To not allow my 11 yo DD to stay at Mixed sleepover

[GreenJanine]

Year 6, best friend, but boys and girls invited they are only 11 and all sleeping in a tent overnight.

Others are allowed but AIBU?

I wouldn't. The first time I ever saw porn was at a mixed sleepover when I was 12 (no one there older than me) and there was supposedly adult supervision. It was a most uncomfortable weekend.

It's not about drunken orgies it's about privacy and comfort
Totally agree

As a parent of a soon to be 11 year old girl I would not want to put my child in a position where she may feel uncomfortable and vulnerable. They are still children but they are developing and changing and some are changing and maturing quicker then others and I would feel my daughter may be exposed to chat and actions that she is not yet developmentally ready for. By the way I also feel similar about all girl sleepovers. I think inhibitions start to slip as the night goes on and children can say and do things they may regret and at 11 that can be huge for them.

My DD had a friendship group that had several sleepovers here when they were 11&12.
All children well known to all parents.Never had problems,the general consensus was that any hanky panky would be too embarrassing in front of friends.
They seemed to sort themselves out and chatting used to go on so late that they used to fall asleep mid sentence.
I don't kidyself that they'd be that innocent now at 15.But then again my DD only likes girl sleepovers now.

Even if an innocent bit of 'you show me yours and I'll show you mine' could lead to kids feeling pressured to do things they don't want to. It is obviously worst case scenario, but do we want our kids to feel so vulnerable? I guess if an adult was camping next to them I'd be ok, as I think this would keep things at a certain level. But I would be wary. Some kids and schools are far more precocious and aware that you could imagine. My daughter changed from a tiny village school to a big suburban school for year 6, I'd have trusted the group from the tiny village but not from the bigger school. Nothing against individual children but they seemed to think they were far more grown up.

I clearly grew up in a much more innocent time (am only in my twenties) as we shared mixed tents on DofE etc with no problems. We all just chatted and told ghost stories and laughed a lot. We had all known each other since we were tiny though so maybe that influenced the dynamics.

I dunno oso

I remember as soon as u got to secondary school you were asked for blow jobs and called frigid etc

The oldest yr 6 is possible only days younger than the youngest yr 7...

I had a very sheltered life then it seems Giles as none of that happened to me. I did have a very close group of mixed friends however and as I say we had known each other pretty much our whole lives, our parents were friends etc. It probably sheltered me from some of the worst aspects of secondary school!

With the advent of smartphones and snapchat etc those innocent spin the bottle/cheek smooches become much more problematic.

I’m a secondary teacher and the biggest issue we face as a school including the 11 year old Yr 7’s is inappropriate phone use off school site that then becomes an issue at school. Constant taking photos/body shaming/slut shaming/online bullying.

Sleepovers would be prime phone opps.

I think some people are insanely naive if they don’t realise that 11 year olds in the 21st century have far too much access to media/phones/online stuff and can be very savvy at using all this and yet still have the same immaturity and poor impulse control that ends in trouble.

Most 11 year olds have too many hormones and are now way too clued up on sex and all it entails.

I wouldn't allow it. There are a lot of cases of peer on peer SA, as PPs have said. We don't want to think about that because it's uncomfortable to think that our children could be capable of that. My brother was that age when he was abusing DSis and me, though in his case, there were others doing it, including our F. But nobody outside the family would ever have guessed what was going on.

There are also too many things that could go wrong, no way would I trust them not to get up to some mischief or other.

Definitely not. I know exactly what DC in my DCs were getting up to aged 11

My DCs school

Do not allow that.
I well recall a conversation with a school nurse about how many of our high-school pupils came up from primary 'already sexually active', as if that was perfectly fine.

Oh my god - eye roll at some of these responses. I have an 11 year old son - he's still at primary school and honestly, he's still a little boy.

I dunno how some of you are bringing up your kids but don't tar all young boys of this age with the same brush. I'd have no qualms about this whatsoever providing there was adult supervision in place - and no, not to keep an eye on any sexual shenanigans but to make sure they're safe and happy

I thought the whole issue is that it would not be supervised. Presumably there are adults in the house but not camping out with the children.

