How to deal with DS (9)'s over persistent friend

[Flyonthewindscreen]

Will call him X, is a nice kid, lives very close to us, is one of DS's best friends and they get on very well. X has other friends apart from DS as does DS but none of the other yr 5 boys are in convenient calling distance. However over the last few months he has been so persistent that it is becoming a nuisance.

An example, Sunday teatime, after DS and X have spent the afternoon playing in and out together, the phone rings, we ignore it. When I check it afterwards it is X's mother asking if DS wants to come for a sleepover that night. DS has been for a birthday treat sleepover with X which was fine but am not happy about random spur of moment sleepovers so texted her to say thank you but not tonight. At 7pm I was in the bath and the phone rang, DS answered it and ran upstairs saying "Its X, please can I go for a sleepover". I get out of bath, quite peeved and speak to X's mother, "Didn't you get my text" I say, "Oh sorry, she says, "I did, didn't realise X was phoning you". Not sure why she wasn't annoyed with her DS for going behind her back when I had already said no. So I said no again and had DS furious at me and nice cosy family evening spoiled. Texted X's mother the next morning to say DS would not be playing out as had been at A&E first thing (whole other story), X still phoned three times in an hour to speak to DS, the friend I had visiting could not believe he was being allowed to call so continually.

X's mother jokes that X is DS's stalker and laughs that if we are away he patrols back and forward between our houses to see if we are back yet. I often get back to find multiple silent messages on the phone from him. It is too much, apart from move house , what can I do?

Ah Whippet you are doing it all wrong you know or perhaps your children are quite young? The rules in our house are that the child who is hosting has to have a tidy room. They have to make up the bed for their friend (and it's sleeping bags only in our house, so no washing), and they and their friend have to tidy up in the morning. The visiting child gets whatever food is going, at the times when we would ordinarily eat. Pick ups tend to be mid morning, so even I have got up (I also work and my lie ins are very important to me).

Friends who are a pain don't get invited again, and if the tidying doesn't happen or the children are too tired afterward they don't get to have another sleepover for a few weeks (and they get told why).

It probably helps that I only have the two children and that they are only 16mths apart so most of their friends are fairly mutual. Sometimes ds bugs dd's friends and vice versa, but not too often now.

I like to have my children's friends over because it gives me a window into their lives, and I like the idea that in a few years time, when the children are on the town with at least some of those friends, I'll know them relatively well. Plus when ds and dd are staying at their friends houses then dh and I get the place to ourselves, which can be nice :)

Whippet - I agree 100% with you re sleepovers. They seem quite a recent thing to me and I too just don't get the enthusiasm for them.

We do have them because they seem to be the expected thing these days, part of a new social norm in childhood that you deny at your dc's peril wrt joining in. I don't enjoy doing them though for all the reasons you list.

I'm not sure about your point about parents doing it to offload their children though. That may be true in some cases, but I think many of us are merely locked into 'sleepover tit for tat hell'

It's all part of this brattish child-centred Britain we've evolved into, isn't it?

Oh dear, poor little Johnny is so deprived unless he can have his friends to stay over every weekend/at short notice/ whenever he stamps his foot and demands it...

I like seeing my friends, and do so regularly, but I don't expect to stay the night every time I pop over .

As I said, it's not that we don't sometimes have sleepovers, we do, but they are scheduled in as part of our family calendar of treats/ activities etc. It's the sleepover-mania I can't stand. DS1 has a friend at the top of our street (about 100 yds away..) and the two brothers there are always having kids over for sleepovers. The Mum is positively obsessive at times and sometimes phones me saying "oh DS1 MUST come for a sleepover tonight to keep "A" company, as his brother has a friend coming over too..." She gets quite shirty when I say, no he can't/ doesn't want to!

Perhaps my sleepover-aversion is caused by this particular family!

So if you don't like sleepovers then don't on them. But your children might enjoy them....have you checked with them?

I do them but don't enjoy doing them. That's ok I think. No law saying I've gotta be loving sleepovers I don't think; just discussing why.

And they're hard to avoid these days even if you want to because the expectation is there whether you enjoy them or not. I do lots of things for my dc. Most I enjoy, some not.

Children might well enjoy and demand sleepovers, but this doesn't mean they have a right to them, on demand does it?

I think children need to learn how things operate in busy family life i.e. that everyone has things they'd like and need to do, and there needs to be a balance.

BluddyMoFo - I think there's as much slagging off of people who don't like sleepovers actually! I can't see whay my reasons for not liking then are any less valid - I'm just stating the counterview. It doesn't make us evil parents for not doing them!

For what it's worth, it does seem that amongst DSs friends, the ones who are most into sleepovers are where the child is an 'only' (understandable) or where all the family's weekend/social life is already very child-centred.

Our family is not like that - we have hobbies/commitments (elderly parents)/ regular events that mean we can't just drop everything at a moments notice.

So you're backtracking from the "all parents who allow sleepovers are too lazy to interact with their own child" line?

