To feel so strongly about sleepovers

[Energydrink]

So, DP and I keep having a reoccurring argument about our position on sleepovers. Our DD is 3 years old , a long way off of sleep over her nursery friends house.

I think that she should not go to a sleepover until she is at least 10y, able to communicate if she wants to come home, confident enough to speak up for herself and able to tell me if something has upset her.

I would however welcome a child into our home that she has invited.

husband thinks that I am being ridiculous. He was sleepover friends from the age of 6 and he was fine. He also thinks that my attitude to an innocent activity is what is wrong with the world (sensationalism and scaremongering).

my view is that he is naïve and as much as I would like us to live in an ideal world where terrible things do not happen .. that is not reality. I would rather keep her safe then to expose her to risk.

AIBU to feel this way about sleepovers?

The reason the risk of sleepovers with classmates is minimal is because the vast majority of children who are abused are abused by someone their parent knows and trusts.

The reason the abuser is someone known and trusted is because those are the children they have access to. Those are the children who will be left alone with them. If a child sleeps over then there is a lot of opportunity there for a man with bad intentions. We all like to believe that we could "tell" - me too! But if that was the case then no child would ever be abused.

I absolutely agree. Sadly the world isn’t a safe place & children don’t know how to communicate fully and are easily manipulated. Maybe it’s overkill but your children will be safe. I’m sensitive as I experienced some trauma at sleepovers where I should have been safe but sadly didn’t know how to voice my discomfort as it was another child, not a scary adult. As a result have some traumatic memories of sleepovers. Your job is to keep your babies safe and you cannot do that when not around, from adults or other children. I’d say 10 feels about right but will probably want to wait until secondary school age honestly.

Risk assessments here are skewed, the men most likely to abuse your children are those in their family and those well known to them. I've worked in this field a long time. If you don't want them to go, fine, but this rationale isn't logical.

You know your child best and what you will be happy with so follow your gut instincts.

Myself personally never went to any sleep overs or had people sleeping over and this was not something common amongst people within my circle of friends growing up. My own two kids will not be allowed sleep overs and I will not be having others kids over for sleep overs. Have had plenty of play dates and experiences which kids have been happy to invited friends along to and be invited to.

If you want to guard against sexual abuse then playdates need to be out too. Also anything involving male family members. No boyfriends as a teen and very little going out w girlfriends either.

If a job's worth doing it's worth doing properly.

I'm so glad that my children were born before playdates and sleepovers became de rigeur.
I can't imagine agonizing about either of those things years before they happen and it's weird that people place so much stress and anxiety on themselves by doing so. I wonder how we mother's fared before social media.
I do know that there were far fewer issues than appears to be the case nowadays and numbers are escalating.

Sleepovers happened when I was a child.

Dd (10) loves going to sleepovers and has done for years. They're with people she's known since reception and had regular play dates at their home and we've got to know the parents and socialise together. The people who start as random strangers will become trusted friends

YANBU Sleepovers are overrated.
In my experience when they are very young it can be all fun and games until it's time to sleep and then less so.
I would only ever let my children go with people I have a really good feeling about, and couldn't care less about offending others if I wasn't sure. And it did mean once or twice I had children at my house and made excuses when mine were invited back.
Even with pp you know well there is a risk, school gate randoms just to be sociable? no thanks.

@somewhereovertherain

Shows what a sad society we live in. And all men aren’t evil.

Have you seen the poisoned drinks as an analogy for "not all men"? If not, it's basically you take 6 shot glasses and put a few drops of poison into 1 glass (enough to kill you), fill all 6 glasses with a drink of some sort (vodka, tequila, etc) then shuffle them round. Then ask yourself - are you happy to pick up a random glass and neck the drink? Because 5 drinks are perfectly safe, it's not all drinks that might kill you, just the one in six.

The same logic applies to men. We know that it isn't all men that want to hurt us, or are evil, etc. But the problem is, the ones that do tend to walk around looking like any other guy! They don't wear a sign that says "I like to rape women" or have tattooed on their faces "I'm a pedophile" to kindly let us know who to watch out for.

So I can understand why a parent wouldn't be prepared to take the risk with their daughter, especially as I believe the odds are even worse than the drink analogy.

