Opinions on sleepovers , can we just stop it .

[Flowerpowersss]

Growing up in the 90s and early 2000s i had amazing fun at sleepovers as a child but looking back on them the stuff me and my friends got up too as young teens ( internet on computers, webcams) and the storys ive had from friends at other sleepovers i decided that my children wont go to another persons home at stay over especially now with smart phones and social media .

From the ages of 6-12 my children have been invited to multiple sleep over bday parties and ive said no to every one because i dont know the parents , i allowed my child to attend a sleep over party but i collected her just as they were going to bed .

Id like to add that ive allowed my child to have 2 friends stay at mine as i know im a safe person .

My child is now in secondary school and shes been invited to a sleepover party and i said she can go but cant sleep there so i will collect her before bedtime , the parents insisted it is a sleepover so my child has now been univited and her friend is asking someone else .
I did say when shes older i might reconsider sleepovers but because i dont know these people i cant allow her to spend the night .

Can we just stop birthday sleepovers !

So you expected people to trust you to host a sleepover (cos you are safe) but you can’t trust someone else in the same way.

at 12yrs old I imagine being picked up from a sleepover would have been more embarrassing than being uninvited..

Ive never met the parents or know where they live

I was assulted by my brothers friend also age 8

Your kids are missing out on valuable and fun experiences with their friends. I’m im my 40s and still remember the fun of many of the sleepovers I attended. Me a friend, and her mum, still talk about one such occasion with great fondness (when her mum came to tell us off for not sleeping but we all ended up laughing hysterically- her mum included!).

If that’s a decision you’ve made for your kids, then fair enough, but you are denying them something that really is so exciting for kids. It’s sad that people feel they have to micromanage kids lives because of their own fears.

You can’t control what other people do. Let kids be kids.

That's the poster's decision, not yours.

Well phone them up. You need to be a bit more proactive in getting to know the parents of your DC’s best friends.

It’s why late primary can be good starting point as you’ll have known the parents for 5 or 6 years and they are probably very local.

She’s 12. From this age upwards they often want to go into town with friends or to a friend’s house in school hols. Will you allow that Op or is it just the sleeping at night part you object to.

OP isn’t stopping sleepovers due to a fear of abuse she is doing g so because she enjoyed hers too much and is trying to control her child so she doesn’t have the kind of fun she did

which is madness and completely wrong

firstly it is clearly already isolating her from her friends which is not where you want to be at that age

secondly it is a learning experience going through these things we can’t stop our children doing things we did ourselves

I say many times once our children hit high school our role as a parent is not just to protect and control them, it is giving them the tools to protect themselves and a slow moving over from relinquishing any form of control to them so by the time they are 18 they are ready and equipped to handle life themselves

@Flowerpowersss then you get their number and check with them but you have to start letting go at this age and trusting your daughter and giving her the tools - it is hard but you want an open and honest relationship with your daughter and not one she feels she can’t tell you about stuff

That's quite a drip feed.

We get a lot of examples on this forum of older teens/young adults who can’t cope with life and get overwhelmed and anxious and won’t leave the house or go and get a job. Everyone always blames it on some kind of SEN, but are parents micro managing kids so much now that they grow up with no confidence or sense of risk assessment and figuring things out for themselves.

Some of the best times of my life were when I was out doing things my mum had no idea about 😂

You do you, and what you feel is safe OP. Your children are your responsibility.
Many years of working in the community opened my eyes as to what goes on in other people's houses. How some behave, behaviour they allow, what they have in their house, who comes to their house, standards of cleanliness.
Children can socialise and grow into independent safe adults just fine without sleeping over.

I mean in terms of knowing which parents to trust - for example some parents might let kids watch or do stuff online that I wouldnt be happy with. Take them out somewhere that wasn’t suitable. Let them roam the streets etc

Part of a parent’s job is to allow their children to become independent- navigating unknown situations with ypu as a safety rail to come back to. I have a friend who has to ride the bus with her 16 year old to college as she is too anxious to go alone. That might sound extreme, but you cannot just skip past risk taking and decision making into confident adulthood. You need to find ways to let your children make decisions ( some of these will be poor) and see the consequences and learn. You benefited from this- it is absolutely part of healthy brain development. Maybe sleepovers aren’t the place you are happy to let this happen.

If you don't feel comfortable letting your children go to sleepovers (birthday ones or otherwise), then that's entirely your prerogative. But you're not going to be able to stop other people making different decisions to yours, just to spare you the discomfort of saying no to your children.

Mine don't sleep out with people I don't know either. Sometimes you just have to make decisions to keep your children safe and not let other people's opinions bother you.

My 12 year old doesn't have a smart phone either.

I don't really care if other people want to have sleepovers though.

You can parent your child however you choose but you are being unreasonable to suggest sleepovers are stopped because you don’t like them.
Risky behaviour can happen anywhere and there are opportunists who will take less than a minute to strike. You cannot protect from every eventuality. You can ensure your child is best equipped to deal with life.

I was sexually assaulted as a child by a family member with my parents in the same house. No matter how hard you try you can’t protect your kids from everything.
I still allow my kids sleepovers because I remember loving them as a child and I would hate for my kids to miss out.
You have to allow your kids experiences even if it means taking a very small risk. You can’t lock them away forever

This has to be a wind up 😂 You’ve just said you threw a sleepover for your daughter’s friends and then are telling people to stop sleepovers? Are you the only safe person in the world so it’s fine for you but not for anyone else in the world ?
You also start by saying how much fun they were when you were younger but refuse to allow your daughter the same fun.

So everyone has to stop it except you? Because you know you? 😂

You don’t know how she’s parented. Her post is only about sleepovers with the two brief replies.

She asked for opinions. I’m giving it.

Lots of parents are DBS checked, would that put your mind at rest? Doctors, nurses, teachers, PTA helpers, surely deep DBS checks are sufficient? They are for me anyway. I wouldn’t let my child sleep at any house though… Equally I wouldn’t suggest hosting random kids, whose parents don’t know us.

I get the frustration, but it is unreasonable to expect others to stop just because you've made a particular choice.

My mother never allowed friend sleepovers in either direction - just didn't want to deal with it it. It was just accepted, wasn't an issue that I can recall. I don't recall caring because that was the norm. I can see why going back and forth, the vague 'maybe when you're older' or having a reason like that you don't know the other parent - which automatically raises the question of are you trying to do that - could cause confusion and upset, I think more than just setting the expectation clearly.

And personally, while I appreciate we all draw the line somewhere, I'm not getting how picking them up at bedtime changes the risk assessment. Abusers often don't wait until bedtime, whether it's an adult or another child. Getting to know the parents also isn't going to tell you anything about whether a child at a sleepover is likely to be abusive in that or in any other way.

You are in charge of your own children so you can do whatever you like. But I have that same right so my children will have their friends stay over or go to a friend’s house. I wouldn’t care if someone wants to leave early, but I’d certainly care if someone was saying their house is perfectly safe but ‘my’ house is not. So if that’s what you are saying to people I can understand why no one wants to invite your kid to their home. i wouldn’t want to take that on either!

I was actually quite selfish about it. They could have sleepovers but only at our house. It was either that or no sleepovers.