What the heck is a "half birthday?"

[bushdianee]

I teach 1st grade and celebrate only the half birthdays of those children who have birthdays during summer break. I have my students make birthday cards that have to include a sentence telling something nice about the birthday child. I give the child a crown, card and a birthday pencil. I cannot justify leaving out 3 or 4 children who don't happen to have a birthday during the school year. At 6 & 7 the birthday crown and pencil are a big deal. Some parents will end in treats, some don't that's not a big deal.
For students who don't celebrate birthdays we will do compliment cards saying something nice about the child without writing Happy Birthday. They still get to choose a pencil as not all are birthday pencils. Crowns are up to them, they can have one if they want.

 

[spacemountainmom]

I'm old and kids have been celebrating "half birthdays" at school since I can remember.

My son has a late June birthday and his half birthday always falls during Christmas vacation. I always would do the school birthday thing in January. We don't actually celebrate his half birthday, but kids like to have the treat at school and be acknowledged like all the non summer birthdays.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

My half birthday is February 30. Bad luck on me. I guess that's why I never had one. Or maybe I can move it to February 29 and have a half birthday every 4 years.

 

[joviroxx]

Wow, I thought I was pretty well versed in these kind of things. While not experiening them, I had heard of them. But this 1/2 birthday thing is competely new to me. Never heard of it at all.....

 

[scrapquitler]

I have a student telling me all last week her "half birthday" is coming up. I smiled and said things like, "That's nice..." with about the same amount of attention I pay when children tell me about how their mommy shaves her big toe (and, yes, they tell us those things! Lol). Then mom comes in and asks if she can bring in cupcakes cut in half for the half birthday. When I said "no" mom then asked if I could hand out the half birthday invitations... When did this get to be a thing?! Since when do we have a formal celebration for being half a year older??

If her birthday is very close to Christmas, her parents might choose to celebrate her 'half birthday' in June instead so that it won't be overshadowed by all the goings on related to Christmas. My brother's birthday is Dec. 20th and he tells me he always felt that his birthday was inconsequential compared to those of myself and my other brother because people brought him one gift for 'birthday and Christmas combined' and because a lot of his friends weren't able to come to his birthday parties because of Chrismtas celebrations and activities, so if her parents celebrate her 'half birthday' it might alleviate some of that.

Another friend of mine has a child with a late November birthday. That child never has her birthday party in November, because she always wants a pool party. So she has her pool party around Memorial Day and they celebrate her birthday then. Same thing.

I don't see an issue if the child is having the half birthday party to REPLACE the birthday party. If it's a second one, then too much and ridiculous, unless it's something done just within the family. But if it is a replacement, why not?

Obviously you don't want to start a thing of kids having two birthday celebrations in school, but if she didn't do cupcakes back in December, let her do them now. You can explain to the kids "We are having cupcakes now because we didn't do them on her birthday" so they don't get the idea that they can do both. Let her hand out the invitations.

What do you do if a child has a mid-July birthday and wants to celebrate the last week of school with their friends by having cupcakes? Do you allow that or are they out of luck?

 

[kwelch10377]

We celebrate have birthdays for summer kids when I was in grade school 20 years ago so I don't think it is anything new.

 

[robinb]

We celebrated my DD's half birthday when she was younger. Her birthday is in August when school is out so we would celebrate it in February with her friends. One teacher (in 5th grade, I think) didn't approve of that so she designated one day as a "summer birthday" day. We didn't celebrate a half birthday again.

 

[Katy Belle]

One of my dear friends had a son born on January 1. He used to have 1/2 Birthday parties, INSTEAD of birthday parties.

When I was room mom one year, the teacher's birthday was in the summer, so we celebrated her 1/2 birthday. It was great fun. We had a round cake, cut in half and stacked 4 layers high, the kids made 1/2 cards. It was fun!

 

[jrmasm]

I know one kid that has a half brithday party every year in the summer. Her birthday is around Xmas. I think it's strange. I understand it's a busy time of year but I'd have her birthday party in mid January if she was my kid.

