Sleepovers

[lifeinagoldfishbowl]

Yes a thread about another thread but I was sad/uneasy to hear that people don't send their children on sleepovers due to the possibility of a man being in the house

So

1. Do you allow your children to go on sleepovers?

1. Who does the most care/entertaining of children on the sleepover - you or dh/dp?

1. What does your dh/dp think about children not being allowed to come on a sleepover at your family home - due to him being there?

I must apologise for my errant apostraphes!

I get that this was abot another thread...I suppose I am wondering though...if DD were asked for a sleepover and I said no....would I be percieved as a person who thought ALL men were potential perverts?

I hope not. Some people have very valid reasons for not allowing small children out overnight.

"Yes but can most children manage?"

I would say that IME of having several children to sleepover here, inc my godson at a year or so old, and other of DD's friends from 4 or 5yo onwards that most children can manage, yes.

However there will be some children who are not yet able to cope and then their parents should make the right judgement - but for the right reason, not for the fear of child abusers lurking in every other house.

ShanahansRevenge - on the other thread people did stare this as the reasonm why they wouldn't send their child. TBH if a parent said no to asleepover then I would assume it was the child who was a bit nervous and not yet ready to deal with a sleepover. Until MN, yet again, I'd have never dreamt of the reason being because they feared their child would be abused.

Good...I do think about it a bit as DD is close to her little friend and is growing closer to 2 others at school. I can almost smell an invite brewing!

I KNOW DD and she would be very unstable...she can barely cope with a 3 hour playdate.

Shanahans, but the implication here is that most DH's are paedophiles, or that other mother's cannot be trusted for nefarious reasons.

Why is that the implication - why can the DC just not be ready?

DD (7) goes on sleepovers but only to friend were I know the parents (all married etc). I would always send pjs though and not nighties.

I deal with all the care when sleepovers are at ours and would try to make sure that neither DH nor DS1 (only 4.5) was around when they were getting ready for bed.

However if they are still awake v late will send DH to the door of the room to tell them to stop talking (take it in turns).

dd is 5 and I think she's still a bit young for sleepovers at the moment. Emotionally she'd cope fine, but she still wakes up in the night from time to time and very occasionally has the odd accident in bed. It can also take her ages to get to sleep! I'd worry about her being a pain for the other parents! But I'll let her go when she's bigger and I think she's ready.

I'm horrified at the thought of people refusing invitations because their dc's friends' fathers are at home. My dh has hosted playdates for dd's friends before and this has never even occurred to me before!

I hate sleepovers! I hate having other peoples children here for the night!

Can I just say that in the hope that some of dd's friends' mums might be reading .

My kids would sleep over at friends houses where i know the parents quite well.

Back in the 90's we had a client at the financial services company I worked for who was really nice. Professional, smartly dressed, beautifully mannered. We all found him very pleasant to deal with.

Within a few months he was arrested and turned out he was one of the most prolific paedophiles ever to be prosecuted.

The point of this is just that actually anyone could be an abuser, family, friend, professional. They dont look 'bad', be a stranger, or behave oddly, they dont give anything away.

Either we keep our children away from absolutely everyone because they are all potential abusers and there is no way of telling, or we educate our children to know what is and isnt acceptable and give them some freedom as they grow up to enable them to become confident happy and secure young adults.

The reality is that just keeping them away from men we dont know doesnt actually keep our children safe. You just have to look at the catholic church for evidence of that.

Maryz...no I don't see the need to get her used to anything...and why must homesickness be seen as "trouble ahead"? It's normal...not trouble!

I'm not going to ditch her into a situation she isn't ready for. At ten she will be more able to deal with her own emotions.

My dd is only 4 so no sleepovers yet apart from family, we both look after dd as both work, most playdates she has are on days when he works but he sometimes finishes and will just come home as usual. When she is older as long as we know the family well will be letting her go to sleepovers regardless of if there is a man in the house or not.
Same in our household will happily have friends to stay as long as their parents are happy with it (wont be expecting dp to not stay though), I do bedtime routine apart from very occasionally so would just carry on the same as we do normally.

