A slumber party is a party where the guests spend the night at the hosts house. This typically involves pizza, movies, and the kids trying to stay up as late as possible. I seem to remember going to maybe 1 or 2 slumber parties a year.
It's definitely a special occasion and the late night aspect of it lends itself to movies, since by the time the movies come on it's typically too late to make a bunch of noise outside.
> Do you want spoiled fat bored and boring kids? Because that's how you get that.
No, actually, slumber parties are not how you get that.
Ok, if slumber parties are late night parites then my point need to change a bit:
- Getting 11yo kids to officially stay up as late as possible is a weird idea. They will stay up late anyway but why make it official?
- Many games are suitable for some kids together in the evening. I mean non-video games.
- Watching a movie can be useful to cool down the atmosphere but watching an horror movie just before sleep seems not very advisable. I do not buy the argument that these kids did already see all suitable cartoons and movies. Did they really see all of Miyazaki, Chaplin, Buster Keaton, old Disneys, etc? If so,they clearly watch too much movies.
- I do not think pizza is a good diet for kids (and adults), and it is better, if possible, to not link in their mind fast-food and "having nice time together". I guess it is not convenient to cook a three courses meal with many kids around, but there are other, better possibilities including bbq, picnic, salads, etc. (My reasoning is that having a nice time together is in most culture synonym for having a nice meal together, and so the food can be more important than we think in these occasions.)
The staying up late portion of the slumber party is more like tolerated/permitted rather than encouraged.
Almost every slumber party I went to/heard of watched an action movie or a horror movie that wasn't too hardcore for our preteen selves. I'm pretty sure it's cultural at this point. Also these kids are friends of Ebert's kid. I'm pretty sure they'll be much more movie-literate than the average kid.
We were a bit too old for nintendo and too young for n64 to be part of the culture where we lived, so no comment on video games. We did run around the backyard pool for quite a while.
A slumber party is a party where the guests spend the night at the hosts house. This typically involves pizza, movies, and the kids trying to stay up as late as possible. I seem to remember going to maybe 1 or 2 slumber parties a year.
It's definitely a special occasion and the late night aspect of it lends itself to movies, since by the time the movies come on it's typically too late to make a bunch of noise outside.
> Do you want spoiled fat bored and boring kids? Because that's how you get that.
No, actually, slumber parties are not how you get that.