Overprotective or responsible parent

[nicegirl73]

…or something in between?
My son is a couple days from 16. He has a group of friends he speaks with online lots lately and they all go to the same school, but haven’t known each other all that long and we are new to this town.

A 14-15 year old girl , who I have met briefly is having a New Year’s Eve sleepover with one more girl and 2-3 other boys and my son is invited.

My son is furious with me for saying I needed to talk to her parents before even considering this.

Surely that’s the minimum any patent would want?

AIBU? Or am I not?

(I have since spoken to her mum and she will be present and there won’t be alcohol)

I do generally trust my son but I’ve seen friends children go off the rails at this age too..

When mine were that age parents always contacted me before sleepovers and they always said the same thing.
my ds is raging l am calling you but l just wanted to check!!!
I always reassured them that l was happy to hear from them. Sometimes a friend would say..
sorry my mom called you but she is a bit like that.
.l would say its absolutely no problem lots of parents call me. They always think it's only their boring parents who do it.
You did the right thing.
And we had guys and girls staying but always ..no alcohol..separate sleeping spaces but they very often stayed up watching movies and chatting. They were in a mixed school and as much friends with the girls as guys.

@sparepantsandtoothbrush

No you did the right thing. My almost 17 year old wasn't happy about me asking for the address of the party he's going to tonight but he also knew he wouldn't be allowed to go if he didn't give it to me.

I find it a bit odd that 16 year old boys want to go on a sleepover with 14 year old girls though

They're both 15 at the moment. So they could easily be in the same year or just a year apart. That's really not so unusual.

My son and daughter never had sleep overs at anyones home when they were young teenagers years ago, they always wanted their friends to come to my house,, as they said it was more fun. I was divorced at the time, and still living in a large house in a village. No parent ever came to check me out when their children came round, it was in the late 1980's era.

I remember a news years eve party that my two had arranged for themselves, and their friends, about 10 young teenages, who would stay overnight after the party. I was staying home, no partner or anything, i had prepared some snacks for them all, and some drinks, in the kitchen and i suspect they siphoned some of my booze,to take into the room where they were playing music and dancing about etc.

I was in another room, having a drink, bit of telly and had my own type of music on. I got to chat to all the teenagers at times, as it was in the days before phones and gadgets etc, when people communicated properly.

I did a bit of dancing with the teenagers, as show them my style,as opposed to their style of dancing, it was all good fun and quite hilarious.

My now adult children, always liken me to the Patsy character in AB-FAB, for being a fun Mum in those days. so no need for the parents then, to check me out.!!

I think yabu given that he's almost 16 .

@icedcoffees yes that’s exactly it. They are all friends and have some lessons together.

Assuming your son has a mobile, I would be making sure he takes a charger and keeps his phone switched on thing is once he's gone you can only ASK that he keeps it turned on. and I would be making sure I had an address so I knew where he was just in case something happened assuming he'd given you the right address. Hence the checking

At this age my friends and I would do a round robin. Tell our parents we were staying at each others and then be out all night.
Looking back it was totally wrong and part of me wishes our parents had checked because some of the things teens can get up to are bad

My DD's head teacher used to address the parents before parents' evening once a year. Every year she would say she couldn't understand why we didn't talk to each other.

I took this on board and called the 'mother' when my DD was asked to a sleepover. Turned out that the 'responsible adult' supervising was the 17 year old sister. She caved easily under my questioning so I didn't have much faith in her ability to handle half a dozen strong-minded 15 year olds.

No it’s right to check, not sure how I’d feel about my teen attending a mixed sex sleepover. Unless the parents going to sit up and watch the kids all night always a risk of sex etc, I’d be having a chat about protection etc

Adding to the “you did the right thing”. As a teen, I would have hated it too but looking back as an adult I realised I was lucky to have parents who had my back (even though my dad was ott mostly).