My birthday is in late June and I never had a school celebration because school got out in early June. I survived. Same with my oldest daughter.

Come to think of it, I don't recall anyone bringing in a brithday treat ever when I was in school.

 

[luvsJack]

dd's bff celebrates her half birthday due to having a holiday birthday and loving pool parties.

I don't get all the venom about celebrating. We should celebrate life and if that means a few extra parties so be it.

 

[mom2girls1974]

Both my girls are December babies and a few people have said we should do this. We just do not do any Christmas stuff (any at all) until after their birthdays are over -it means Christmas is a bit crammed into a week or so, but it works for our family. We really try to separate birthday from Christmas, and to make sure that family members do not do the "dreaded two part gift" LOL -it happens sometimes ie a doll for the birthday and the dolls clothing for Christmas where as is she had been born in May she would have gotten it all at her Birthday

 

[NoSoup4U]

I have a student telling me all last week her "half birthday" is coming up. I smiled and said things like, "That's nice..." with about the same amount of attention I pay when children tell me about how their mommy shaves her big toe (and, yes, they tell us those things! Lol). Then mom comes in and asks if she can bring in cupcakes cut in half for the half birthday. When I said "no" mom then asked if I could hand out the half birthday invitations... When did this get to be a thing?! Since when do we have a formal celebration for being half a year older??

I think thats really stupid. Half birthday? Wow. Ok.

 

[SleepyMom]

We talk/joke about half-birthdays, but have never celebrated it for either of our girls. One has an October birthday and the other an early January birthday (usually still out of school for Christmas break). The January birthday girl usually took birthday treats to school the day they went back and then had a party for friends a few weeks later.

The best half-birthday party we were apart of was one older DD planned for her best friend. Her friend had a summer birthday and DD was always gone for the summer to her dads and missed the party. So, on friends half-birthday DD invited her to spend the night, never mentioning it was a surprise party. Friend arrives and they all sang Happy-half birthday to her, she was so shocked! They had half a cake and half a pizza and the girls got together and bought presents that could be given in halves.. Slippers, pj's, etc and each gave her half a present. It was fun and the best part was how surprised she was!

 

[eliza61]

If her birthday is very close to Christmas, her parents might choose to celebrate her 'half birthday' in June instead so that it won't be overshadowed by all the goings on related to Christmas. My brother's birthday is Dec. 20th and he tells me he always felt that his birthday was inconsequential compared to those of myself and my other brother because people brought him one gift for 'birthday and Christmas combined' and because a lot of his friends weren't able to come to his birthday parties because of Chrismtas celebrations and activities, so if her parents celebrate her 'half birthday' it might alleviate some of that.

Another friend of mine has a child with a late November birthday. That child never has her birthday party in November, because she always wants a pool party. So she has her pool party around Memorial Day and they celebrate her birthday then. Same thing.

I don't see an issue if the child is having the half birthday party to REPLACE the birthday party. If it's a second one, then too much and ridiculous, unless it's something done just within the family. But if it is a replacement, why not?


What do you do if a child has a mid-July birthday and wants to celebrate the last week of school with their friends by having cupcakes? Do you allow that or are they out of luck?

YOu have a birthday celebration and invite her school friends like normal.
Luck has nothing to do with it. What does a child do for friends in July? most children (not all but most) in elementary school are local so do all his/her friends disappear?

Then what happens to a kid who's has a birthday in september and wants to now start celebrating 1/2 birthdays? do we randomly start moving birthday celebrations. my kid is born in July and wants a skiing birthday party, do I then have to have a 1/2 day birthday celebration for him in february so he can go skiing?

when the heck did childhood become so accomodating? don't like when your birthday party falls? that's easy, make up a different celebration? team doesn't perform well, hey no problem will give you a trophy any way.

I have no problem with celebrating when there is some thing to celebrate but what's next. Oooh Johnny had a bowel movement today? parrrty!! I managed to roll out of bed today, whohoo start the ticker tape parade.

we already see the result of handing out trophies for each and every little thing. Kids have major freaky deaky melt downs when real life hits and then they have absolutely no skills what so ever to deal with the fact that no one else thinks they are princes and princesses.

