Will it make you feel worse if I tell you that the Girl Scouts have been doing these mall sleepover things for at least ten years? My little sister went to one ten years ago in our Moccasin Bend district, though I don't think there were going to be that many stores, if any, open. And a lot of times Girl Scouts will get badges at events that are more like "remember the event and the year it took place" badges, not badges that they earn. Though, the leaders there will probably have activities for badges that they need to earn, but those activities probably don't include shopping.

(And yes, this is a lot of why I hated Girl Scouts when I was in it. We didn't get to do half of the things that Boy Scouts got to do. Though we did get to do a River Raft Race where we lashed our own raft together with pieces of bamboo and twine on top of cheap tire inner tubes. That was probably the most "Boy Scout" sort of Girl Scout thing I ever had access to.)

I had hoped the girl scouts would've improved by now. I guess it hasn't changed much, but the inner tube thing does sound fun.
Back when I was a girl scout in the 70's, we did a lot of pre-fab type crafts projects and girly activities and not much else. I didn't like it that much.
I guess now that I've been reading Feministing I notice stuff like the mall sleepover a lot more readily!

This is truly horrible, although I am not surprised. I hated Girl Scouts when I was young because the sum total experience of outdoors camping was overnights in cabins at well-manicured campgrounds. The rest of the time we focused on cookie sales. (No, I am not kidding.)

It's no wonder that organizations such as Girls, Inc. have gained popularity: their objective is to introduce girls and young women to the outside world, help them acquire skills to deal with it (such as self-defense training) and encourage them to participate through volunteering and community service.

It seems like an overstatement to say that this is "truly horrible." It's promoting consumerism, which is dumb, but mostly it sounds like a lot of fun. It's a sleepover with all your friends and a bunch of girls your age.

It only takes up one night, which is good for younger girls and girls with busy schedules, and I'm guessing the mall isn't charging rent because they know they'll be making money. It sounds like an excuse to let the girls have a fun night with a climate change talk shoved in to make it seem educational.

Of course I hated the Girl Scouts. I quit shortly after taking a three-day camping trip -- the kind with tents and kayaks and s'mores. It had its moments but it mostly sucked.

I'm a Girl Guide Leader in New Zealand. I'm not sure how the organisation works in the US, but here we're encouraged to have the girls get involved in event planning - such as picking themes/activities/locations for camps and weekly meetings.

Since my unit meets on a night when the malls aren't open, we sometimes do a $100 window shop up and down the street. The girls enjoy it, and usually ask for it, and I like the fact that it gets them out walking (they're very energetic & hard to keep up with!).

What I'm getting at is that the girls may well have chosen some part of this for themselves. Also, the older girls (14-17, Rangers here in NZ) often have qualifications in Leadership, Economics and Marketing to do, and this would be a valuable time for them to cross some of those clauses off.

I've found the problem with girls not liking Brownies or Guides often comes down to the fact that they don't mesh well with the Leader, or that particular unit. Parents should be encouraged to look around for other units in the district, as each leader has different strengths and interests and girls will usually find a unit which suits them.

When I was a Girl Scout just 10 years ago, and when I assisted with younger troops in the same time period, we had these events.

So did the boy scouts.

And like Agnes Scottie said, the patch were often more for even rememberance, that is, everyone who showed up got one. They were placed on the back of the sash with all the other event patches, seperate from "interest project" badges.

The mall offered a good place where we could do a large display of "this is girl scouting". My troop made posters of our adventures to West Point Military Academy and Kings Point Military Academy, as well as rafting camping and backpacking trips that we did with a co-boyscout troop. See, our troop had 3 High Schoolers and our leader's husband led a similarly small BS troop, so we just partnered up.

After these public things at the mall, there was a sleep over, often geared toward the younger girls, so I would go to the troop that I assisted with and bring them around or volunteer to run activity stations.

I once spent 4 hours teaching girls how to make the same 2 origami animals. ::sigh:: That was patience.

Girl Scouts is what the girls demand and what the leaders are willing to provide. It also provides a very positive environment for girls, when done right. If you have a leader who wants to only dink around and sell cookies, you miss out. I was lucky to have a very active troop which kept me positively motivated, and I feel that that provided my positive attitude when I helped with younger troops as a high schooler and again when I was a camp counselor at GS camp in college. And why I'm anticipating becoming a leader once this grad school/ job life cuts down some.

So the moral of this is the same with life, GIGO... in Girl Scouts, Garbage In = Garbage Out.

I mean, look: a dance party. A place for girls to explore the movement of their bodies without that crazy Jr High "oh no the boys are watching" pressure. Learning about climate change, this is a great venue to get lots of people together for a discussion/lecture. It seems the uproar is over the mention of "shopping".

If you have any wonders about Girl Scouts being hard core and adventurous the international trip programs available and between fundraisers and council initiatives they're accessible to so many girls who would not ever have been able to do anything similar.

PS... And of course the mall will attempt to eek out some extra $$$ from the girls/parents by staying open. It's capitalism.

I liked Girl Scouts. I was in an urban school's troupe, so we only did a little amount of outdoors-type stuff.

But we slept over at the science center. That was a blast. I loved it.

However, a mall sleepover? I have the feeling things like this are due to a lack of funds and resources. I work at a big box bookstore, and it's always stumped me why there'd be so many schools taking field trips to the bookstore (heck, I did them, too, when I was younger).

"I hated Girl Scouts when I was young because the sum total experience of outdoors camping was overnights in cabins at well-manicured campgrounds. The rest of the time we focused on cookie sales. (No, I am not kidding.)"

Yep, that's pretty much what Guides is like over here in NZ, despite what AliceR says. I never did it, but my sister did. I remember going with my mum to take her to camp and I remember them spending every weekend trying to sell cookies. That's it. Seriously.

Oh, and AliceR; I am friends with some people in Rangers. They like to tell me how much fun they have EATING LOLLIES for 1 hour every monday!!!!! Wow, some economic skills!

That's funny, I've been to Valley Fair. It's easy to get lost, so maybe the girls could practice some orienteering skills? For what it's worth, San Francisco State University has a campus in a mall...that I attended...it was actually quite nice.
But to stick up for Girl Scouts, I was a Girl Scout for 12 years and earned the Gold Award. It really instilled a lot of positive values in me, like leadership and community service. True, sometimes we did things that were a little silly, but we also did a lot that was valuable. Maybe because I was in it for so long, it really set me up for a lifetime of trying to make the world a better place.

I think the activities differ from unit to unit. I live in Sierra Nevada and the scouts out here to outdoorsy stuff, but most people do here. I grew up in a more metropolitan area and when I was in GS we spent the night at a museum once. I thought it was pretty awesome because we stayed by the dinosaurs. My brother was in the scouts and they emphasized more difficult outdoor excursions, so there is definitely a difference, but not all GS do “girly” stuff.

Hi everyone, thanks for taking the time to educate me on some of the positive aspects of the 'mall sleepovers.'The newspaper article just made it sound like an all-night shopping marathon.
Thanks also to those who pointed out that the role that the troup leaders play in determining the activities - sounds obvious now:-) Wish mine had been more adventurous!

Is seems there's a "consumer power" badge. Is this what they're earning?

http://www.girlscouts.org/program/gs_central/insignia/list/junior.asp