Sleepover DS(12) - reasonable rules??

[FusionChefGeoff]

There's a little tribe of 5 coming over for DS 12th birthday in a couple of weeks. He made friends really quickly in Yr 7 which was a huge relief but I've only met one of them so this is a good chance for me to at least know their faces.

All got phones, love gaming and at the last one (not at ours) literally stayed up all night drinking coke and was a complete mess the next day.

I'm trying to work out what's reasonable as we're a lot stricter than most of his friends' parents and don't want to embarrass him by going OTT.

Not going to provide any coke so and have already said it's NOT an all nighter and they will be expected to sleep at some point.

Thinking of setting up beds in our 'playroom' with the Xbox / TV

• when to cut off gaming - I'm thinking 10pm??
• what to do about phones!?! Really don't want them all on them all night a) because I want them to interact with each other and b) no control over what they're looking at!
• when is reasonable to ask them to 'go to bed'
• when is reasonable for them to actually go to sleep

I've got a younger daughter (9) should I see if GPs can have her or is that an overreaction??

Any other tips?!?

I think gaming off at 10 maybe a bit optimistic-
I’d aim for no noise after midnight

I take all devices (phones/gaming consoles) away when we go to bed (10:30-11pm ish). I expect them to put themselves to sleep when they are tired so while I don’t do a ‘lights out’ I will tell them to be quiet if it’s disruptive. We have a guest room in a separate part of the house, which helps, so we usually can’t hear them, unless they are really noisy.

Really and truly half the fun of sleepovers at that age is pulling an all nighter! As long as they’re quiet and not disrupting the rest of the house leave them be. Yes they may be tired and grumpy the next day but it’s not the end of the world on a weekend.

Turn off WiFi at 11pm, tell them it's phones off then but to be honest, good luck!

I normally say games/movies off at 10pm and phones of at 11pm. but in practice I give 30 mins extra time on each of those so they feel they've got away with being 'naughty'.

Ace thanks - good to see a relative consensus too which makes me more confident!

I'll say 10.30 for devices but have 11 as the hard deadline and wi fi will go off at 11.30 hadn't thought about that method!!

Then will leave them to it as long as it's quiet and just hope for the best.

Ds is 12, he had (just) 2 friends to stay over the half term. To be honest I just said goodnight at 10pm and left them playing FIFA. I had however taken them swimming for 2 hours before dinner so they were pretty tired, we had a bbq so their bellies were full and they’d also spent some time at the park that afternoon.
Tiring them out is absolutely crucial ime!
We didn’t hear them, the next morning one of them was up at 7 but he just read a book 😂 and waited for the others to get up. They said they went to sleep at about half 12 but none of them got up and about, they played a few rounds of fifa and then put a film on and fell asleep.
If you’re strict on phones and everything else etc it might be worth explaining to parents you’re going to take phones at x time so they aren’t messaging their kids and worrying about not getting a response or whatever but generally I can’t express how important it is to make sure they’ve all had a good run around before embarking on sleepovers!

Its his birthday.
Isnt it half the fun to not have any particular rules for a party sleep over?

I would not allow you to take my child’s phone
You have no right to do this
(They may want to come home during the night and they have no way to contact me )

PP makes a good point, I'd be pretty unimpressed if you took my child's phone.

Yeah, I’d be pretty pissed off if I was a parent and you took my child’s phone away. I remember being upset at a sleepover as a child (low level bullying) and asking for my mum, and the parent refused to phone her to get me. I never went back there again after telling my mum. If I’d had a phone, I’d have used it.

All these people saying they’d be pissed off it the parent running the sleepover took phones away overnight ; are you not worried they’ll show each other totally unsuitable content or even pornography if they have their phones all night? Are you not worried that low level bullying with camera phones can be filmed and on the internet in seconds?

I'm a little stricter on normal sleep overs than some. However for a 12th birthday I would (and have) - take them out to do something active for a few hours.
Feed them.
Encourage gaming etc
Have a movie lined up for around midnight - when I would ask for no more noise and to settle in sleeping bags watching the film. (There might be some pop corn etc given out)
At this point I drink a few glasses of wine and fall asleep - providing all is quietish.
Hopefully I don't hear to much until morning.

