12 year olds having phones on a sleepover

[innerturmoil]

So my DD (12) asked if she could have an impromptu sleepover last night with 2 friends she was hanging out with after school. I said yes. I have 2 other younger kids 8 and 10. I let the older girls watch a film in a bedroom but said that at 10-10:30 when the film was over that the TV went off and they had to put their phones away. My DD went crazy because she wanted to keep her phone with her all night (usually she leaves it downstairs at bedtime) and said that the others would have theirs on etc. I knew it would mean they would be texting/taking photos/playing games and god knows what til all hours. I didn't want to embarrass my daughter further by seizing her phone so I just told her I trusted her that she would put it away. I'm sure she didn't as they were up til 2am. What do other people do? I hate the way all our arguments are about screens! Phones/ipads etc and I worry about the stuff they access. Anyway would be good to hear what other people think/do.

It's FAR more difficult to get to know parents once they're at secondary. Fine at primary, and of course you wouldn't let a primary aged child to a sleepover unless you know the parents very well.

But things change once they're at secondary, and you presumably want to encourage them to spread their wings and make new friends, and that will mean sleepovers at houses where you don't know the parents particularly well.

Yes 15 is different to 12 but if you think anxiety issues are rare in 12 year olds you would be dead wrong.

I've already said that my 12 year old was really stupid with her phone at a sleepover once.

As others have said it won't kill them to actually talk to each other and learn a few social skills in the process.

Parental controls give the parents a nice feeling, but are get-aroundable by any tech-savvy 12 year old (i.e. any 12 year old).

So if you don't know the parents well, what do you do when your dd rings asking you to come and get her? Just turn up at their house at 1am?

What do you do - you tell your dd to tell the host that she's not feeling well - then she has a face-saving excuse and that her parents are on their way. That way even if host days 'oh just have a paracetamol you'll be fine' your dd knows she doesn't have to start trying to be assertive as you'll be there soon.

And of course you don't think your child would bully a guest - and she probably wouldn't. But sometimes things get spiteful, especially with girls, and that makes it very difficult for a child who's not having a good time to talk to host mum. Texting mum to come and get them just makes it easier all round if things go pear shaped.

You either knock quietly on the door or text to say you're outside. Quite simple really!

"Is no one at all concerned about 12 yr olds have unsupervised access to the internet? I bloody am."

Bloody worried, my friend's 11 yr old daughter got upset when she was at a sleepover and one child was showing the others hardcore porn and be heading videos. It's not that uncommon it seems.

It's actually been really interesting to see the responses to this problem.

I've always been bemused that there are parents who NEED to be in contact at all times with their child, to the point where the cannot see why their child can't send a text during a class at school etc. I've never seen why those parents shouldn't go through the school secretary during school time. Same goes for here. If a child is afraid, has medical issues, is creeped out then I would hope that we have a strong enough trust that the child, or my DD would wake me so that I could see first if I could reassure, and if not, to call the parents in a controlled way myself.

If I couldn't trust other parents to do a basic things like that, then I really don't think a child should be on a sleepover. I don't think it's anything to do with confidence. I was a guide leader and often we'd have to reassure, cajole and help guides who were homesick or nervous. It was part of the growing up process. There were some who were so unsettled that they'd have to have the parents called to fetch them as a last resort. This was rare. It would have been no good having the guides randomly texting their parents.

I'm not even that old and this reliance of kids having to be tracked at all times seems futuristic.

Lenonyone - I actually entirely agree with you with guide camps etc, but we're talking about other parents looking after our kids, not an experienced guide leader.

Parents who seem very nice naice and civilised on the one or two occasions you've met them, but perhaps they have an older brother who your dd thinks, probably wrongly, is trying to look down her top. Maybe they have a weirdy neighbour over for drinks, maybe they're dog sitting. Maybe your child has just started their period, maybe the other guests aren't being nice and kind. Wouldn't you rather your child listened to their instincts and texted you than they had that escape route removed.

