To ask if you let your DC have sleepovers/visit friend’s houses?

[teoma]

I’ve grown up happily visiting and accepting visits from friends at home. There’s been the odd sleepover. The other day though, my brother shocked me with a story - my younger nephew’s best friend offered the boy oral sex while they were at the BFs house playing Xbox. My nephew was very upset and they’ve cut ties. Both boys are 9.

Of course, while I’m sure that doesn’t happen often, I have two young girls and can’t be sure what “policy” to introduce regarding sleepovers, hosting and visiting friends etc to ensure their safety. I don’t want to make them paranoid, but I’m pretty worried after what my brother shared.

Mine has just started sleepovers. Middle to late primary age. To me, the benefits of fun / independence outweigh the small (but serious) risks. Whoch we try and minimise. I have heard more CSA from close family friends and relatives than happening on occasional sleepovers

Nothing bizarre about it - my DC’s and their friends enjoyed them and I enjoyed having a houseful of happy excited children.

Very true- much more likely to be abused by a family friend that they know and trust and see regularly than a random parent on a sleepover, but to many people the second feels more risky. People tend to massively overestimate their ability to ‘know’ people.

My son was sexually assaulted by random older kids inside a soft play structure- you literally can’t avoid all risk without stifling their lives.

I’m sure my parents knew another couple very well, with my mum and the husband from the other couple having grown up together so knowing each other their entire lives. We also spent every weekend at each other’s houses.

Didn’t stop their older teenage son from molesting me from when I was around 8. And because I never wanted to ruin the friendship between the parents, I never said anything.

Sometimes, it can be worse when the families are close, as the trust and relationship that exists makes it easier for these things to happen.

I was sexually assaulted by another pupil on a school trip when I was 14, so my rule with my daughter is no sleepovers ever. DD1 is 15 and luckily her closest two friends don't have brothers and their fathers don't live with them, so I am happy for her to visit their houses during the day. Thee is one friend who has two older brothers, so she is not allowed to go to her house under any circumstances. She has friends round at our house all the time, and I allow her friends to sleepover here, so she is not socially isolated -she just is mot allowed in houses were there are meIn.In terms of school trips I did not allow her to go on the primary residential, and all of the high school trips were cancelled due to Covid.

I nearly died in a riding accident when I was 10. This is not a good reason to prevent my children from riding.

Are you a victim of CSA?

To add to this, my parents never ever let me go to a friend’s house, either as a sleepover or to just visit. They always had to come to mine. They took that approach because they thought they were protecting me.

But in reality, it was their best friend’s son who was the issue.

Mine are allowed them but completely agree with PPs about trusting your gut. It would be a cold day in hell before my kids sleep over at some of their friends houses.

I completely agree with this

@Howlingmoor "Are you a victim of CSA?"
No, I'm not. However, I believe in bringing children up to be aware and resilient. And in not allowing my past to restrict their future.

Sexual abuse doesn’t just happen at night. So for those of you who say you don’t allow sleepovers, do you also not allow play dates?

Yeah, CSA tends to affect people in ways that are hard to understand if you haven’t experienced it. It’s not unreasonable to want to protect the most precious thing you have from something that has such a profound and devastating impact on your life.

@Howlingmoor Of course it's not unreasonable. That doesn't make it the right thing to do.

Trying to protect your child from being sexually abused isn’t the right thing to do?

Not only are children liable to being coerced into sexual behaviour, there are people who list doing this to children (teaching them how to abuse their friends) as a fetish.
Stealing children’s innocence and making them abuse their friends is now considered a fun activity.
So no, no sleepover policy IMO.

That story is awful and previous posters rightly point its safeguarding and needs reporting as it's not normal.
My kids have had loads of sleepovers!!! Blow up beds and snacks in our living room. It's a wake over rather than sleepover. They love it, and I love hearing them enjoying themselves and laughing. They go to friends houses as well - I just make sure I know which friend, who is going and contact family beforehand etc.

@Howlingmoor "Trying to protect your child from being sexually abused isn’t the right thing to do?"

No. Thinking you do that by stopping your children visiting their friends is not the right thing to do.

