To not want my child to go to a friend's house when I haven't met the parents.

[orangesandlemonssaythebellsofstclements]

My son is 11 and is about to finish Y6 and start Y7 in September. The past month or so he seems to have grown up in lots of ways in a short space of time. He's come home saying he has a gf, a new girl at school, and spends a lot of time on the phone with her (he's only had a phone since he started cycling to school independently a year ago and never bothered with it. We had to remind him to charge it). Today he said he was going to cycle down to the nearby park to meet said gf and some other friends we know. He's never gone out independently to meet friends before, he's quite shy and timid but I was really happy he wanted to do this and let him go. About 20 minutes later he comes back home with this new gf in tow.
I said it was lovely to meet her but did her mum definitely know she was here and was it OK with her? I said I can't have children in my house with the parents not knowing, she said her mum does know as she texted her. I said sorry but I will need to check can I have your mums number, she willingly gave it to me and they went upstairs and I texted the mum. I don't know her name, whereabouts she lives or anything about her. I said "Hiya, it's XX, DS's mum. Just checking you are aware YY is at our house and that is OK with you? It's fine with us if it is with you, lovely to meet her" 20 mins later she texted back "yeh that's fine but back by 6 plz".
Is it just me that thinks it's a bit odd to let your kid go to other peoples houses without checking with the parents first and not knowing a damn thing about said parents? I could be a raging drug addict, passed out on my sofa with a needle in my arm with a couple of rabid dogs running around for all this woman knows.
I don't know if DS is expecting to go round to GF's house on the whim of an invite but I am not at all comfortable with it until I've met her parents.
Am I too uptight and is this just a normal part of growing up? It gives me the heebie jeebies.

Any new step is scary but at some point he will be kn and out of people's homes you don't know. My job as a parent is to make sure my children know what is appropriate and that if they ever feel uncomfortable then they can leave. This might just be a bit shouty or big dog rather than somebody truly dangerous. Or even if they are a bit bored.

We also have a plan where they can send me an emoji and i will call and make an excuse for them to leave. This is more likely to be because they are watching a scary movie than anything sinister but gives them an easy exit strategy and when they get holder hopefully more useful if any peer pressure.

You sound incredibly controlling OP.

Was this before mobile phones though? Because that just wouldn't be the case these days...

Even if you think you know the parents you will only ever know the public persona.

When my DD was little she was friendly with a girl in her class whose mum was on the PTA, the Brown Owl of a posh suburban Brownie Pack and generally playground perfect. The house was beautiful with a lake and a treehouse/rope swings in the massive garden. After going there twice DD said she didn't like it there because they shouted and swore all the time. We declined all future invitations. .

other DD was friend with a classmate whose parents were pillars of our church. Again, she expressed unhappiness at visiting their house so we put a stop to it. It later transpired that the friend was a victim of paternal sexual abuse.

I only know the parents of my kids friends who they went to primary with, or a couple of parents I went to school with myself. They have stuck with their primary friend groups through secondary but have a few new friends in their group whose parents I haven't met. I've texted with a couple, just to check they knew to expect said kid at their house and it wasn't being sprung on them.
I do think secondary school might be a bit of a shock for you 😂

YABU at secondary school I have hardly even met or interacted with the parents. With close friends the mums will text if there is a big event etc which requires lifts otherwise they tend to arrange things themselves.

Kids have been killed in their own homes too @Lovemyones .

And at the park.

And at shopping centres.

And on holiday.

But it's very, very rare. So rare that it makes national headline news when it happens. So out of the millions of children in the UK it's probably 0.0000000001% odds of anything like this happening to them.

Have you talked through with your son what his exit planning would be in the scenarios you are imagining?

Talking throw him recognising unsafe situations and what he would do might help put your mind at ease about his risk assessment skills and safety strategies

@orangesandlemonssaythebellsofstclements , I think your message was perfect. Id have done the same and still do. I still asked my son (15) the other to tell me who was giving him a lift the other day. Basic key communication is an essential life skill, so encouraging them to know who and where thier friends (parents) are etc is a simple but good skill. I've maintained I would like to know who's car he's getting in etc! He was cool once I'd explained. Even though I know alot of local people it's just common sense. We have to encourage that as seems to be a lacking skill these days!!

We have DSD (12) every weekend and without fail each weekend she asks if she can go to stay at a friends or have them stay at ours. We've usually not even heard the kids name mentioned up until that point (there's 2 or 3 girls she's been friends with since primary but we've had a stream of "new" high school friends who come and go and we never see again!).

We just always make sure the friend has spoken to her parents, tells them where we live and say we'll drop them off (we live a bit further away from her school area) / pick up the next day but that's about the extent of our interactions.

And yes, it is a short sharp change from Primary school where you're doing all the running round and arranging plans! You literally have no involvement in their social life whatsoever😂

Not really because they're not real relationships!