Personally I appreciate my celebrations when I actually accomplished some thing, I think my kids do so also. I like having special occasions. If I do it every 3 weeks it no longer is special. case in point, my cousin who is on her 6th marriage. and every marriage she has a big wedding celebration saying how magical and special it is. SERIOUSLY? honey after 6 weddings, nothing special about it, just another excuse for you to buy a dress.

Just my take.

 

[eliza61]

dd's bff celebrates her half birthday due to having a holiday birthday and loving pool parties.

I don't get all the venom about celebrating. We should celebrate life and if that means a few extra parties so be it.

LOL celebrate life imo means you are appreciative and joyful about the simply things in life. One of my favorite was to celebrate life is to sit in my back yard on a lovely summer morning, drink a great cup of tea meditate and give thanks on how happy I am that everyone is healthy. I don't need a "I didn't have to go to the doctors today" party.

Just my opinion.

 

[Robinrs]

Wow, you brought me back!

Arthur on PBS celebrated his 'half"bir thday and it gave me the idea.

My son's birthday is January 5th so his half bday always was around July 4th. We always visited my Mom's house during the holidays so we go all out.

Half a cake, half a present, we even sang HALF the birthday song!

We did that until he was about 10. He's 20 now and I thought he'd forgot about them but he reminded me that he loved his half birthday. Having a birthday that close to Christmas can be hard so having that summer bday was great.

 

[lacrosse_lady72]

The only thing I do about half birthdays is say, oh hey! it's my half birthday!

But my birthday is July 2. It's kind of a horrible date because people are usually gone for the holiday or because it's within the first few weeks of summer (school gets out here in mid-June). If I celebrate my half birthday, it's the day after New Year's so it's not a great to celebrate either.

I just accepted it, but I've also never had a party.

 

[Sparkly]

When I was a kid, there wasn't this half birthday stuff. My birthday is in March so I'm not a summer baby, but Mum would probably have laughed at me if I had suggested I wanted a half birthday party LOL.

 

[WDSearcher]

When we adopted this new policy that every thing a kid does should be celebrated on the same scale as finding a cure for cancer.

Just another excuse to celebrate mediocracy.

I don't understand how celebrating a half-birthday is "celebrating mediocrity". It's a silly celebration that's fun. It's not like people are registering their kids for lavish presents or inviting 200 people over to ride ponies and eat $40 cupcakes. We regularly celebrated un-birthdays and half-birthdays and "halfway between yours and mine" birthdays when I was a kid. And that was LONG before our current culture of kindergarten graduations and everyone-gets-a-trophy. It was something silly that mom would do to make an otherwise ordinary day special. She wasn't saying we'd done anything remarkable or that we suddenly deserved a parade. She was just having fun. I don't see what's wrong with that.

dd's bff celebrates her half birthday due to having a holiday birthday and loving pool parties.

I don't get all the venom about celebrating. We should celebrate life and if that means a few extra parties so be it.

Exactly! Party on.

 

[robinb]

when the heck did childhood become so accomodating? don't like when your birthday party falls? that's easy, make up a different celebration? team doesn't perform well, hey no problem will give you a trophy any way.

You know, a lot of people complain about participation trophys but I really don't get what the big deal is. My DD *is* involved in competitive athletics: swimming and track. She was top 50 in the state last year in four strokes in her age group. Giving out participation ribbons/trophys doesn't take away from my DD's accomplishments and it makes the kids who can't swim or run as fast a little bit happier. What harm is there in that? Especially for younger children? And what harm is there in celebrating a half-birthday for summer birthday? Small children don't understand why all the other kids get to have a fuss made over them by their teacher and classmates while their birthday falls outside school calendar.

I suppose we can tell a 7-year old "Too bad, so sad" your team sucks or your birthday is in July so "man up" because life is not fair. IMO there is time enough to learn those hard life lessons when kids are older.