It's oblivious ill-informed adults like yourself Tansytaylor that facilitate bad situations happening.
Firstly do you think your Y6 son shares his feelings about his sexualilty with his mother?
Even if your DS isn't intetested in sex yet, that doesn't mean other youngsters that age aren't and it doesn't mean they are wrong or badly brought up.
All these people on this thread telling you they were sexually active at that age, or abused by someone of that age- do you think they are lying? If not why the eye-rolling!

hmm at the implication that any goings on would be the boys fault! This is why I’d keep my boys well away as we all know who’s be blamed for anything in the end

Kappa several poster’s have said that it would be the girls’ behaviour they would be concerned about.

I have two ten year olds, a boy and a girl and I wouldn’t allow a mixed sex sleepover in a million years.

I asked my DH (who clearly doesn’t hate boys as he was one) about this thread and his response was “Fuck no!”

I want Tansytaylor's way of thinking. It's nice, fluffy and relaxing.

I don't tar all young boys with the same brush. And I don't tar all girls etc etc. But it only takes one to be a little shit in an unsupervised group staying overnight in a confined space away from home.

Lol at me being ill informed and living in some rosy world where I'm some naive bumbling parent. I also have teenagers aged 19 and 16 so I kinda like to think I've got my finger in the pulse when it comes to my own kids.

I don't doubt for a moment that there's 11 year olds out there who are sexually very aware. And some who act on it. Loads of parents are completely shit and don't have a clue what their little darlings are up to. I'm not that parent but you'll just have to take my word for that. Or continue to make out I don't have a clue what my 11 year is like.

Lots of assumptions here from parents who've lost control of their kids

Hell no. They'll be playing spin the bottle and dares and things can get carried away. Kids are very liberal these days with their access to social media, etc. They know a lot more than we did at their age.

www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/09/child-on-child-sexual-assaults-soar-police-figures-reveal

'Child-on-child sexual assaults soar, police figures reveal'

I have a son and I wouldn't want him going to a mixed sex sleepover because of the culture we live in where boys are seen as sexual predators. I would rather keep my son away than give parents of girls the opportunity to project their feelings about boys on to my son.

Lost it’s the “confined space” that’s a key part of the problem.

Anyone who is uncomfortable with what is happening to them, in the dark, has nowhere to go without making a big scene and waking everyone else up. And there might be hours until morning.

There are all sorts of barriers to saying “no” and defending your personal boundaries in this situation.

During the day you can far more easily walk away, find a public space, find an adult all without having to make a scene and humiliate yourself.

Much much harder if getting away means waking everyone up, waking an adult up.

At 11yo walking into a friend’s parents room in the middle of the night for help? That would seem almost impossible for lots of kids.

Imagine being an 11 year old lying next to someone in a dark tent who decides they want to touch you or kiss you in a way you don’t like, or show you something you don’t want to see?

Or starting off liking what was happening and then changing your mind because it’s gone too far?

How do you get out? How do you stop it? In the dark, surrounded by sleeping friends?

And this isn’t a boy thing or girl thing. I have one of each. I can see that they’d both be vulnerable in that situation.

Given our societal norms my son might actually be more vulnerable.

How would most Mums react if my ten year old son (who is taller than me) woke them up in the middle of the night because he couldn’t get a girl to leave him alone? They’d probably laugh right?

The reason I know lots of women would laugh is because that’s what happened when a group of girls deliberately tripped DS up and pinned him down at a party. For kisses.

He was horrified but couldn’t get away without hurting them. Their Mums thought it was “funny” and “cute”.

Right up until I asked how they’d have felt if they situations were reversed at which point spluttering apologies were produced.

Not approving of mixed sex sleepovers isn’t about “hating evil boys”. It’s not about thinking all 11yos are up to no good. It’s not about thinking they are going to have sex.

It’s about not putting my children (male or female) in situations where they might be vulnerable, where they can’t easily defend their boundaries, where it’s harder for them to be able to assert their right to privacy.