DSD (12) will announce she has a boyfriend and then a week or so later he's dumped her / she's dumped him. One of them used to put his arm around her whilst he walked her home and another once gave her a hug (which she told me whilst blushing when I asked if said bf was a nice boy) and that's about the extent of the contact!

Fair enough. I wouldn't be comfortable with it personally but maybe I'm overthinking.

I think I'd make a big effort to befriend some of the mums, especially the ones who know lots of others. Surely other mums would also feel more comfortable knowing who their child is with?

I'm very safety conscious and believe it's too easy to get sucked into thinking all the kids do this and that.

I worry about older siblings or mums' partners being dodgy as well as the safety of the area, large dogs in the house, chaotic lifestyle. Sadly lots of families are dysfunctional or lack the boundaries or morals your child may be used to. Even leaving 11 year olds alone in house or letting them watch inappropriate movies would bother me.

If a parent was reluctant to meet me for coffee or happy to let their 11 year old come to my home without knowing anything about our family, it would ring alarm bells to me. I know people are busy, but 11 year olds are still children, in need of a responsible adult supervising (even from a distance).

Just think of it as kids being kids! The majority of 11/12 year olds are still massively innocent and don't think of relationships in the same way that adults do.

DSD will have friends to sleepover and I'll go into her room to take them a snack / drink in and they'll all be giggling because one of them has been kissed on the cheek by her boyfriend as a dare and it's the most hilarious thing they've ever witnessed.

Plus if we said to DSD "we're not happy with you having a boyfriend" she just wouldn't tell us!

When I was 11/12 it was the norm to be in and out of other kids houses without parents knowing where we were, if we weren’t back for dinner then my mum would start calling around looking for us but most of the time she didn’t know who’s house we were at. Luckily we grew up in a village and my parents did know most of my friends parents so it was pretty easy to locate us if needed. Obviously we didn’t have mobile phones so couldn’t text parents to say where we were, they just trusted that we were safe and being sensible.

I know things have changed but we also have the added security of mobile phones now, it’s much easier to know where are kids are and keep in contact with them. I’m sure this child had messaged her mum to tell her where she was so mum wasn’t too concerned, her daughter is probably sensible enough.

When DS was in Yr 7, he had a "gathering" for his birthday and a (nice) group of friends came to the house. At pick-up time, we invited the parents in for drinks and to say hello. They were all very nice and friendly and it paved the way forward.
Those boys are all now in their late 20s and still great mates.

It’s completely normal to go to your mates houses. It’s completely abnormal to want to know the parents and text them like this. He’s 11. You need to loosen the apron strings as you will damage his social life and friendships.

He's never gone out independently to meet friends before

I think it's all happened quite quickly.
To go from never going out independently to dropping by friends' houses with your parents not knowing their parents in the space of days is quite a lot to take on board.

Usually they start to learn a bit of independence by e.g. walking back from school alone, or going out with mates for a defined period of time or going into town with friends. You then learn how mature they are, what issues they're struggling with and can help them deal with the unpredictable.

You are "pretty liberal" only within the context of a bubble.

"Playing out" and being in and out of each others' houses (which you said you wanted your DC to have) is not the same as organised play dates.

Be thankful this has happened now, so you are prepared for secondary school when your DS will (or should at least feel he could) message you to say he is "hanging out" after school or going round random new friend's house for a bit.

At 11 I was certainly communicating with my sons' friend's parents to ensure they knew their own kids were at my house.
No way was I taking the word of an 11 year old I didn't know when they said they had let their parents know where they were.

Now feeling like a very negligent parent! I can't say it has ever entered my head that my dc's friends parents might be drug taking child molesters! I've also had numerous dcs' friends ( I have 4dc) at mine without meeting their parents.
I think it's a bit different if it's a sleepover as I would prefer to at least spoken to a parent before hand ( dd2 was mortified when she was invited to a friend's 18th (dd was 17) for a sleepover when I asked to speak to a parent. She refused and she didn't go!

That’s a whole lot of anxiety there. You need to be able to manage risk, not over control due to some issues you have, as the odds are you will damage your child before anyone else does.

No you are not being unreasonable. My younger two are 17 and 18 now. The first year of senior school I would always check and regularly had parents check with me too.

How do you befriend secondary school mums? It's not like primary school where you see them in the playground every day.

And no, I don't want to have a coffee with a random mum of a child that mine has become friends with. If they want to pop in and say hello when they pick their child up, that would be fine. I can hide my axe murder tendencies for 5 minutes.

I’ve said the same. I had an absolute nightmare one evening when my daughter’s 12 year old friend turned up quite late, I let her in as it was dark out and said only for an hour as it was getting late. When she went to leave I asked her how she was getting home, turns out she is fostered and had run away and refused to give me her foster parents details and wanted to just leave. I was hours on the phone with the police and the duty social worker both passing the buck to each other. There’s loads more to the story but now I always check !