I know a child who has had a serious issue with being addicted to phone use, including all night and has had a huge effect on other aspects of their life. I will certainly not be letting my children have unlimited access to the internet overnight, because I have seen what can happen.

Sleepovers are tricky with other peoples kids. If they are using the wifi, you could turn it off past a certain time.

Turning wifi off sounds a reasonable compromise if you feel you have to restrict phone use.

Titchy.
You have raised incredibly important points about giving children good 'excuses' when they are feeling uncomfortable. I think I would still prefer for the child to talk to the adult supervising them to ask to call their parent and for the child to talk to them directly. I will certainly tell my DD to call and tell me she feels ill if she is uncomfortable in any way. I would always get her in those circumstances.

But I also feel that life is a balance of trying to work out the bigger threats in life. For me, I feel that I would still rather they didn't have 24 hr phone access because of issues with kids egging each other on on texting, bullying etc. Partly because my friends DD had this exact thing happen to her. Several of her friends excluded her from a sleepover, then proceeded to taunt her with 'perfectly nice' texts, which actually were pretty mean. I know all these girls and they are lovely, but clearly that night there was some egging on and it ended up in bullying and the friend's DD feeling devastated that her mates ganged up on her. I wouldn't want that to happen on my watch.

I would always have a compromise though, reading this, that if the kid wanted to text or whatever they could feel free to do so to their parents, but the phone would still stay downstairs.

I think this thread says more about people letting their children go for sleepovers in houses where they don't absolutely trust the family.

Turning up after midnight to collect your child is bloody insulting! I'd feel sorry for the kid but they wouldn't be invited back for a while (until they'd grown up a bit)

BTW - I'm not saying any of my opinions are set in stone - perhaps when DD is firmly in teen years rather than a tween I'll realise what I'm saying is unmanageable. But for now, I can see others points about phone use, but think restricting them is the lesser of two evils.
I would never dictate that though to another parent whose house my DD was staying at though.

Interesting one. And lemony one, I actually don't think you are unreasonable as long as anyone who chooses to go for a sleepover at your house knows what they are signing up for. We are a household with no rules, no curfews etc but our DCs are generally happy to go with the flow if they choose to visit friends with a different setup.

Turning up after midnight to collect your child is bloody insulting! I'd feel sorry for the kid but they wouldn't be invited back for a while (until they'd grown up a bit)

No it's not- what would you rather? An upset child counting down the seconds to the morning in a strange house? You don't sound welcoming at all. Anything could happen that could make a child want to go home.

I've never taken gadgets away on sleepovers. I accept it'll be a late night/early morning sleep and up again early and these days Instagram etc are big things as part of their socialising.

Normal rules tend to go out of the window on sleepovers, within reason.

I wouldn't let them have screens and unsupervised internet access in the bedroom at all. Just asking for them to look at inappropriate stuff, get involved in cyber bullying etc.

I can remember a sleepover where one girl decided that she was unhappy in the middle of the night. This was pre-mobile phones for children days so we had to be woken up.

I wasnt insulted but I was a bit sad for the child as the parents turned up quite promptly so we suspect that they werent entirely surprised.

It is quite possible that if the girl had been able to text her parents privately then she would have had a bit of a pep talk from them and carried on with the sleepover quite happily.

By the time we had been woken up it had got beyond that stage. So in that situation having mobile phones available might have meant the girl staying on.

Catguilt - if my child's spidey-senses are tingling because host dad/brother/neighbour is acting creepy I want my dd to feel able to extricate herself from that situation and not to give a shit about offending someone. Very dangerous message otherwise - particularly for girls.

Agree titchy and lemon see your points too though don't agree with you.

cat you sound a bit harsh to be honest. So a child calls to go home and then you loose patience with them? 12 is still young you know. Yes sure you may feel that child is a pain but hey next time they might be ok!

You know things happen out of the blue. We went from having a confident bold happy teen to the exact opposite in a day.

My view is relax, don't have rigid rules and remember all kids are different.

Yes yes titchy totally agree your last post.