To be so annoyed my child's phone was taken off him at a sleepover?

[minnieproblems]

DS stayed over with a friend last night. There were four there in total. He has a phone so he can text/call us if he needs to. Before going to bed, phones and tablets were removed from the visiting children.

AIBU to be a bit annoyed? He finds it quite stressful staying over and he hated being unable to contact us.

Pengggwn, a matter of opinion. You sound very unpleasant.

If your kid suffers with anxiety ffs tell the parents! Or you are a crap parent and friend.

No archery, I wouldn't divulge medical information that did not relate to needing medication.

And yet, Valued, you will complain about the parents who did not magically divine that an adjustment needed to be made.

Sterling work, there. I wouldn't have your kid over twice if I couldn't trust you to tell me necessary information about them.

How bizarre, it's really not funny for those of us with dc who need them. It's also used in the medical and legal world.

Yes, I know. It's not generally used for sleepovers.

However. I think you've made your mind up about me, regardless.

I used it because it's factually accurate. I'm not neurotypical so my speech may seem overly formal or precise. I'm glad that's amusing though.

Do people really send their 9 year olds to sleepovers at houses where the other parents are relative strangers?

I know having a child with ASD means his friendship circle is limited, but this is just bizarre to me. A teenager is different, by a child in primary school?

ArcheryAnnie not at all, I judge the smug posters on here who cannot conceive of a child being different to theirs or show understanding.

The 'good parenting' comments are frankly laughable.

The assumption that everyone has the same rules as you.

I think the DS needs to learn coping mechanisms other than texting his mum at 1am. It feeds the anxiety - surely he needs to learn how to cope with these feelings which, in my opinion; can be entirely normal. It's normal to get anxious when you're staying away from home as a young child. Instead of giving him a phone, just either not let him do sleepovers yet or give him other coping mechanisms which are a bit more about developing independence. Or does it help to reassure the OP more than anything?

if i was organising a sleepover, I wouldnt want loads of kids up on smartphones all night. I think she did the right thing

I take tech off children at night, they can play games and make videos even without data/wi-fi password, they can also text other children. All children visiting here are told where the phone is and that should they need to call their parents they can, I also check if they need me to write their phone number on the pad by the phone.

I work in a primary school and had a massive issue last term where a group of 10 year olds had had a sleepover and one of them at some point in the night had used one of the others phones to send some really nasty messages to another child, when they came back to school on Monday all hell broke loose, we ended up having to have a meeting with the parents, police got involved, it was a nightmare. Child whose phone it was was a perfectly sensible, individually all the children were but something weird happens at a sleepover and all common sense goes out the window.

I just asked my mums opinion on this. She's 53 and stricter than I, to some extent. I asked her about this and she gave me a face and said "why on earth would I confiscate their phones?".

It isn't universal.

Usually I am a "your house your rules" person but in this case I think YANBU. I feel reassured in this mobile era that my DC can text before bed and it wouldn't honestly occur to me to confiscate another child's property whilst at my house. You cannot cover all bases and say that the OP should have checked first, there are 1001 rules that people could have.

One of my dc came back once from a sleepover a bit tearful and it turned out that at 8pm the children were all allocated a bedroom each, the door closed and lights off . The family all slept in the parents room (so that the sleepover children could have their own room) and my DC was quite scared sleeping alone in the dark in a strange house (they were around 9) That scenario wouldn't have entered my head....surely in a sleepover it is usual for children to sleep together, stay up later than usual and chat/play?

I have actually had nervous anxious homesick children staying in the days before phones I know imagine that. I sat up with them and reassured them, made them cocoa until they went back to sleep. I'd say that makes me a kind and empathetic person.

Pengggwn , nice try.

No way would I be divulging my dc private information when medication not needed, I have learnt that most parents are judgemental gossips.

Just because I am showing some empathy for the op, doesn't mean I farm my dc out to randoms.

The assumption that everyone has the same rules as you.

If you were really so conscious of everyone having different rules, Valued, you'd be first in the queue to tell host parents of your own rules, and not make them guess, and then complain when they failed to realise there was anything to guess at.

It isn't universal

Exactly, it absolutely isn't and that's why the host should have mentioned it.

I don't see the point of sleepovers, too stressful for everyone, my youngest does Beaver camp that's it and I wouldn't have phones or tablets available either, if he needs to contact you he could ask

Grecian that is utterly odd

ArcheryAnnie, you seem to know a lot about what I would do? .

It wouldn't occur to me that someone would throw their parenting weight around like that, but clearly it does happen.

Why should she have her rules ignored for your ds in her own home? She hasn't no idea why your son would be looking up?

*SHE has no idea what your son could be looking up

I was an extremly anxious child so I can emphatise with children who suffer from anxiety and I am not dismissive at all but having a smartphone overnight with a group of a child's peers can lead to all sort of issues as mentioned previously. Maybe a solution for this in the future is to get a cheap phone where there is no option to access the internet but will still allow a child to feel comforted by its presence. There is no possible way that children can be constantly supervised all night during a sleepover unless the parent stays awake in the room and where's the fun in that! And unless the host parent knew about the child's anxiety then how are they being unreasonable to take devices off all children.

I'm not keen on 'phones in bedrooms at that age. I think that if your child is so uncomfortable that they need the reassurance that they can contact you, maybe they are not quite ready for sleepovers?