To allow DD to go to a sleepover at a house where I haven't met the parents.

[fibromum]

DD13 is in 2nd year at high school (will be in 3rd year in 3.5 months time) She is off to a sleepover tonight with a girl I have not met.

My plan was to dropp DD off and meet the girls mum then but DD has just told me the mum will be at work so they will be on their own for an hour.

I told DD no, that I will drop her off once the sleepover girls mum is home and DD is having a typical teenager rant about it.

I will say there is a second girl also going who I have only met once BUT this other girls mum is the deputy head of the school the girls go to so I have met her through the school. My thinking is well the deputy head knows the sleepover family and is happy for her DD to go so should I.

So AIBU to insist I meet the sleepover girls mum or should I let DD go at the original arranged time.

I'd not be comfortable with my dd having a sleepover with a family I'd not met, because I'd not be too confident about the friendship if it was the first time she'd been to their house and therefore there had been no opportunity to say 'hello'. She is 14, but has bad migraines and has also had major friendship issues in the past, so I guess we are a bit wary. It's not been an issue in practice because she tends to invite all her friends to ours before going to theirs anyway, so we get to check them out a bit :)

YANBU
I would drop her an hour later to meet the mum. It's only an hour but worth it for your peace of mind and also to set the way for future sleepovers. The rule of wanting to meet the adult in charge is an important one and while at 13 they will probably be doing nothing wrong, start as you mean to go on, as in the future, they may be trying to pull the wool over all of your eyes.

Mmm. Nobody seems to know. Is that because it has never actually happened?

My son has had friends I have refused to let him have sleep overs with, but that is because I had met them before the invitation had come. One mother was a serious alcoholic. Another family had an unsecured gun in the house. Both of them invited my son for sleepovers at different times, but I said no. I wouldn't have got into the situation where I was meeting them for the first time at a hand over, but if I had, and didn't consider them responsible, I would have just taken DS home, however socially awkward it might have been.

Supposing you turn up to the house to drop you DC off, and the whole place reeks on cannabis? Or the parent comes to the door drunk, or semi naked, or with four large badly trained dogs,. surely you take your child home.

If my Dcs did what I did at 13 I'd have killed them

Supposing you turn up to the house to drop you DC off, and the whole place reeks on cannabis? Or the parent comes to the door drunk, or semi naked, or with four large badly trained dogs.

Fairly unlikely. Or have I just been very lucky? I have never smelt anything, or seen any drunk semi naked parents. I don't like dogs and wouldn't know if they were trained though. I think the Dc would have mentioned the 4 dogs if they knew the child. and probably about the cannabis if they smelt it on the child at school.

My brother and I went round to a friends house once, and her mother opened the door naked. We decided not to stay!