A group of mothers of youngish kids (7 and under, generally) were discussing whether or not they would let there kids sleep over at a friends house or for a party and I was surprised at many of their responses. Do guys have a very different view of this? If you don't have kids yet, what sort of parenting strategy do you expect to take? If you have much older kids I would especially love your input but there aren't many of you with grown kids here!
.. I should follow up... I also need to know about what kind of parents are hosting the sleepover. If I feel like they're giong to be providing an environment I don't approve of, my kid won't go.
I have a son in college and a 15 year old daughter in high school, and of course we've let them "sleep over" at a friend's house. My son's making his own decisions about that stuff now, of course, but with my daughter, we let her stay over at someone's house where we have met the parents ahead of time, and found out what the plans were. So far, we've had no issues worth mentioning, except possibly sleep deprivation. ;-)-
For my older son's 6th birthday party, we took 4 of his closest friends out bowling and for pizza...then they spent the night at our house. The key is splitting them up in different rooms. Easy to get a group of 2 in a room to go to sleep...more difficult to get 5 in the same room to go to sleep. He's 11 now..and generally either spends the night out or has a friend spend the night almost every weekend.
I loved sleep overs as a kid. I don't remember any kids I knew having parents that are strict enough to not allow them to sleep over. Unless the kid was weird. I've had female friends sleep over and vice versa (I did learn a bit about the female anatomy quite a few times, although I was too young to even understand back then). This was back in the early 90's though. Some parents I know now are way too protective.
Some of the concerns mothers had were the following: 1.Thinking you knew the parents alright and finding out about a pedaphelia problem too late. Statisticly unlikely but a scary thought. 2. Kids up to no good once the supervising parents are asleep. 3. Older siblings around (most of the concern was about older brothers). 4. Personal experiences of the mothers where their first exposure to p*rnography, drinking, drugs, sex, etc. was at a slumber party. 5. Increased peer pressure from lack of supervision and decreased resistance from lack of sleep. 6. For younger kids, extreme crankyness from staying up all night. Overall the mother responses were "Nothing good ever comes from a sleep over, the family policy is always no." Does anything good come from a sleep over? I would be concerned that it does some social harm to be the kid who can't go to sleep overs because their parents are paranoid. Further, if kids aren't exposed to negative stuff at a sleepover, won't they just encounter it at some other location?
holy crap. let these children have some sense of independence...some level of trust....so they don't go ape-crap crazy the moment they do have it. if EVERYTHING is forbidden fruit then it's much more attractive. you have to give your kids some liberties to figure stuff out on their own, while hoping they've been listening to you. i realize it's not you who was saying these things, but this mentality kills me.
7 years old. can't imagine they'd be doing anything other than nintendo and stealing midnight snacks.
I can see the point on #1 and #3, but that is where knowing the place they are going comes in. #4 Is most likely going to happen somewhere down the line anyway. That is where you have to trust your kids and their friends. If you haven't taught them what they need to know or trust them then you may have issues at a party, but regardless of whether they go or not, they will still be exposed to that stuff somewhere else. 5 kind of falls in that line to about teaching your kids and trusting them. 6 just seems like a selfish reason. "I'm not letting my kid go, because I don't want to have to deal with them being cranky". I voted for the approved families option. AS far as not letting them go causing social harm, it depends on the age. Younger kids it won't be a problem with. But I have taught at the elementary level for 15 years, and once they get to 4th and 5th grade level, the kids notice these types of things and can be truly mean about it. We have had parents that still walk their kids to class, put them in their seat and gie them a good-bye kiss in the 5th grade. The other students not always gave them a hard time, but definitely treated them differently.
On a side note, make sure none of the kids have problems wetting the bed too. No one likes a wet bomb in the middle of the night.
It's nice to know I'm not the only parent who would send my kid to a sleepover! Mostly I find that amoung mothers I sound like the neglectful parent who will let her kids do anything and who is bound to have serious problems on her hands in three years. I think these parents mean well. And they know their kids better than I do. One of them home schools and so is not worried about the problem of her child being made fun of at school. Of course, you don't want your kid to be avoided in college for being strange, either.
I understand why you would feel this way. We have three girls and a boy and it seems that boys at a sleep over are more likely to just be playing video games all night. Girls have other plans... However, as for the fear of possible abuse it seems that while it happens to girl MUCH more often, when it does happen to boys they tend to be more fragile. How does a family get on the "approved" list?
Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry Momma's gonna make all of your nightmares come true Momma's gonna put all of her fears into you Momma's gonna keep you right here under her wing She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing Momma's will keep Baby cozy and warm
This makes sense to get the kids to sleep from the hosts' perspective. But if I didn't know a family that well and they wanted my daughter to sleep in a room alone at a sleep over I would feel they were stripping her of the safety in numbers. And with girls it only takes one other chatty girl for an all-night conversation.
