Inspired by "teacher out of line" thread..

[C.Ann]

One portion of that thread has really been bugging me since I first read it.. So I have a question for all of you..

What would your 7 year old child have to do today that would result in your cancelling their birthday party a month from now?

For me it would have to be something pretty gosh darn serious..

 

[jen0610]

One portion of that thread has really been bugging me since I first read it.. So I have a question for all of you..

What would your 7 year old child have to do today that would result in your cancelling their birthday party a month from now?

For me it would have to be something pretty gosh darn serious..

It would take more than my kid telling another kid that they and/or their momma dresses weird.

It would have to be pretty major - theft, physically injuring another kid, telling a major lie or several lies.

I remember as a kid, not 7, but still a kid, walking around with a button on my jacket that said "Your ugly and your momma dresses you funny". I can't think of a time in my youth, that someone wasn't saying something about how another kid was dressed.

 

[TriMom]

I have a 5 year old who will turn 6 in 2 weeks. I can not think of anything that he would do that would cause me to cancel his birthday party. I tried to think of something, but that level of punishment is beyond what I can reasonably fathom my 5 yo is capable of.

Now don't get me wrong, he is not perfect by any means. His room is a disaster area, and he can not have anyone spend the night until it is cleaned up. He gets caught in a "get out of trouble" lie every now and then, and is punished for them.

But I really can't think of anything he has done in the past where I would go... Cancel his birthday! That will teach him the life lesson he needs to learn!

 

[Eeyore'sthebest]

It would have to be pretty major - theft, physically injuring another kid, telling a major lie or several lies.

I'm with you. That story just seemed weird to me.

It would take something serious to cancel a party. It's not because I let my DD get away with murder but serious punishments should be saved for serious offenses.

 

[NHdisneylover]

To cancel a birthday party a month away for a young child it would pretty much have to be an act of premeditated severe cruelty to me. Something big enough that I would feel grounding a child that young for that long was appropriate (I wouldn't just "take away" a birthday party in and of itself. Stuff we all hope our kids NEVER do. Things like intentionally physically harming another child (not throwing one punch but going after someone with a knife or holding down a smaller child and repeatedly hitting them or something totally terrible) or a pet (setting a cats fur on fire, etc.). The kinds of things you hear about once in a while and cringe and try to never think about.
Even then, I think something more immediate (plus proffesional help) would be in order.

 

[johnsontrio]

intentionally burning the house down..that is, if I were planning on having the party at home

I with ya, it's hard to imagine anything that a 7 year old could do that would elicit this response. Anything severe enough to warrant this, would only come from a severely disturbed child that probably wouldn't have any friends to invite anyway...

 

[NotUrsula]

DS12 lost his birthday outing this year. He didn't misbehave to lose it, however. It was all about natural consequences.

His birthday was at the end of May, but the kids he wanted to invite were kids who attend summer camp with him, so we postponed it. The date was set for two weeks after the end of camp, and DS' job was to get the full names and phone numbers of the kids that he wanted to invite. (The place that he wanted to go to requires a release form, so we needed to send that paperwork directly to their parents and answer any questions that they had.)

Well, he dawdled, and he didn't bring pen and paper to camp until the last day to get the phone numbers. After getting them, he apparently laid the notebook down somewhere -- whereever he put it it wasn't in his bag. I picked him up as usual, 20 minutes before the teachers left for the day, and even asked him to double-check that he had everything because camp was closing down. We were a block from home (25 minutes away) when he suddenly piped up with: "I forgot the notebook!! I left it at camp!" I looked at the clock in the car and saw that it was 15 minutes after last lockup -- the teachers were all gone, and being as how it was the final day, they were not going to be coming back. It was simply too late. He didn't know the boys' last names, and this particular school would not release the phone number info to us in any case.

The outing was canceled. I was really sorry that it happened, as he had been talking about it for an entire year and was heartbroken, but I couldn't fix the situation for him. He messed up, and he had to take the consequences.

We don't do kids' birthday parties in my family. We've had one too many situations where not a single invited guest showed up, and we've decided that it just isn't worth it to risk dealing with that again. We will do outings, though; we find that offering to take a child on an outing at our expense AND transport him there and back tends to get a more reliable response.

 

[catycatcat4]

I think the mom is crazy its a 7 year old! they know what there saying! The kid didn't even start it. All they need its a time out in a corner.

 

[C.Ann]

DS12 lost his birthday outing this year. He didn't misbehave to lose it, however. It was all about natural consequences.
.

Natural consequences were a big part of how I handled issues with my own children and were often more effective than "punishment" per se..

But would you have handled it the same way if your son was only seven?

 

[SCHBR'smom]

My Dneice almost lost her 5th b-day party. She knows not to touch the sharpies. The sharpies are kept away from her, but she knows where they are. She took them out, then proceeded to use the permanent markers on the new bedroom furniture her parents had given her for her birthday, her new bedspread, her clothes, her little brother and his clothes. She knew better because she had been told many times before not to use them and they were not left out for her to easily get to. Her mom was able to get it off the new furniture, but couldn't get it out of the bedspread or clothes. She almost lost her party, but the rest of the family talked mom out of it.

