Your child’s birthday party is an important milestone that every parent should take seriously. If you are in the school of thought that takes the “eh” mentality to celebrations, you may want to read this post a few times. The reality is that celebrating your child is not the magic solution for good parenting, but it is a “big ticket item” that makes a difference. If you already value birthday parties, you may have had parents who went to great lengths to celebrate special events throughout the year; but this article is for those of us who either “missed the boat” on awesome birthdays while growing up OR over time have decided that it is too much work, and/or not worth the cost.
Oddly enough, this line of thought couldn’t be more confused than a polar bear sipping martinis on the beach:
Keep reading…
According to The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 1“children are born with the capacity to learn… retain information… but their experiences as early as the first year of life lay a foundation for how well these and other executive function skills develop.”.
In essence, if a child’s experiences are comprised of events where they are being celebrated, they will grow a higher level of self-importance. This contrasts to a child who may feel uncertainty in themselves and in their significance.
From a less academic perspective, the value of celebrating birthday parties specifically can help kids build relationships at school and may set them up with life-long friends. This is important because it is already hard enough to work through the social barriers that kids have – from shyness to embarrassment, low self-esteem, puberty, bullying, and if as parents we have the opportunity to create social situations where our children have positive interactions with each other, it sets the stage for them to learn how to make friends in a comfortable environment.
Kids birthday parties are those rare events which unlike most other celebrations, are focused on one child at a time. This provides an excellent opportunity for
parents to create a setting where their young one is the center point of positive energy and attention. It is easy to host a great experience for your kid and can be done on a tight budget. One possible option would be to book an event at your local G3Kids, where every birthday party has fun coaches who play games and use different activities to help your kid feel special and important. An average sized party can be anywhere from 10 – 15 kids and only takes 90 minutes. The parents are always welcome to participate; but, the staff takes care of all aspects of the party: from setting up the tables to lighting the candles and cutting the cake the G3kids team makes sure that each child has an awesome time. Above all else, they focus on giving your little one the spotlight so that he or she can shine and experience a memory that will last a lifetime. How can one place a value on that?
When kids experience a good birthday celebration, they will remember it forever. Down the line in 30 years they’ll think back on the event and will appreciate their parents for it – I can remember every birthday celebration from my own childhood and imagine that you do too. Also, your little one will benefit from feeling important and will be more confident in themselves. Additionally, their peers will also treat your child (during and after the event) as if they are also important, due to the parent setting an example.
From a practical standpoint, the benefits of having a kids birthday party venue like G3kids is that there is no cleanup. This frees your time up to capture some good photos and socialize with other parents that you typically may only see on social media. Additionally, you get to save time avoiding the painful set-up and planning process, which means that you can put that time into other areas of your busy schedule. For the efficiency experts out there, one hidden benefit of kids birthday party venues is that you can be productive and have a firm “end” to the event. That wayyour guests don’t linger for hours longer than originally intended catching up on the latest neighborhood news.
From a rhetorical standpoint, the benefits of a birthday party are that it literally “turns a page” for your little one – it transforms a hypothetical day to a child into a true milestone that gets celebrated. We inherently understand that there is no significant physical change that takes place when your little one goes from seven to eight years old, but there is a sizable change with respect to new levels of responsibility, patience, and maturity that can psychologically take place when you take time to mark the annual transition as they get older. With each new birthday, parents can help their kids develop by giving tasks to their little ones: “you just turned eight years old and need to start helping with chores” (laundry, washing dishes, organizing their room) or whichever responsibilities come with their relative age.
Ultimately, children are only young once. If nothing in this post has resonated so far to incite encouragement to spend the time and money to celebrate yourchild’s next birthday – keep this one statistic in mind:
On average, kids go to college at age 18; which gives you as a parent, roughly 17 opportunities to make your son or daughter feel important when their birthday comes up. According to Fatherly.com2, on average most people’s memories don’t kick into gear until 3 years old – which effectively means that parents really only have 14 opportunities to celebrate their child and impart a memory to look back on. Statistically, if on the 18th year your child will have had been alive for 6,570 days, and you only have 14 shots to celebrate their birthday that is a .000019 “percent of their” life that they will have enjoyed a day that is dedicated to making them feel special.
More than good memories, give your child the gift of importance and don’t let another year pass by to “go all out” with your next birthday celebration. Call G3kidstoday from this post and get 10% off your next birthday celebration. Also, please share this content with your friends and/or reblog if you agree that we the subtle difference makes all the difference – and in this case cherish those 14 big birthday events for your child as they grow.
Sources:
1 https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/8-things-remember-child-development/
2 https://www.fatherly.com/health-science/when-do-memories-start-what-do-kids-remember/
