with lots of children and my son normally spends most the time by the door as if not to enter and on rare occasions when it's my friends children's birthday he tends to stay in the car till most the other children have gone

 

Maybe things will chnage as he gets older and he will want to be more involved.

[Bagpuss]

Our youngest dd 6 had a party for her 5th birthday. We arranged it because our eldest two always had parties from the age of 5, and we thought our youngest should have one too. Got to say it turned out to be a very strange event, with dd not really taking any notice of anyone else, lots of her schoolfriends not attending, and our eldest two and their friends getting the benefit of it all really. We decided to knock parties on the head afterwards. Think it had more to do with what we wanted her to have, rather than what she wanted. This year we took her to a theme park ( took 2 attempts, first time we had to turn back because she couldn't cope with traffic) and she had a ball....she also went to MD's...again, her choice. We are also thinking of taking her away to a caravan site for a weekend in the future, because she loves being in a caravan, going swimming etc.

 

Our eldest dd 9 is not overly keen on parties either, so again, we've knocked them on the head now. This year she had a sleepover with a couple of mates, went bowling etc. She wanted something small and she really enjoyed herself.

 

It can be tough to let things go, that you feel are important, but after years of ensuring our kiddies had parties, I've learnt it's not always what the kids want for themselves.

[BusyLizzie100]

DS2 decided that he wanted to have his birthday in October rather than November so, obliging as we are, he had his party last weekend. HE loves the idea of parties and fortunately the girls in his class think he's lovely, so we had 11 of them over. Half way through, of course, he needed to slip off to his room for some time out and GOD FORBID that anyone sing Happy Birthday.

 

I'm not sure what's going to happen in November when he actually turns 7 - it's no good explaining to the rest of the family cos they just wouldn't get it. He's very cross because we can't change his birth date. Funny thing is, he was born three weeks early so his birthday should be in December.

 

Oh, and never, ever, ever any balloons. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

 

Lizzie x

[oxgirl]

My son always gets very depressed when it's his birthday, he gets terrified of getting older and 'what if he's too old to play with Lego', etc. He always says he doesn't want to get any older. He hasn't got any friends so no-one to invite to a party He did enjoy his presents last year, but the year before he was very dissatisfied and disappointed with all he got and very unhappy about the whole day in general. His birthday is in a few weeks, so I'm hoping he's going to get some enjoyment out of it this year.

 

~ Mel ~

[sarahjane]

H was 8 recently and initially said he wanted a party- however I cancelled it at the last minute as it became increasinlg clear he would not cope at all- he had a long list of "rules" as to where and which freinds would be allowed to do what, on closer questioning he only wanted a party to get the presents and would have been happiest if they just left them at the front door! in the end we compromised and took several of his classmates swimming with him- he loves swimming and did his own thing whilst they all played togather- and he got presents! NO singing was allowed, he also hates the thought of getting older.

[Mother in Need]

D has never had a party, we usually just go to the cinema and that's it (which is a treat due to the distance involved). The rest of us would love to follow it up with some bowling which is next door to the cinema but as he can't cope with that... As I say, he is 13 now and has never had a party (his brothers have) and I don't see him wanting one in the near future. The sad thing is also that as he has no friends, we wouldn't know who to invite anyway (we have no other family either).

[Karen A]

Hi We had the opposite problem with Ben's Birthday last year.Ben would have invited half the school to a huge bash and then would have ended up cross with several of them and seriously over stimulated. We needed to negotiate with him and ended up having a cinema trip and food at a certain well known chain nearby-To maintain our sanity. Karen

[butterfingersbimbo]

yeah i made the mistake of havin a birthday barby for el last year and it ended up with el getting very violent, sweary and destructive cos she couldnt cope with other kids going into her room and touching her stuff so this year she had a friend stay over (the friend is nt but loves to pretend she is a dog too!) and we went to the cinema and had a take away later......she has got friends at school, but they never invite el to their parties........