Same sex sleepovers at our house/friends' houses since Yr 6. I wouldn't allow mixed sex sleepovers at any age. Only 1 of DDs friends has a brother and I wouldn't allow sleepovers if he was having a friend for a sleepover at the same time.
Sleepovers are an important way of encouraging independence in children and more importantly, they are fun! You can't wrap children up forever but I agree about trusting your instincts, there are 1 or 2 of DDs friends who I would never allow her to stay over with/play date with.

Sadly, CSA is not "very rare" (I work in this area) and in the majority of cases, the perpetrator is well known to the child. It is extremely naive to think that because you "know" someone, you would know if they had a sexual interest in children. That said, I think that playdates, sleepovers and spending time at other people's houses is generally a positive thing for most children. A difficult part of being a parent is accepting that we can never guarantee our DC's safety. We can take steps to try to minimise risks, but we cannot avoid risk altogether. A child who is not allowed sleepovers due to their parents fears around CSA could still be abused on a daytime playdate, at an extra curricular activity, or by a peer at school.

Also, those assuming the child mentioned in the OP is a victim of CSA. This is a possibility, of course. But it may well be that he has picked this up from viewing inappropriate content online, rather than an adult harming him directly. There has been a significant increase in primary aged children viewing pornography and this is associated with an increase in children displaying harmful sexualised behaviours with their peers, which is why its so important for parents to take responsibility for monitoring their kids devices.

As I said, it’s hard to understand if you haven’t experienced it.

And it might be the right thing to do- the friends parents/siblings/uncles/aunts/neighbours etc etc might be paedophiles.

Once you have left the world of ‘sa happens to other people’ ‘sa is something you can teach your kids to be resilient to’ etc and entered the world where you can’t trust ‘trusted’ people it’s incredibly difficult to think statistically this isn’t high risk etc.

The things is, especially when it comes to peer on peer abuse, if it can happen at a sleepover, it can happen at a playdate, it can happen in your own house, it can happen on residential,at school etc. Of course, by limiting exposure you can diminish the risk, but how far will you go?When does protection become isolation, and the child is missing out on experiences,socialisation and so on?

@Howlingmoor I am a CSA survivor in various situations by various people.Lucky me The thing is , if I avoided all those situations for DD, plus various others like sleepovers, DD 's world would be very very small. Which wouldn't just be very unfair, but it wouldn't make for a healthy,well adjusted child either. I'd break her in order to protect her.

So instead I use as many safeguards and protective factors as I can, I talk to her, make sure she knows I have her back and she can talk to me and that I'm only one text message away and I will always come get her, she knows about appropriate behaviours,consent etc, make my own risk assessments ,swallow my fears and anxiety and hope she has a great time.

Because I have to let her go.

@CurlewKate btw, my kid is allowed play dates, sleepovers etc generally. And would be allowed on school residential trips (all fairly theoretical though because he is disabled with asd and adhd so no one has ever volunteered to have him sleep over!- he has had one invite out for an ice cream in his 11 years- I let him go)

As I said, he was sexually assaulted in soft play when I let him go in with his friends without an adult (disabled child are at a much higher risk of all kinds of abuse). He didn’t tell me for a long time afterwards because he a)couldn’t speak well and b) took a very long time to process what had happened and that it was relevant to the pants rule conversation we were having. He is still allowed to go in alone with his friends if he wants to.

I don’t think massively restricting kids lives is the best thing, but I absolutely understand why it happens, and I think a lot of people are quite blinkered to what can and does happen all the time.

I’ve known 7 paedophiles in my normal, middle class day to day life. Nearly 1/3 were female. These are people I grew up with, family, close friends parents etc- people I’ve had dinner with and whose houses I’ve had sleepovers in. That’s not counting the 2 vicars in our community and one teacher ant my school, and all the ones I’ve dealt with as a social worker.

3, 5, 8 and 11. And no I didn't say until 18, at all.
We never did allow sleep overs but have recently had a close friend's husband arrested for indecent images of children. Prior to this, my friend had her kids friends sleeping over and even after the arrest still had unsuspecting parents allowing their kids to sleep at the house. For this reason I understood I can't trust anyone with my kids even if "I know them really well" so for the foreseeable future sleepovers won't happen for my kids. They aren't bothered at all. It's something we will revisit when they're older. Same with things like social media.
I'm confident in our decision so people questioning me or accusing me of depriving my kids doesn't bother me in any way.