Should children be allowed to take their birthday off school?

When I was a kid I never spent a single birthday in school.

That’s not because my parents decided to keep me home, but simply because my birthday is early in January which means schools are closed due to the Christmas and New Year period.

Being in school for my birthday wasn’t something that I’d ever thought of because I was just used to the fact that this never happened.

It’s not something I ever really thought about again, that was until recently.

Our twin girls birthday is February, and unless it falls on a weekend, it means they’ll always be in school for it.

This is a pretty strange concept to me, mainly because I was never in school for my own birthday. I actually contemplated taking the girls out of school for the day so that we could spend the morning at home, watching them opening their presents without having to rush to get ready for school.

We could then have a birthday breakfast, maybe go out for the day or just spend the day at home playing with their new presents before having a celebratory lunch or dinner with family and friends.

To be honest though, I couldn’t actually go ahead with it. As much as I really wanted to keep the girls home from school, and I really, really did want to, my husband and I decided that they should go to school.

Of course this was the right decision to make. The girls loved being in school on their birthday. They got to stand up in assembly whilst the teachers and other children sang happy birthday to them, and again the children in their class made a fuss of them both, as did their teachers.

We let the girls wear a birthday badge each on their uniforms and even sent them into school with some party sized packs of smarties for them to hand out to their classmates.

We did spend the morning before school watching them opening their presents, and to be honest it wasn’t at all rushed. They flew through them!

When they came home from school, we had a party at home with family and the girls had a birthday party on the weekend which their school friends were invited too.

So, as strange as it may seem to me, the best thing was to send them into school on their birthday. They had a great time. Although, I spent most of the day counting down the hours and minutes until I could get them home again! This year was the first year that I haven’t spent their entire birthday with them. It’s going to take some getting used to!