 

[DisneyBamaFan]

At age 7 - nothing. At an older age, when consequences can be remembered, I can think of many things - but one month later, that 7 year old will barely remember why she is being punished.

Punishments need to be timely to be effective. The younger, the more immediate...

 

[NotUrsula]

Natural consequences were a big part of how I handled issues with my own children and were often more effective than "punishment" per se..

But would you have handled it the same way if your son was only seven?

I'd have had to. The thing is that I had no choice about how to handle it -- I literally couldn't contact the families myself because I didn't know the children's surnames.

When there is no "buzz book" to let you know who classmates are, you have to trust your child to get contact info themselves, and if they mess it up there isn't any other way -- the schools forbid the distribution of invitations to off-campus events, and they won't give out contact info on families. This isn't the first time that DS has lost contact with a friend this way -- he has what you might call a list of dozens of long-lost camp friends that he wishes he could find again, but there isn't any way to do so.

PS: I've got to agree with the Mom over the Sharpie incident. I'd have canceled the party for that, too -- just because of the expense involved in replacing all the permanently ruined things. When the misbehaviour causes a major financial burden, it becomes less about punishment than practicality -- due to the birthday child's actions, the money for the party has now been spent on other things.

 

[Liberty Belle]

I can't imagine what my 7 year old would do that would make me cancel his birthday party. It would have to be severe and repeatedly done, but really I can't think of what it could be.

 

[GeorgiaPeach8]

DS12 lost his birthday outing this year. He didn't misbehave to lose it, however. It was all about natural consequences.

His birthday was at the end of May, but the kids he wanted to invite were kids who attend summer camp with him, so we postponed it. The date was set for two weeks after the end of camp, and DS' job was to get the full names and phone numbers of the kids that he wanted to invite. (The place that he wanted to go to requires a release form, so we needed to send that paperwork directly to their parents and answer any questions that they had.)

Well, he dawdled, and he didn't bring pen and paper to camp until the last day to get the phone numbers. After getting them, he apparently laid the notebook down somewhere -- whereever he put it it wasn't in his bag. I picked him up as usual, 20 minutes before the teachers left for the day, and even asked him to double-check that he had everything because camp was closing down. We were a block from home (25 minutes away) when he suddenly piped up with: "I forgot the notebook!! I left it at camp!" I looked at the clock in the car and saw that it was 15 minutes after last lockup -- the teachers were all gone, and being as how it was the final day, they were not going to be coming back. It was simply too late. He didn't know the boys' last names, and this particular school would not release the phone number info to us in any case.

The outing was canceled. I was really sorry that it happened, as he had been talking about it for an entire year and was heartbroken, but I couldn't fix the situation for him. He messed up, and he had to take the consequences.

We don't do kids' birthday parties in my family. We've had one too many situations where not a single invited guest showed up, and we've decided that it just isn't worth it to risk dealing with that again. We will do outings, though; we find that offering to take a child on an outing at our expense AND transport him there and back tends to get a more reliable response.

I think natural consequences are totally different than canceling something as a punishment for an unrelatedly incident...especially with a 7 year old for a party a month away. That is like an eternity to a kid. I think you situation was a great lesson for a 12 years old--especially a boy. I taught middle school for years and the boys were always so bad about follow up on social things.

I'm with pp...house would have to be burned down before I would cancel party for behavior. You only have a 7 birthday once.

 

[Camicar]

To be honest, this is exactly the kind of thing my mother would have done.

She was always punishing so out of proportion to the offense. I was actually a good kid, very easy-going and willing to follow rules if they were explained to me. But if you listened to my mother, I was the Bad Seed because even the tiniest infraction or simple mistake was akin to 1st degree murder.

In her case, she just went overboard on everything. Sh also had a tendency to overstate things in anger but because she believed that you never apologized or admitted a mistake to a kid, she felt she had to follow through even when she knew she was being unfair or downright mean.

The natural consequence of this overly-harsh parenting was that you either become terrified of even the most innnocent of mistakes or you say "Screw it" and do what you want any way. I mean, if you're going to be punished for a felony, why bother committing a misdemeanor? The other consequence is that you learn not to trust your parents and not to expect anything good to happen -- you learn to expect good stuff to be taken away from you.

FTR, I do not recommend this as a parenting technique.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

The punishment seems inappropriate for a 7yo. Only b/c whatever the "crime" was is too far separated from the "punishment".


The kid will not remember a month from now why they weren't having a party even if mom reminds the kid.

My oldest is nine and all punishments are still in the immediate to near future so as to link it with the offense.

Now if my kid was being snot nosed and we were doing an extra special party--I might knock it down to cake and ice cream. I won't reward selfishness with my unselfish act of spending familiy money on something that isn't a need. But I wouldn't outright cancel. We'd just change what we were doing. But that is for an overall behavioral issue--not a one time infraction kind of deal. (And nothing we've had to worry about thus far.)


The parent in that scenario acted over the top for that particular age for the punishment to have any effect.