Phone taken away dd on sleepover?

[upsideup]

DD(10) was on a sleepover last night, first sleepover with this girl but we have had the girl at ours a few times before, her mum has always asked that we take her dd's phone off her before bed which we have done( we plug it in outside dd's bedroom so she could still get it if she needs it) but I remember having the conversation that my dd likes to have her phone with her on sleepovers so she is able contact us.
The mum took dd's phone of her at 8 last night and put it in her bedroom, dd did ask if she could keep it turned off in her bag but she wasnt allowed, shes' quite anxious about sleepovers and knowing she can text us to come pick her up etc without talking to the parents make her more comfortable, she also does contact us a bit anyway to say goodnight and check when we are picking her up etc. Shes also didnt get her phone back untill we picked her up at 11 because she was too nervous to ask for it.
We were a bit worried that she hadnt replied when we text goodnight and we were on are way, but I had assumed she was having too much fun and hadnt thought to check her phone not that she wasnt allowed to.
DD was upset when we picked her up, obviously not to tears or anything but it did make her feel uncomfortable that someone else took her phone and she wasnt able to contact us, she wasnt able to get any sleep because she was worried about it.

AIBU in that she shouldnt of done that without contacting me first?
The girls are quickly becomming close friends so its likely dd will get more sleepover invites, can I or how can I tell the mum that I would like dd to keep her phone?

[Lweji]

Isn't that what parenting is all about? A benevolent dictatorship?
It sure isn't a democracy.

[Ijustwantabloodyusername]

Yes, It's very much like a dictatorship with the way people have described their 'rules' etc. That's my opinion and I own it.

The Mum of Dds friend, does just that when saying with the OP, and the OP has respected that. Pity that friend's Mum hasn't.

[Ijustwantabloodyusername]

Oh, and there's a big difference between a dictatorship and parenting! There is in my world anyway.

[ThisIsTheFirstStep]

Well what about the other girls’ rights? The right not to be kept awake by others playing on their phones?

[Iamagreyhoundhearmeroar]

No 10 year old has a "right" to keep their phone about their person at all times. If you don't trust other people to act in loco parentis (with all that entails) whilst hosting your child overnight - don't send them.
Let them stay home surrounded by their gadgets. The mums will probably thank you.

[Ijustwantabloodyusername]

The other Mum can't have it both ways! She has it her way when (which the OP has fully respected) her DD sleeps at OPs house too! Is it ok for OP to be dictated to by this one parent all the time? I'll answer that myself, no, it isn't ok! And nor would you be happy to follow similar rules when your DC has a friend at your home.

Last week there was a thread that the Mum couldn't get hold of the other parent and everyone was saying that their child should have a phone so she can be contacted directly/ personally.

Only in the MN world would these contradictions exist!

There very little you can do on an old style phone and the OP has stated clearly and numerous times what the point of her DD having one, is.

[ThisIsTheFirstStep]

ijust or maybe, just possibly, there are various differing opinions on mn? As we can see here, on this very thread, people have different opinions.

[Ijustwantabloodyusername]

Indeed.

[Lweji]

there's a big difference between a dictatorship and parenting

It's not a democracy either. Or meritocracy. Or anarchy (one hopes). Not really socialism or communism.

In part it's a plutocracy.

[Lweji]

Last week there was a thread that the Mum couldn't get hold of the other parent and everyone was saying that their child should have a phone so she can be contacted directly/ personally.

Only in the MN world would these contradictions exist!

Apart from MN not being a single voice, there's no contradiction.

The child here does have a phone, she just didn't have access to it during the night. If the host parent needed to contact the other parents, they could through the existing phone.
They didn't throw it away or smashed it to bits. They just kept it in their room.

[BarbarianMum]

"This is a family, not a democracy" is one of my favourite parenting sayings. Along with "there are no rights without responsibilities". And sometimes just "no".

[Lweji]

In addition, when it was in reverse, the mother specifically asked for the phone to be taken from her child.
The OP remembers talking about her DD having her phone but, as far as I understand it, did not specifically ask for her DD to keep it during the night at this time.
That was the main difference. The host parent just applied her normal house rules, as she'll probably have forgotten about the conversation.

