Birthday Discussion Prompts

In Spid the Spider Plans a Birthday Surprise Spid wants to help Bid celebrate her birthday. He wants to do this because Bid is his special friend. So here are some birthday discussion prompts to help question and discuss birthdays with your children or class.

1. What are birthdays?

Birthdays are anniversaries of the day we were born.

2. What are birthday traditions?

Birthdays are celebrated in many cultures with gifts, cards and parties. Often too with the baking of a birthday cake. Cakes are often themed to match the celebrants interests and decorated with candles to signify the age of the celebrant. The cakes are then eaten at events to celebrate birthdays.

Many cultures also celebrate ‘coming of age’ birthdays.  In the UK, ‘coming of age’ is usually celebrated at the age of 18 or 21. In some hispanic countries, such as Brazil, they celebrate a girl’s 15th birthday, and in the USA and Canada girl#s celebrate ‘sweet sixteen’.

3. Why are birthdays important in society?

In the UK, births have had to be registered since 1837. Births are confirmed by legal documents called birth certificates. In England and Wales, births are registered by, and information is held by the General Register Office. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own registration offices as do most countries in the world. Certificates confer legal entitlement; they are used for example, to prove identification and as part of approval processes to gain other documents such as passports.

Birthdays also confer legal entitlement to do (and not do) things. For example, in the UK children start primary school in the year which they will be five years old. And parents are eligible for childcare grants for children aged four and above. From 2024, childcare grants will be available for children aged three years.

At the age of seventeen, young people are also able to learn to drive a car, and from the age of eighteen, they can vote in local and national Government elections. At the age of sixty seven people can currently retire with a Government-funded pension. Ask your child to think of other forms of legal entitlement and reasons why birthdays are important in society.