Organizing a birthday party for your child and their friends can be mighty hard work. Kids are chaotic, picky, accident prone, and hard to contain. Here are some top tips for parents looking to put on the party of a lifetime for their young children.
Consider A Joint Party
Two minds are better than one! Consider jointly hosting a party with another family that has a child with a birthday at the same time of the year. Joint parties can be far less stressful – there are simply more hands on deck to help make sure everything goes smoothly!
If you can’t jointly host a party, it might be worth recruiting other parents to help you on the big day.
Think About Safety
Parties need to be safe, as well as fun. Make sure that there are no obvious dangers to attendees and take into account any special accommodations that some kids might need. Ask around to check whether any of the children might, for instance, need a special meal to accommodate an allergy.
Embrace Chaos
Fun often takes the form of unadulterated chaos for excited kids. No matter how much of a tight leash you think you should keep on your children, you need to be able to let them run wild occasionally. Birthday parties are a perfect excuse to give your kids some freedom to make the mess they want, make foolish decisions and generally tumble about the place. Trampoline parks and bouncy assault courses are perfect kids birthday party places that allow children to let loose without being in danger.
Consider Time Constraints
It is very important to know when your party is going to begin and when it is going to end. Kids are not entirely autonomous – they can’t drive themselves home, for instance. Parents and guardians need to know when they have to come and pick up their youngsters. For children under ten, most people recommend limiting the length of a party to a couple of hours or less to avoid tired children getting into unnecessary conflicts. All ages of children have different requirements in terms of time.
Think Creatively
Creative activities can be wonderful for kids celebrating birthdays. Pottery making, cooking and sculpture all inspire children’s minds and allow for levels of expression that they may not be getting on a regular basis during their non-party existence. In recent years, cookery classes have become very popular with parents looking to inspire their children creatively on their birthdays. Cooking classes have the added benefit of enabling kids to feed themselves with the produce of their own hands.
Provide Food
Kids get hungry quickly and feeding a big group of them is never easy. Make sure you have snacks on hand and a plan for some kind of food break. Some venues offer catering as part of their party hire plans. Many parents choose to gift their kids and their kids’ friends a cake as the focal point of a party. A rousing rendition of ‘happy birthday’ while the candles are being blown out never goes amiss.
