Overview

Birthdays for young children often have little meaning beyond ‘I get presents and treats.’ For their families, however, birthdays can have a much bigger significance, especially for specific years. Some families have long-standing traditions that they might want to bring into the school, while other families have religious or cultural objections to celebrating birthdays at all. When crafting a policy about student birthdays, consider setting clear expectations for in-class celebrations, out-of-school party invites, snacks or treats brought to school, and any school-wide traditions that will be observed. While some environments set policies as school/center-wide, others allow individual teachers and classrooms to choose how they celebrate.

Creating a consistent school-wide policy can provide explicit direction on what families can expect when choosing to celebrate a child’s birthday but might exclude hopes or ideas that don’t fit the parameters. Allowing individual teachers to set a policy can provide more freedom but might create chatter amongst families (“in the Seahorse class, they get to bring in cupcakes and goodie bags!”).

Many families will choose to have a birthday celebration for their student outside of the classroom. Some will want to invite all children in a class, and others will only want to invite chosen students. A policy that requires all students to be invited might be done in the name of ‘saving hurt feelings’, but doesn’t allow for family conversation about friendships, and might create financial stress. Banning invitations from being passed out at school can prevent these conversations altogether on school/center property, though online groups, text threads, and email listservs are still prevalent in family life – it won’t prevent talk completely.

Where To Include

At Playvolution HQ, we recommend using the Three Handbook Method.

Consider adding this policy to your Operating Handbook.

Considerations

• Some states/regions have policies that require food ‘from home’ to be store-bought.
• Some states/regions have policies that ban balloons in early learning environments.
• Some families might feel pressured to bring in treats or have a party if other parents do, despite financial constraints.
• Some schools have their own special songs, banners, or other traditions that classrooms are expected to partake in.
• Students who don’t ‘get’ the same experience as other students could comment on it (“how come Jeremy got cupcakes?”)
• Many families will want to take photos of students on their birthdays, which could conflict with a photography or cell phone policy.
• Allowing birthday celebrations means that alternative arrangements must be made for students who do not celebrate birthdays – will they leave the room? Will their parents be notified?

Sample Policies

NOTE: The following samples are real-world examples relating to this post’s topic and are provided as a reference for creating your own policies and procedures. Sharing them here is not a recommendation of their content.

Sample 1

Sample 2

Sample 3

Sample 4

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