I think I'd be asking the friends parents to limit the phone calling, or get caller display like suggested up thread.

Of course no one has to do sleepovers if they don't want to & others can if they want to.

seeker - you obviously missed the ironic .....

I'm quite happy with our approach to sleepovers (as are my kids) but I dislike the implication from some posters that if you don't allow them you're somehow failing to socialise your child - what bollocks!

Each to their own and all that jazz.

I have samilar problem with my dd's friend's mum. It is okay if it is pre-arranged between parents with at least a day or two day notice. So that I don't have to say "no" in front of my dd and cause disappointment. As we do want to spend time together as a family sometimes.

"You said no to the sleepover for no good reason when th mum first asked."

That's a really odd thing to say. why would she need a reason?

Of course she needs a reason- you can't say no to a child's reasonable request without saying why!

The OP had lots of good reasons for saying no!

• she wanted a family night in
• the boys had already spent time together that day
• she had just had a bath and didn't want to go out again?

and perhaps less obviously

• she is finding this family a bit too intrusive and wants to limit it?

Do people really let (their) children dictate to them to such a degree that they have to be answerable for every decision? Crikey.

I would have said 'not tonight darling because ' and that would be that. My children know that whingeing doesn't get results.

I couldn't disagree more seeker. A parent doesn't have to justify valuing downtime together as a family unit. She doesn't have to articulate this. The default is not that children decide which house they sleep in on a night before school. She just says no because saying yes would interfere with her family functioning well, whether it's the inconvenience or merely that she and her son would lose precious relaxation time together. Perhaps you're very extrovert and would find it perfectly relaxing to have your child go to a sleepover on a Sunday and that's fine too but you've no call to criticise, none whatsover.

A parent may not 'have to justify valuing downtime together as a family unit': but speaking as the child of a parent who utterly insisted on Time Together As A Family, I can tell you I've avoided spending any time I possibly can with him since leaving home 30 years ago.

Not saying your kids will, of course, but saying that had I been treated with a bit more respect for my wishes at the time, I might manage some affection for him now.

well that's a different thread perhaps....

Why?

All I'm saying is that kids' wishes matter too. They are players within that family unit. And ignoring that fact may have consequences later.

Gosh dire warning or what? I think this is getting a tad out of perspective now. Sleepovers or your relationship with your dc is in jeopardy?

No, for heaven's sake, all I'm saying is that kids' wishes matter too. Which is very much what Seeker has been saying too.

Of course they do. But it's quite possible to say no to a sleepover from an overly persistant friend - or any other request come to that - without making anyone feel their wishes aren't relevant within the family.

I don't think anyone here has implied they go round ignoring their children's opinions to the detriment of their happiness or friendships. But that doesn't mean all wishes must always be granted.

Someone has to be in charge and say no somewhere down the line and make an executive decision. A decision based on what fits in with the family as a whole.

Whippet's post is pretty much how I'd handle the situation tbh; those points she made sounded reasonable enough and would explain why sufficiently.

I don't think children should have every demand met and every wish pandered to. However, I do think that people sometimes forget that their children are individuals who may be very different to their parents and have different needs, which shold be considered. Comments like "We are very private people" - subtext-"so are our children", I wanted a family evening" - subtext "so that's what my children wanted too" make me think that it is entirely the mother' wishes and convenience that is being considered, with no concession to what the child might want.

Oh, and if a 9 year old having a friend to sleep over is massively inconvenient to the host's mother, then she's not doing it right. And if her 9 year old going to sleep at someone else's house is massively inconvenient then ther is definitely something going wrong somewhere!

I agree seeker, it doesn't have to be a big deal, it's just an extra child to feed really. But then dd's friends virtually live in our house anyway, it doesn't make a huge difference if they stay the night. I was a very lonely child and I admire dd's gregariousness. Plus I like her friends. With ds it's even easier as his friends are even less trouble (dd's friends can be a bit noisy).

If I felt that my children were demanding anything then they would get a good talking to about their attitude, and I've no problem with telling their friends off if they push the limit. However I like the fact that their friends are comfortable in our home and that I know them quite well. It makes me feel that I'm doing something right, and I hope it stays that way as they move into their teens. I'd rather they felt welcome here than worry that they might chose to hang out somewhere where I had no idea who they were with or what they were doing.

Seeker I don't think my DC are private people like me/DH, far from it and generally our life is far more based around what makes them happy. We live on an estate full of children, are allowed to play out loads and have friends around a lot. Until the phone call re sleepover came, DS was happily curled up on the sofa watching a film with my DH and DD, not miserably enduring a forced family evening.

More generally, I don't understand this attitude that many MN posters seem to have (and I haven't really come across in RL) that somehow family time is repellent to children and to be sneered at.

Everyone's different. It's lovely if you can enjoy having lots of children in the house all day and even all night, and it sounds as though you do enjoy it Nooka. I also take pleasure in the fact that one of my children has a much better social life than I had at the same age so I can understand this.

no seeker, there's nothing wrong, it's just that we're all different. We all have different ways of being happy and relaxed.