[Lizzie48]

At the end of the day, it is up to the friend's mum to make that call, if you're not happy then sadly your DD isn't ready for a sleepover. It's not about democracy or dictatorship, it's called parental responsibility. I wouldn't be happy about my DDs having access to a mobile phone or iPad overnight while I'm not able to supervise. Even if there's no WiFi, they can text and take photos.

[Ijustwantabloodyusername]

This is what OP says:

" I remember having the conversation that my dd likes to have her phone with her on sleepovers so she is able contact us."

It is clear that that OP expected her DD to be allowed her phone. If there was a problem with that then friends Mum should have said so straight away. And maybe just maybe, OP didn't want to come across as rude and demand her DD be allowed her phone.

[Lizzie48]

Yes that does seem to be part of it. The friend's mum should have mentioned their house rules about no phones in the bedroom. She didn't and that clearly caused a misunderstanding on the part of the OP. She thought her DD would be able to have her phone.

[Lweji]

The OP acknowledged there was a communication issue. It works both ways, as none of them talked about the issue.
Still, if it was such an issue for this girl, as a mother, I'd have made sure she would be able to keep her phone, particularly given that previously the other mother had asked for her DD's phone to be taken away.

[AltheaorDonna]

So this thread has gone viral. It was discussed on Sunrise Australia this morning, it also came up on my fb feed for 7 news. They didn’t mention mumsnet but the subject matter is identical.

[Iamagreyhoundhearmeroar]

But the daughter wasn't in the middle of the bloody jungle, Ijustwantabloodyusername, there was presumably a landline she'd have been allowed access to for the asking.
If these kids are still attached to the umbilical cord, they shouldn't be doing sleepovers in the first place, they're not ready.

[bastardkitty]

Janey I absolutely agree.

[Michellelovesizzy]

I dout the other mum thought she was going to be upsetting anyone by taking the phone... its just different rules in different houses. Next time she goes there maybe just say to other mum can she just text me before they go to bed. Explain to your child that if she wants her phone to say night then she can just ask 4 it i am sure the other mum would be fine with that.

[Ijustwantabloodyusername]

Absolutely Janey! You've got different problems if your child can't, or won't, do as instructed by the adult in charge.

If OP didn't let her DD sleep out then everyone would be telling her she needed to give her child independence and if her DD had said anything else to the other Mum, how rude her DD was talking like that to an adult in charge!

Iamagreyhoundhearmeroar - That is completely irrelevant. The Mum knew beyond any doubt that OPs DD would be unsettled/anxious/worrying (delete as appropriate) without it.

[Evelynismycatsformerspyname]

Janey and ijustwant you are both willfully choosing to ignore that letting your child's sleepover friends have phones in the bedroom at night while you are asleep is not about trusting your child it's about trusting their friends, blindly and absolutely, to resist a temptation that need not be there and is not appropriate. Especially Janey who advocates social media and smart phones for pre teens out of conviction that giving children social media when they are too young to tick the "I am over 13" box to officially use it somehow protects them from danger later - or something.

Janey and Ijust do you/ did you when your child was 10, trust your children's friends not to eat everyone's Easter chocolate, try some alcohol, and watch 18+ horror films?

Did you follow your own logic and put sleepover kids to bed in a room with lots of your other children's chocolate, an open bottle of alchopop or baileys or other potentially palatable to preteens alcohol, a TV and DVD player and a selection of 18 rated horror and erotic films on display?

Trusting other people's children within sensible limits and advocating putting temptation in their hands while the adults sleep are very different things.

Anyone who blindly and totally trusts even their own 10 year old child when temptation and peer pressure and overtiredness and excitement and absence of adult supervision are combined at 3am is somewhere on the scale between niave and delusional.

[Evelynismycatsformerspyname]

And Ijust what rubbish. What on earth makes you so confident that the host mum "knew beyond doubt" that the visiting child would be anxious etc? The conversation reported by the OP was a brief, hinting, inconclusive tangential remark in response to the other mum saying that she didn't want her own child to have overnight access to a mobile device, and happened on a previous occasion - the other mother had almost certainly totally forgotten it happened.

[Coyoacan]

And I still don't get why her dd would ask to go to a sleepover again if the experience was so unpleasant for her. If the child wants to go again fine, if she doesn't want to go again, no problem. Why does the OP have to take that decision?