Sleepovers and not knowing parents

[Servalan]

DD (12, nearly 13) has been invited to a school friend’s house for a sleepover.

I haven’t met her friend before or the friend’s parents.

Should I let her go? What do people usually do? First time DD’s been invited to a sleepover in years and it’s always been with folks I know well before.

(House not in a state to be able to host at my house atm)

My son has been in a similar position recently, I agreed he could go if I was able to 'pop over' later on with his stuff (and check the situation out!). I also told him that he could ring me any time of the day or night if he didn't feel safe and that I would happily get him any time.

So I dropped his stuff off, was invited in and met Mum and the new friend. All was well, but it was a worry.

Thank you. Feel nervous but not sure if I’m being over protective...

We did it once with ds when he was around that age. Never came to any harm but he never did again until he was older unless I had met the parents. His friend was probably the most well mannered, and chatty of all his friends.

She let them out to play footie in the dark in a field 2 streets away from her house until after 11:30pm, they came back filthy and the 6 staying one by one shared bath water 🤮 as shower broken (ds had molluscum at the time!!!), she had 6 of them share a bunk bed which unfussy ds said the sheets were "sandy" 🤮, they slept 1/2 sitting on a bunk with backs up against a wall. I went to pick him up in the morning and took 2 of them home too, asked if Paul was still there as I passed his house too and she went to look for him, but couldn't find him, turned out he wanted to go home after the bath and his mum had come and picked him up but she was oblivious and didn't know he had gone. 😱

Hosed ds down when he got home, had a chat again about calling if anything is amiss (although what ds is going to complain about being out late with friends!) and no harm done! He's not been to a sleepover with an unknown parent since.

Oh blimey - that doesn't sound great!

Would it seem rude if I asked to meet the parents first? You just don't get to meet other parents once they're at secondary school, it seems!!

After reading BrokenWings story my answer would definitely be no!

Definitely no if I didn't know the family whose house she was sleeping at. It's pretty basic safeguarding.

It’s a funny one isn’t it...when I was a teenager 15-20 years ago I stayed at all my friends houses, I don’t think my parents knew any of their parents. It just didn’t occur to anyone that it could be dangerous. However now I’ve got my own child the thought of letting her spend the night with unknown adults freaks me right out!! As it does lots of people, clearly. I wonder when attitudes changed??

We are lucky he gets to lots of sleepovers because most of his friends are in/have been in his footie team and I have spent many hours with their parents at the sidelines, have team events/nights out, or mums nights out. That was a one off error of judgement!

No way would I do it. And I don’t. I just say we don’t do sleepovers sorry. The kids accept it. They might not like it, but I don’t have to lie there all night worrying about my child in a strangers house with them. We have boys and girls, the thought of having that mix with other kids staying over when they are a bit older 😬- bollocks to that I’m not policing that one. As pp said it’s safeguarding your own children. Kids can see each other all day.