It’s just no fun when holding a children’s party

9:50am Monday 19th May 2008

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PIN the tail on the donkey? No. Musical chairs? No. What games do you play at a party for a bunch of 12 year olds?

They're too old for musical bumps, and not only that, some of them are way too big. I don't want them crashing through my floorboards and playing havoc with the foundations.

Birthday parties are stressful at the best of times. But when a child is neither tween nor teen, it can be a nightmare.

Her friends have gone for themed affairs. One had a murder mystery party which my daughter loved. But, to someone like me, who has trouble reading any set of instructions longer than three steps, the rules sounded far too complicated.

Another had a Tim Burton' party. "Who?" I asked my daughter, who had also never heard of him. Now, of course, we know everything there is to know about the film director, after trawling the charity shops for clothing to ensure she looked suitably deathly as the Corpse Bride'.

So what sort of party is my daughter to have? I mulled over a Quentin Tarantino afternoon, culminating in a screening of Pulp Fiction, or a Grand Theft Auto lV barbecue, in which I fix various anti-theft devices on my car and see how long it takes the children to disarm them before tucking into burgers and spare ribs in a mock parking lot I would make out of cereal boxes.

Bizarrely, I can't remember much about parties from my childhood. I recall having to look at a tray with various items on it - things like a peg, a pen, an egg cup - for 30 seconds then trying to remember them. But beyond that exciting snippet I can't remember much.

I know at one friend's party we played sardines. The memory of bring crammed into an airing cupboard with six other children still haunts me, as does the telling off we got when the shelf collapsed, leaving us all in a heap, wrestling in a sea of sheets and pillow cases.

Being an all-girl bash I've pondered art and craft. Being of the fairer, gentler sex, I'm sure they will be content to sit and sew or paint for a couple of hours. Having said that, my youngest daughter opted to charge around a warehouse with a laser gun for her big day. Last Saturday, she and a friend hosted their 10th birthday party in a dark room, running about dressed in hideous fluorescent vests, blasting their friends, Schwarzenegger-style, with futuristic-looking guns.

To my mind, it wasn't what young ladies should be encouraged to do. But they loved it. And they had a wonderfully unhealthy box of chicken nuggets thrown in.

With birthdays just five days apart, my daughters used to have joint parties, so the ordeal would be out of the way in one afternoon. Now they barely tolerate one another in the same room, let alone share a social occasion. And in terms of what they enjoy, 10 is light years away from 12.

I realise the worst is yet to come. I can't even begin to contemplate teenage parties - when the flyers go out on YouTube and Radio 1 broadcasts an invitation to the entire country to come and ransack your home.

There's only one thing for it. I'll ply them with maximum strength coke and give pin the tail on the donkey one last go.