Opinions on sleepovers , can we just stop it .

I don’t let my kids attend sleepovers. When I think about what happened when I attended them when younger it’s a no from me. Now my eldest is a teen I would let him, but not primary.

I grew up in the late 90s/early 2000s. Never had a sleepover. Wasn't a thing in my friendship ground. Did me no harm.

There's likely to be more a damaging effect by NOT letting her go - because that's mortifying for someone of that age. Kids will take the mick about being the one who had to be picked up by their mummy because they weren't allowed to stay over.

When I think about the kinds of things I used to get up to as a young person I cringe inside. If my kids were doing those things I would be gutted.. but there's no reason they shouldn't as I (and many others) did! In fact it's even easier to get into trouble now, thanks to social media and smartphones.

But that's the world we now live in. We cannot wrap them in bubble wrap forever.

The more you protect them now, the more dangerous it's going to be when they're going to uni, if they're trying EVERYTHING for the very first time due to not being allowed before.

Why are you safe but others aren’t? If you don’t agree with sleepovers hosting them seems hypocritical.

your child will miss out if you don’t allow it.

it was fair enough that if your child is invited to a sleepover but you say they can’t stay over, that the offer is withdrawn so a different child can be invited instead.

@JamesClyman
"That's the poster's decision, not yours."

Yes it's her decision to make for her life. It's not her place to use that experience to dismiss another person's parental boundaries as "ridiculous".

And while I'm here, it's also not her place to inform OP that her children will be anxious and isolated in the future, based on this tiny non-issue. She knows nothing about these children's lives, personality, families, nothing. She's basically diagnosed future mental health problems of OPs children based purely on the fact that they don't go to sleepovers. Absolutely insane.

You're not a hypocrite to allow a couple of sleepovers at your house. You're asserting your personal boundaries based on what you know to be safe. You didn't impose your opinions on anyone else. Those parents were free to allow their children to attend your sleepover or not. There's no hypocrisy.

Whether or not there's any hypocrisy, it's certainly an irrational attitude.

She presumably believes the other parents are acting responsibly when they allow sleepovers at her house, even though they don't know her very well.

But putting herself in the same position, she believes she'd be irresponsible to allow sleepovers at their houses. This makes little sense because if she genuinely believes that, then she should refuse sleepovers at her house too, as she wouldn't want to encourage other parents to behave irresponsibly.

It's not a matter "her knowing that she's safe" - she knows the other parents don't know her any better she knows them, so by her "reasoning", she should conclude it would be irresponsible of them to allow sleepovers at her house.

just as you judge others for having sleepovers or letting their DC go, one day your own DC will judge you not letting them go. They may understand or they may feel forever annoyed that they missed out. I’ve raised 3 kids to adulthood (nearly, youngest is 18 next month) and they’ve done plenty of sleepover, and had just as much fun as I did when I was younger. In all honesty, it never crossed my mind that something terrible would happen to them sleeping over at their friends.

The most valuable gift you can give your child to keep him / her safe OP, is to that of an open, loving relationship with you, where there are no boundaries of what can be discussed and the feeling of security to your child. You cannot control the outside world, nor is it your job to.
Equip them the self confidence and resilience to notice and recognise 'unsafe' situations and come to you to talk about everything and anything.
How you do this is up to you - tap into what your child enjoys, martial arts, dance, music but build that relationship by spending time with them and talking rather than limiting their opportunities.

So you're just going to continue projecting your issues onto your child and ruin her childhood experiences while all of her friends participate and then talk about them in front of her?

I had a parent exactly like you. I absolutely hate them now I'm an adult. Neither me nor my children spend time with them.

What the hell. Are you OK?

OP you've had a lot of weirds and ridiculous comments to your post, a lot of them just sound like pure spite tbh. I guess other people asserting their boundaries makes some people insecure about their own parenting and they decide to lash out. They're trying to make themselves feel better by making you feel worse.

You're not a hypocrite to allow a couple of sleepovers at your house. You're asserting your personal boundaries based on what you know to be safe. You didn't impose your opinions on anyone else. Those parents were free to allow their children to attend your sleepover or not. There's no hypocrisy.

