Please help me out here!! 13 year old son (yr9) - am I being an a overprotective parent or not?
He’s come home from school asking if he can go for a sleepover at X’s house tomorrow night. I’ve barely heard of X before, he’s not one of DS’s close friends (he doesn’t have many unfortunately) and he lives in a small village a fair way from where we live - area is quite rural so we’re all spread around. I’ve said that he can, providing that I’ve had confirmation from X’s parents that this is ok and that I have their contact details. He’s not happy about this at all and has said that no one else’s parents behave like this and he ‘just won’t go then’. Because he’s not had lots of friends and we don’t live near the school, I don’t know many parents in his year to talk to / get more info from. We’ve had a bit of a history of deceptive behaviour lately and he was caught smoking at school this week, so I do have concerns about the direction things are heading.
He’s my eldest, so this is all new territory for me. Is it normal for kids to head off to sleepovers with unknown parents / kids etc at this age?
Thank you.