If this was about my thread, we were mainly discussing the appropriate age to start sleepovers and I don't recall any mention of scary men. Maybe I missed a post or two though.

I am reluctant to send my DD1 to sleepovers, not because I am overprotective but because we don't have any close friends living nearby, so I am not sure how she'd react if she went to a total stranger's house and woke up in the night scared/ill/sick/needing the toilet. I wouldn't want a household up with a child in tears/freaking out in the middle of the night - people are busy as it is without needing that.

Nothing to do with the men in the house.

We had a little girl round after school the other day - she'd never been to our house before and the mum was admant she'd be ok. She was deathly quiet the whole time and when the mum came to pick her up she burst into tears. I think she found coming to a house of strangers a bit overwhelming - and I did try to make her comfortable/at ease and I was mortified!

So I think that sometimes it's hard to judge it when a child is young - still it's up to the parent to make that judgement....

I would rather it be tough when she is ten though...not when she is 6 or 7. I m not trynig to "protect her forever" but sleeping in another home is not needed.

She will have a sleepover when she is old enough to deal with anything that may arise...and in my book thats at about 9 or 10.

I think out sleepovers must be very tame affairs compared to many I hear of. Have never had them awake half the night nor even up really early. Normally they are all asleep by 10:30pm ish after being allowed to stay awake later with hot chocolate - even when there are 4 of them. I start the stern "teacher" voice any time from 9:30pm onwards. It has worked so far. If they do wake in the night - only happened once - I go in and lay down the law and they have been straight back asleep. Rarely awake before 7am, and then hey have to be quiet or can go downstairs for TV and own breakfast.

Never have any mass fallout of tiredness, etc, the next day.

That would never occur to me and I find it rather :(

My ds1 (7) has had one friend over on a sleepover and they had a great time. Ds1 hasn't been on a sleepover yet but if he was invited and wanted to go, I'd have no problem.

I do very regularly have a couple of little girls stay over, only together once though (one of them is nearly 4 and been staying since she was 5 months old) but that's because I'm a childminder and overnight care is a service I offer. They haven't got any problems with dh being in the house!

It would never occur to me to worry about other kids' fathers being paedos unless I saw something to suggest that might be the case. I do think it is a sad way to think. And terrible to keep your kids away from their friends because of your paranoia.

I was abused as a young teen by my sports coach - fully certificated and a former police officer to boot. So saying clubs are safe but friends' houses are not because you don't know the dads or that other friends may drop in is nonsense. These things are rare though and I don't think there are predators in every other household. If it was a teenaged daughter going to a friend's house with older brothers I might worry, but not about parents (and specifically male parents - how sexist!) unless I had been given a reason to.

1. Do you allow your children to go on sleepovers? YES

1. Who does the most care/entertaining of children on the sleepover - you or dh/dp? MOSTLY ME - as in making sure they have snacks and drinks etc, but mine are 11 and 13 so just get on with it themselves really. I s'pose I am the one that decides it is lights out time rather than DH as I usually go to bed slightly earlier than him.

1. What does your dh/dp think about children not being allowed to come on a sleepover at your family home - due to him being there? HE WOULD BE HURT AND UPSET

I suppose it depends totally on the child and how comfortable/confident they are with other people.

I am a Brownie leader, and we take our girls away at 7 if they want to come. Almost all do, and I feel a bit sorry for the ones who don't, as they miss out on what all the other girls think is the best thing we do each year.

I do think that as they start to grow up, getting used to this kind of thing graudally from a fairly young age is a good thing. Sleepovers are just one night in someone's house with their parents there, Brownie holiday is 2-3 nights, in an unfamiliar location, not necessarily like a home, with 20 other girls, Guide camp might be in tents, school trips away etc. might be for 5 days by the time they are 10-11ish, and going away on trips abroad for at least a week, with e.g. Guides etc. by the age of 14 is not unusual. There are very few children who would be comfortable with the last scenario if they've not been 'acclimatised' with the earlier ones at a younger age.

Nobody has to do any of these things, but the risk of missing out on important experiences later on will probably increase if they have never got used to staying away at a younger age.

D