Don't allow other people to use their past trauma to dismiss your concerns. Someone else was sexually assaulted at a sleepover and they say you're ridiculous to not allow sleepovers. They're out of order to use their experience in that way. Their experience doesn't invalidate your boundaries. My best friend's step-dad exposed himself to me on more than one occasion (I was too embarrassed to tell anyone), and I happen to agree with you. So it just goes to show, there's no reason to allow other people's past to influence your decision.

For me, it hasn't really come up. My son doesn't want to have sleep overs. He loves the comfort of his own bed, he loves waking up and having a cup of tea and two crumpets for breakfast in his dressing gown 😁. He just has no interest in sleepovers. And contrary to what some of the more spiteful comments say, he has no problems with friends. Nobody thinks he's weird, or that his parents are weird. There's no "stigma" (I can't believe someone actually used the word stigma 😆). I have no worries that he's going to be stunted and unable to cOpE iN tHe rEaL wOrLd as other people have said..it's a tiny non-issue.

Rather ironic that you think other parents should stop sleepovers, but you are perfectly happy to host your own.

When is your magic age when sleepovers become ok? Why?

I'm only responsible for my own child, if other parents want to make less safe decisions, why would I follow their example?

Although that's true, one thing being a greater risk doesn't mean you should just ignore the lesser risks. That makes no sense.
'I don't want to let my child cross the road alone in case they get hit by a car'
Well actually they're most likely to die in a car crash as a passenger so it's ridiculous to worry about them crossing the road

Seems you think other parents are being reasonable to let their kids sleep over at your place, even though they don't know you very well.

But you think it would be unreasonable for you to follow their example. Doesn't make much sense.

It’s not just that she doesn’t let her children attend, which would be fair enough as a parenting decision. It’s that she wants everyone else to stop having them, organising them or inviting her kid. Despite her organising some themselves.

You are being ridiculous.

YABU.
Overthinking.
Chill out.

No, you’re being ridiculous. The vast majority of sexual abuse, if that’s what you’re worried about, is by trusted adults in the family or close community. Not by random parents at a sleepover (where would the friends be when this is happening? and why would it be less safe than when your child comes over to watch a film or go for a trip to the swimming pool? or at football or gymnastics practice?).

My dc have had unsupervised contact with a convicted child sexual abuser. Do you know where? Not at a sleepover. Not at a friends house. Not on a school residential or a scouts camping trip. In my own bloody house, and the person in question was a trusted elderly family member. Abuse most often happens under your nose.

You say you might reconsider when she's older - what age are you thinking?
I was fine with sleepovers 6-13 or so, but found them more problematic 14+ when drugs, alcohol, boys/girls, etc are introduced.

I think it’s quite rude to accept invite then try and change terms of it eg pick up 11pm. Either accept or decline but don’t try and impose your rules on others. Your dd will know to decline as soon as anything sleepover discussed and going forward probably won’t be invited to things as friends will know she can’t so it will be less of an issue.

Op, you could have agreed to the sleep over and insisted on swapping phone numbers so that you could talk with the host's parents.
You would have met them when dropping off your DD and a phone call could have ascertained that - there were no boys, no alcohol and that there would be adults present in the house for the duration of the party.

Thought this was going to be a "can we stop discussing this" post because, yeah, everyone is entrenched in their view, no one is changing their minds and it's boring and pointless.

I'm shocked how many people are giving the poster a hard time for not allowing her child to sleep over at a house where she doesn't know the parents at all. And presume if she doesn't know the parents, she doesn't know any older siblings either. And superficially knowing somebody isn't a safeguard anyway. A friend of ours only found out another friend of theirs was a paedophile when he was arrested and went to jail. They were really shaken, as they'd known him for years, thought he was a nice guy.

It’s unfair to punish your kids because you misbehaved at sleepovers when you were young. I cringe at some of the stuff friends and I got up to - drinking, sneaking out, all sorts - but you can’t stop your own dc learning and having fun especially at senior school age. Your poor dd must feel very left out and resentful.