Do you let your children have sleep overs with opposite sex?

[Maztek]

My Dd has a friend who I’m about 90% convinced is actually a little boy. They’re best friends and they play here all the time which is fine but they really want to plan a sleepover and I’m not sure. She’s never had a sleepover with a child of the opposite sex before and not sure if I’m just being overly cautious. They’re really sweet little kids and I’m sure all would be fine but I’m just feeling uneasy about it! They’re 9 for reference.

I'm genuinely astonished by the number of people cheerfully prolaiming that they are a ok with mixed sex sleepovers beyond the age of 8/9. Baffling.

My dd best friend for her whole life has been a boy and I’ve only just started saying no to sleepovers at age 12. They are both young for their age though and i’m sure they wouldn’t get up to anything. In fact I imagine they’ve spent so much time together that the feel more like siblings than anything else so the sleepovers have never concerned me at all!

Please tell me that's a joke?!

In fact, I'm pretty sure it is. Half asleep.

I would let them personally.

It isn't a joke in the slightest. In fact, she's sleeping over at her friend's tonight.

Sexual exploration could still happen if the children are the same sex though? As they’re figuring things out? the average age of period onset is 12 for girls and ejaculation 13 for boys so they’re still young for a potential pregnancy.

or is the argument that sexual attraction and preference for a particular sex at 9/10 is common? Because on the threads where someone says ‘my 10 year old daughter told me she’s a lesbian’ are always met with loads of posters saying ‘there’s no way at that age they know who they’re attracted to’.

so which is it?

From my experience with a number of schools I've worked with over the years, and with my daughter , body curiosity can start much younger than 8. I would never have had mixed sleepovers at any age.

Mixed sex wouldn't concern me at all. Isn't it a good thing to teach children young that they can have friends of the opposite sex and it mean nothing more than friendship. I always let my son have his friend at primary school stay over. (Little girl) And they are still good friends now. He also has lots of other female friends (21 now) and they go camping share tents.. Even hotel rooms when they go to raves at weekends, it really pisses him off if you suggest it's a girlfriend. So yeah, teach them young that you can have friendships with the opposite sex and it mean just that. Really surprised so many people have an issue with it.

@BodegaSushi it's not all about full sex, someone having their hands down your pants at that age can still mess you up later on in life.
and yes it can happen with same sex attraction at that age but more often that not its going to be the opposite sex who are more interested since its different to anything to have seen / experienced before.

I think the sex of the child the interest is in is debatable. Literature looking at typical sexual exploration of that age group tend to only mention 'same-age peers'.

I know that me and a couple of my girl friends did this. As adults we are all heterosexual.

I can understand that sleepovers might, whatever the age/sex of the kids, provide some opportunity for 'exploration' and you might want to provide supervision and/or ground rules to cover the possibility.

When my son was about 6 he had a sleepover with a male friend of the same age at the other lad's home. His Mum and my DP were part of a village Mums friendship group and we'd no worries whatsoever. She put them in the bath together and found them messing around with swimming goggles and suspected they were inspecting each other's tackle under the bath water. No issue; we just laughed it off.

In my mind prepubescent exploration is something kids do. We did PE in our underwear when I was a kid in the sixties and had all sorts of dare games.

No harm was done.

I don't think another child, of either sex, having their hands in your pants will mess you up unless parents make a thing of it and introduce guilt into the equation.

@Bromptotoo OK.. let your kids be played with then :s

Interested to read this.

My ds is 9 and a lot of his friends (not all) happen to be girls. He has asked about sleepovers and I’ve instinctively said only if it’s one of the boys but this has prompted questions.

Glad to see this seems to be on the right lines as I wondered if I was being unfair.

And I am surprised at how many people think it is baffling that people would allow this. They are kids, not even 10 years old yet.

To be clear, I'm talking about kids before puberty and with body curiosity. They understood all the usual red lights around adults and anything coercive.

If they're OK with (mutual) exploration of the 'doctors and nurses' type which was nothing out of the ordinary in my UK childhood 60 years ago I'm not going to stop them or make them feel guilty or ashamed.

We had one that came back and bit us...

DD and a friend (girl) who met at with their Mothers a Tumble Tots were, and remain, best buddies. Aged 6 or 7 they'd been dressing up at friends house and took pictures using one of those disposable cameras that were a thing before mobile phones etc. For some reason they then thought it would be funny to take pictures of each other in the all together.

Camera then got shoved in a drawer and forgotten about for close to ten years. It was found during a clear out, along with a couple of others, and dropped of at Boots to be developed.

First we know is a call from friend's Mum insisting my DP and DD come to her hose immediately. Boots, finding pictures of young girls capering about in the buff reported it to the police.

Both girls, by now 15ish, were massively embarrassed. Both were spoken to by a female police officer and gave consistent accounts as to where/when. The approx timing was clear as it was when the friend's family were in temp accom they occupied for less than year. Nothing further came of it.

My daughter had a friend in primary who had to have her hair cut very short - not a style choice but out of necessity. She was told she looked like a boy by some of the kids in her class, too. Adults also assumed she was a boy, and I know this was quite upsetting for her.

I completely understand the OPs hesitation with not being 100% certain of the child’s sex and being uneasy about sleepovers as a result of that...but christ some of you need to calm down.
“This is not just any boy in a dress, which I'd agree is fine, this appears to be a boy whose parents are pretending is a girl”. Alarming that a ‘safeguarding professional’ would hear that a child has a shaved head and immediately leap to that conclusion. We don’t know the sex of this child, and it’s incredibly likely she is actually female.

@Notamum12345577 I know right!
By some of the logic on here when I used to throw Halloween parties and had a room full of mixed sex children all sleeping on mattresses in my sons room they we're probably having some mass orgy!
I find it insane how people are sexualising kid's friendships.

and baffled that many think that sexual exploration only happens between mixed sexes...

The naivety here is shocking. Many of those urging caution work in schools, doesn't that tell you all something?

Also, why would a boy presenting as a girl have a shaved head 🧐

Males who identify as women like to present stereotypically, that includes long hair

I smell a rat.

I work in a school. I know precisely what the children get up to as they talk about it. Sometimes, we've had to step in when disclosures are made. I am well aware that boys on all boy sleepovers explore and push boundaries with each other. As do girls. As do mixed sex groups.

There is no blanket answer however. I happily let DD have sleepovers with her male friends and there is zero risk to DD from her friends and vice versa. Could I recommend other parents do the same? Never. No way. You need to know the young people in question, their friends, the families they come from and so on.