To take away phones on sleepover

[gowednesday]

10 year old dsd, hosting first school friend sleepover next weekend.

is it unreasonable to say no phones or that we’ll look after them and they can ask to use them?

But if I tried to take a ten year old's phone away I'd expect her parent to report me to the police tbh

On what grounds?

Absolutely they wouldn’t, that’s pretty basic. My autistic child, however, coped with situations like sleepovers by having regular supportive text contact with me. It’s not for another parent to take that support away, and my particular child would have been excluded by such a policy.

It never came up for us because our friends weren’t hysterical about tech…but if I’d been warned well in advance, I would have got him a dumb phone so he could contact me without internet access.

Ah bless you, you sweet summer child!

You can’t take their property away! This is bonkers!

Don’t be silly. I’m all for keeping their phones because it’s a social thing. If a parent hosting my child said no phones it wouldn’t bother me.

If you’re not comfortable sending your 10 year old and trusting the adults. Don’t send them.

If a parent is so concerned that something awful is going to happen to their child at a sleepover, then surely they should not be arranging sleepovers in the first case! After all, if their DC is going to be harmed, a phone won’t stop that.

As a primary school teacher of 34 years experience it is WILD to me that people would leave a group of ten year olds alone with smartphones on a sleepover.

I am also shocked at the number of PP saying that they would object to their DC not having their phone in case they wanted to contact parents. The OP has already stated that there'd be absolutely no problem in that case. What on earth do people think happened at sleepovers before kids had phones?? They were not cut off from civilization, the parents have phones fgs.

I really, really wouldn't advise anyone to leave a group of primary age kids free rein with smart phones at night .You might trust your own kid, you might have controls on your kid's phone, but most problems occur when other people's kids have more internet freedom than yours.

Sorry, quote disappeared. It’s about anxious children.

Which I understand, but there are phones that just call and text that would fulfil that requirement and are far more appropriate for a 10yo child and can stay in a bag until needed. The issue is around smartphones that have internet connectivity, web browsers, social media, cameras.

Can you guarantee that a smartphone won’t be used to access stuff that 10yos shouldn’t see? Not necessarily by your daughter but by any of the kids who might have access to it. How confident are you that you’ve set up parental controls correctly? Confident enough to test it with other people’s children? What about other children bringing their phones and potentially taking photos of your child and sending them out on social media? Or showing your child inappropriate stuff on their own phones?

Given how hopeless many parents are around tech, I wouldn’t trust that parental controls were functional on a child’s phone or risk being the responsible adult with free access to smartphones that I’ve no idea how locked down they are.

Indeed. Sleepovers happened before anyone had mobile phones. I was spending weekends at friends' houses from age 9 and we didn't even have landlines in our houses.

Anxious dc are not going to wake an unfamiliar adult imo. They are especially not going to do that if the issue is that the other dc are making them uncomfortable or being unkind, or one of the adults in the house is really shouty, or something like that.

I guess we all have different standards, but I wouldn't send my dc somewhere they were going to be prevented from contacting me if they needed help.

I guess if you're clear about the plan in advance, families can decide if they are happy with it.

My child would never come to your house again if you took their phone off them

They could be Year 6, so 10 and 11. Or of course they could all be 10, given that it's only January.

This is a crazy way to think 🤦‍♀️
God help us if you can’t think why it’s not a good idea to give kids free rein on smartphones in that setting.

As long as it is agreed before hand with the parents and the phones are accessible to the children if they need/want to contact their parents, it’s fine.

@blankcanvas3
How old is your child?

I would. I’d let the parents know though.

Your child wouldn’t be welcome in my home with that attitude. I host, I decide.

I read this thinking the op was out of touch. Then posters like you rocked up. Absolutely bizarre. My 10 year old couldn’t give a shit about her phone. Her tablet, she loves.

Yes do, let parents know first though and let the children know they are safe and if they need to message a parent they can.

is everyone mad !! of course it’s not unreasonable, WTF are 10 year olds doing with phones in the first place?

The non-sinister reason is so that children of 10 don’t have unsupervised access to the internet all night.

OP, I wouldn’t let my DC go to a sleepover at that age where they WERE allowed to keep their phones all night.

How old is your child?

Some insanity on this thread. You've got to be unbelievably naive to not see how it could go horribly wrong to leave 9/10yr olds (potentially pushing boundaries and trying to impress each other) with unsupervised internet access, camera, and (effectively) contact with God knows what randoms on the internet overnight.

Do people honestly believe that the parent host of a sleepover asking other parents if she can keep their 10yr old's phones out of the bedroom (when she's in loco parentis) overnight is a police-reportable event??

OP, it's perfectly reasonable to have this conversation with parents in advance of the sleepover - I'd do the same.

My kids are 10 and 12, no phones, and have both had sleepovers at the houses of trusted families. If there's been an issue I'd have expected them to have woken up the adults and asked to call me, and if they didn't feel confident enough to do that in an emergency then I'd have reconsidered letting them attend.

Im shocked its taken for granted that 10 year old have phones ! No way would i let them have them unsupervised or overnight. If a child wants to call home they can ask the hosting parent. 12 minimum age for phones

I tend to think the risks of being unable to access a phone (can't text mum) are much less severe than the risks from being able to access a phone (children potentially accessing highly unsuitable material given you can't control the other parents parental controls and that they may have 5G).

I do think this is one of the things where the loss of the landline is a shame because then you could just ring home if necessary. But equally parents could give their child a dumb phone and it would be a lot less likely to need to be removed at a sleepover.

Omg have you never met 10yr olds 😂 the minute you left the room after asking them nicely to put it in their bag, it would be out the bag and they'd be doing all sorts on it!!

OP where I am it's the norm for parents to remove ALL phones/devices eg tablets on a sleepover from day 9pm til 7am the next morning. It's usually communicated in advance to parents, who are generally all relieved /delighted as their rules at home are that phones aren't allowed in bedrooms/overnight. It's very much the expectation that phones will be gathered by the host parents and kept safe overnight and the kids will be told any time they need to contact a parent just let the host know. Everyone is happy with this situation.
If you don't trust the parents at a sleepover you shouldn't allow your child to go.

I wouldn't want my DC at a sleepover at 10 where they had unsupervised access to phones to be honest.

So yanbu. Downstairs but accessible.