Children’s Day

From Guest Blogger, Kathleen Carscadden

Children’s Day – what day ISN’T Children’s Day? That was my first thought when reading about this “lesser” holiday. But the more I thought about it, the more I truly have come to appreciate this day.

International Children’s Day is celebrated in many countries and usually, but not always, on June 1. The reason that the first day of June was chosen to celebrate children is unclear but the story I like the most is that the Chinese consul-general in San Francisco gathered a number of Chinese orphans to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival in 1925, which happened to be on June 1 that year, and also coincided with the International Children’s Day conference in Geneva.

I suppose since my daughter is Chinese the story of the date being set, including Chinese orphans, touches my heart.

Traditionally (in China) children do attend school but there are no classes that day. Instead they take time to honor students with notable achievements and participate in parent-child activities and games. It is a festive, child centered day. Other countries have other traditions but the common thread is a child centered day of fun and parental bonding time.

Now, I don’t think we are going to get our schools to suspend classes for a day but we can celebrate Children’s Day all the same. My daughter beams with pride when we have lunch with her at school, and showing us her work in the classroom is equally delightful. Maybe you could arrange to bring your child his/her favorite meal for lunch on Monday. Take cookies to the classroom to share with all the children (do this at the end of the school day as to not cause a big disruption) or plan a special after school activity. We will be having lunch with Miss Jess and taking her bowling after school. She typically has homework on school days, but I have arranged for Monday’s homework to be a day late. These are small things for sure, but are all special to Jessica. What is special to your child? Could you work it in on Monday?

If your school has already recessed for summer, all the better – a picnic in the park with your child’s favorite foods – ok in our case that would mean a picnic of marshmallows and bacon – but how great would your child feel when presented with ONLY their favorites?

Maybe it’s too late to do much this year – but that’s what is great about this “lesser” holiday, not much is required to make your child feel like a star for the day and strengthen your relationship.

And as always if you’d like to see what Jessica did for Children’s Day feel free to visit our family blog at www.freewebs.com/jessieshome