If you are old enough to remember the times before graduating from any kind of school (even if it is just kindergarten) was treated as a momentous and life changing event, you might wonder why everybody makes such a big deal out of getting out of one phase of a person’s schooling and going into another phase. While this is a big deal to a point (especially with the graduations of high school and college), the parents of our culture over the past few years have put an almost cult status on it. Seriously, how much of a difference does it make whether your child is in kindergarten or first grade? Does this mean that they get to borrow the car and stay out all night on the prowl, or something? Of course not. Since a lot of kindergarteners do all day schooling anyway, this is not a major change of life in any noticeable respect.
If you are a parent and your child has done something of note, you are naturally going to want to reward them to the best of your ability if you can. This is just the nature of what it means to be a parent. Granted, you only want to reward your kids for doing things which are good, but when one of those good things manifests itself your instinct is most likely to just pour on the praise. So it makes perfect sense that most parents are interested in throwing a party for their kids when they graduate from anything.
Of course, it is definitely possible to reward someone too much. One of the problems with the most recent generation of kids is that they tend to have a sense of entitlement, which has been brought about by being rewarded for pretty much everything that they have ever done in life. And while rewards are great, giving them too often (and for small things) can take away the entire point of giving someone a reward in the first place. In general, when you either reward or punish everything, there is no reward or punishment.