I'm stricter than my 11yr olds friends parents and we do midnight for everything off (also after an all nighter that left DD a mess). It's only a couple of hours after she's normally asleep for us tbh and as it's a weekend the night day/night they can usually play catch up 🤷🏼‍♀️
Definitely no coke though!!

How about you say phones go in kitchen at 11pm or sometime that. So they can get them but don't have them?

We took phones in earlier, they were happy gaming and interacting with each other. Took them over the field until 9pm to play football. With phones they would film each other doing dares - this could get out of hand, especially unsupervised, one wrong clip or picture sent to a wider WhatsApp group could be really damaging. Also daring each other to call other people late at night. With 4G they won't need the WiFi. I would urge you to take them in and early, into a basket in the kitchen/where you can see them, so they can still use them, contact parents etc but beyond that they shouldn't need them.

I have 13yo DS. At sleepovers, they are all a bit of a write off the next day. Isn't that the point? Who wants to go to a sleepover and be sent to bed at 10pm?!
I think a pp suggestion of no noise after midnight is fair.
I take my DS phone off him overnight at our house, but at a sleepover it's totally different. I would not want a parent removing his phone overnight when he's at someone else's house.
And as for another pp saying they might look at porn?! I mean I know we all think "not my child" but I genuinely find it odd that your first thought is to remove pre teen boys phones from them at night else they'll all be looking at porn together

God it's his birthday and a sleepover. Honestly - don't try and apply a load of rules to this.

I'd just tell them that you don't expect to hear a single sound after midnight and leave it at that. You'll probably hear quite a lot of sound after midnight but that's how it goes!

It's a birthday treat and all
The fun is in staying up surely? They're not 5!

Your original plan of 10pm was daft

I agree with @WithAliceAforethought.

I wouldn't take their phones of the console away. You are punishing them for something that they have not done. And setting the tone negatively.

What if they aren't playing on the console? Are you still going to take it?

I don't think you should have a sleepover as a fun activity for the benefit of your own child if you are going to go in to it as they are going to be awful.

They might not go to sleep at ten of whatever time you have deemed as suitable...because they are at a sleepover.

Have you ever been invited for dinner or to a wedding or something where you have been expecting to have a nice time.

And did somebody at the wedding turn off the music at 10.30 because they thought it was about time you stopped enjoying each other's company and went to sleep? And that 10.30 was your bedtime on a different day so it should also apply at a party.

Or take your phone away in case you showed someone pornography when you were actually in a Words With Friends tournament?

You shouldn't have a sleepover. It doesn't sound like you can manage.

I'd be concerned that you are going to destroy the relationships he has built since starting school. Tell your son that he needs to do something else for his birthday.

When my dd has had secondary school friends over, who I also do not know, I leave them to it. It wouldn't have ever occurred to me to remove their phones although my dd has to leave hers in the kitchen overnight.

The whole point of a sleepover is coke and junk food and stopping up all night. My only rule was that they were quiet when I wanted to go to sleep amd they couldn't ring parents after that, if they wanted to go hone it had to be before my bedtime. My dc knew to come and wake me in an emergency.

Yup I'm with you on this one - I might leave them accessible in the kitchen or something rather than take them away completely but that could be enough of a psychological barrier to stop anyone acting like a complete tool.

This sounds good - we're doing football in the afternoon and a BBQ so more football / basketball then gaming. Having a film as a wind down / signal to quiet down is a great idea.

I was 10 when my friend and I first looked at porn mags in the newsagents. So yes, I absolutely believe that 5 12 year old boys would look at porn! I'm pretty sure our parental controls on the wifi would block it but you can't be too careful

10pm for gaming off - not sleep

Don't worry I'm perfectly able to cope im just going to set some general expectations with vague guidelines around timings. I'm not going to remove the consoles, turn the lights off or lock phones away!

But equally no, I'm not going to let them do whatever they want as they are children and I am the parent.

As always, MN provides the spectrum and I can then decide where my family fits along the line.