All that said, I agree with the other posters who have said it's crazy to argue about this. Until a child comes home and asks about a sleepover, you can't say for sure. You have no idea what your child will be like, nor who will be inviting them. You might be happy to let them sleepover at their best friends house at 6, but say no when they ask at 10 to go to a friend you've never met before that lives in the next town or city!

One thing I will say is that I never got to have sleepovers as a child. I wasn't allowed friends to even come over because we lived above the pub my parents ran, and they did t trust anyone with all the money etc there was lying around. And I was either never invited or never allowed to go to a sleepover (I finally went to a friends birthday sleepover at 15 but nothing before that). As an adult I have virtually no friends (lots of acquaintances and people that I have called friends but it's become apparent they don't see me the same) and have always struggled in social groups - whereas most of the girls I knew at school who regularly had sleepovers all seem to have really solid friendships with people. I genuinely think sleepovers really help with forming bonds and learning how to interact with your peers. I only ever learned from a pub full of drunken, older men and from parents who taught me to always put other peoples wants and needs above my own, but never taught me how to really have a friend.

She's 3! You have no idea how she'll be at 6 or 8 or 10!

I wouldn't even be worrying about it yet , she may never get invited to one

I think you have many many more parenting decisions to make/disagree on before this is even an issue but largely speaking you should judge situations based on their merits at the time. If at 6 DD has been firm friends with another girl for 2 full years and you have got to know the parents why on earth would you stop her going to a sleepover because when she was 3 you decided to argue the point to the extent that you can't back down from sticking to the not until age 10 rule you implemented.

I agree with the other posters, I would wait until the time comes to decide if it is ok for your little one to have a sleepover. What is her personality going to be like and who is inviting her over and why? Is she heading to a friend's place or is it with say a girl guide troop. There are a lot of different factors to consider.

YABU to have this completely hypothetical discussion about a situation that won’t come into play for at least three years. It’s highly likely your daughter gets to six and doesn’t want a sleepover. My oldest boys are 13 and have never been on a sleepover, have never wanted to. Just agree to disagree until it’s actually relevant.

I think YAB ridiculous to set strict rules about exactly what you will and won't allow at 6, 8 or 10 when she is currently 3. You have no idea what your DC will be like at 6. What on earth is the point in discussing it now?

First child much ?

My DD will only be staying with my friends and their children or my immediate families.

She won't be going to school friends houses for sleepovers until senior school. Ill collect her at 10pm, but she won't be sleeping over.

I totally agree with you, I have no history of childhood sexual abuse but those statistics are too high to take a risk. Your husband is a man,it is not something he would have to worry about on the same scale as a woman

My kids don’t go to sleepovers. Eldest has additional needs plus medications etc and wouldn’t cope so we don’t allow him to go which means the others (6 and 3 years) won’t either as otherwise it’s unfair on my eldest. I wouldn’t allow a child to go till about 8 even if I could and not to someone I didn’t know.

Though for safety reasons I don’t know if I would have allowed it at all.

Well that is how life goes, we can only know ourselves.

Are you suggesting that the OP actually is a risk (even though she knows she isn't)?

Or are you saying because she knows she's not a risk she should think the same of everyone else?

I think that she should not go to a sleepover until she is at least 10y, able to communicate if she wants to come home, confident enough to speak up for herself and able to tell me if something has upset her.

well it's your job to teach her to be like this.
but arguing about this with a 3 year old is pointless and daft. You have to let your child grow at their own pace, she might be ready at 7, she might not ever want to do it. It is your job as a parent to k now these things

Is being fair about treating everyone the same though?

If you have three children, one with additional needs, is it really 'fair' to restrict the younger two just because the eldest can't?

If your eldest was unable to access water, would you tell the others they can't swim?

If your eldest couldn't go to university, would you suggest your youngest don't go too?

Rather than hold your younger ones back from experiences, why don't you adapt it. So eldest gets a different treat, maybe a day out with a friend involved, or something special for their bedroom. That would be more fair to me.

I completely agree with you OP. My DD is 9 and has been to one friend’s house and that was after years of my friendship with her mum and building trust. I think that it can be very scary for children to have to sleep somewhere they suddenly don’t want to be and I made sure DD had a phone with her when she went to her friends.

DD had her first sleepover at 8. We had other children come much younger, but she'd never been invited until then. Tbh, it was just about the right age for her. She was quite nervous and anxious but it went well. The invites kept coming and now at 10 she happily skips off without a backward glance.