To be annoyed this mum took DS's phone

Actually my 13 year old needs his phone switched on and near him at all times including overnight.

is this the approach you take with the school when they confiscate your kids phone? Are you that parent? 😬

It sounds like some of your kids have awful friends and don’t trust your own children

She shouldn’t have taken your son’s personal property, if she physically took custody of the phone. That’s vastly overstepping.

She would have been within her rights to say that the phone needed to be left downstairs, or switched off. But you don’t get to take other people’s stuff. That’s fairly basic.

Anyone who genuinely thinks the other mum was wrong not to want a phone in her kid’s room overnight is fucking insane being very unreasonable. We all managed at sleepovers in the 70s/80s/90s and frankly if you don’t think your child is safe without a phone overnight with a particular family, why the hell would you let them stay there in the first place?!

So a nervous/ sick child who wants to go home in the wee small hours has to get up and find his or her way to the table in the hall to make the call? Perhaps in the dark? Perhaps there's a dog they have to walk past?

Aka what any child on any sleepover ever before circa 1999 had to do?

And we wonder why there's a youth anxiety epidemic...

There is a lot of naivety on this thread

I don't generally worry if dc on sleepovers but always say if at any point they want to speak to me or to come home to tell the parent and there's no problem.

I would be worried if I thought there was unrestricted phone access for others tbh. Apparently many teens now set their alarms to go on their phones which I think is depressing.

Because you’re not sitting on the floor amongst the 13 year olds at 3am, are you?

I know my child and she is very resilient and is developing coping skills just fine thank you. She may feel ok approaching them depending on the day and situation. I’m proud of how she has handled the last 4 years, they have been challenging for her but she’s doing brilliantly

Make it less about a judgement of you, and more about her protection of her son.

If you feel judged, maybe look into why.

Would you feel judged if she didn't allow eg fizzy drinks or loads of sweets and only provided healthy snacks?

Or if she wouldn't allow 15+ video games (that other parents may allow)?

YABU

We take phones off the kids after a sleepover with 12/13yos when two "responsible" girls stayed up till 2am taking photos and arsing around on their phones. I had no idea it was going on. Lesson learned!

If anyone is homesick/wakes in the night and wants their parent I'll happily give them the phone to make contact.

It would totally defeat the object if your kid has a phone, the others would want to use it.

It's like if there's a kid who's not allowed sweets, their mates shouldn't bring them and eat them in front of them, inevitably they'd share them.

You say he needs it for the bus, his hobby etc. but not while playing with his pals then going to bed?

He could have used the landline or the mums phone to say goodnight to you, I'm sure.

I do tell parents my no phone policy out of courtesy but I will say it again. It is YOUR responsibility to tell the people who are looking after YOUR child what their needs are boundaries are. If you send your child to their home without doing this then their rules are absolutely fair.

Why unsupervised?

Maybe so but I just cannot fathom knowing anyone who would do such things. This has been the theme throughout all of my kids’ sleepovers over the years. There may be more opportunity but that doesn’t mean the opportunity would be taken.

None of them need a phone over night. If he was upset etc he could have just told the mum. That’s her role as the parent in charge.

She was always going to give it back. So what if it’s his personal property. She might well have had to take his clothes to wash or looked after something of value. Don’t be weird because it’s a phone.

She'd have to be drugged for that to happen without waking her, surely?

And surely your own child has been brought up to behave better and would put a stop to the mischief?

There's plenty of humiliation that goes on in broad daylight, in the playground, the school bus, the classroom, PE class, etc.

I will not step away from the thread just because you are uncomfortable with some of the very valid points I (and a few others) have made.

You can if you wish, but I will be remaining. You do not police me and I don't need your advice.

I mean what is this? How does your child learn any coping skills in this scenario??

She hasn't overstepped though. When your child goes to someone's house they are effectively in loco parentis. You are handing over rule and boundary setting to another adult. Similarly to when they are at school. Presumably you'd have no issue with a no phones et school rule, or the confiscation of phones in certain circumstances. This is no different.

And no child needs a phone while staying overnight at a friend's house. And there are many many reasons why allowing phones in bedrooms during a sleepover in particular is a really bad idea as outlined by PPs. Whether or not there are app controls on the phone, it will still have a camera. And the parent is not only protecting your child but her own which she has every right to do in her own home.

I really can't believe that anyone is objecting to this. The world's gone completely mad thinking that everyone has to be permanently attached to a smartphone regardless of risk/potential harms.

She sounds like a really sensible parent. I'm amazed how many people are horrified at their child not having a phone over night - honestly some people on here are nuts. Can people really not cope with their child not being able to contact them at any point in the middle of the night? If the child can't tell the parent if they have a major problem, or get their friend to tell their parent that they have a major problem then they're probably better off not going to sleepovers.

Jesus mobile phones didn't even exist when I was a kid so I never took one to a sleep over - can you even imagine! Parents who never knew a time before mobile phones are just insane! Not least because mobile phones are a million times more likely to cause problems for young teens than they are to solve them. Just crazy.

If this happened, like a previous poster I’d be approaching the parent myself to say I’m collecting my child as something has come up.

You shouldn’t have made an assumption that he would be allowed a phone overnight in another kids bedroom. There is also the third kid in the mix. You are not his parent and you have no idea what restrictions are on his phone. You do not know if his mother is fine with him sleeping in a room in one kids house with a third kid having a phone. The mother hasn’t got a clue what either boy has on their phones and doesn’t gaf if they need them to catch a bus. You should have asked the question if you wanted to know the answer, but you know next time that other parents do things differently sometimes and you won’t be caught out again.

She should have given you a heads up, even if it was at the point of bedtime she should have told him to text you goodnight and let you know that his phone would be downstairs (or wherever) and not with him. He should have known where it was and how to get it if he needed. It is very possible that you or the third boys parents could have text or called their boys and not getting an answer might have worried them. She should have told you, or got the boys to tell you.

You basically both think that your way of doing things is so normal and accepted that it doesn’t even warrant a mention. It didn’t occur to you to say “Geoff always has his phone with him in his room overnight, we think that’s important. Is that ok?” And it didn’t occur to her to say “We have a no phones overnight in bedrooms rule so Wayne usually hands his over about 10 so we’ll take Geoff’s too if that’s ok.”

All this handwringing of “confiscating private property” is daft.

In conclusion you are both slightly unreasonable but it’s basically a non event, and neither of you are as unreasonable as many other people so it’s a win.

The point is that sleepovers give so many more opportunities for nonsense that might not otherwise happen on a normal school day. Hours and hours of pretty much unsupervised time together.