How do you get out of a sleepover party invite?

[Anonymous]

OP,

Just tell them you have a busy day the next day and want her to get a good night's sleep. No need to explain. They are not going to be able to read your mind and know that you have misgivings! I agree it's hard to let your child socialize at someone's home, whether it's for a sleepover or not, when you do not know the family well, even if you like them lots, at least when the children are this age. It's part of the deal by the time they are teens.

[Anonymous]

I was surprised years ago when a mom I knew fairly well told me with confidence not to worry about the guns in her house because they're locked up. Then one time I went to pick up my DD from a new friend's house after school. The girl was a classmate, family lived in Great Falls, 2 hour play date after school. I pick DD up and grandma is "watching" the girls from the gourmet kitchen while drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette.

So I realized early on that you just never know what goes on in other homes -- and what they may find acceptable you may not. It's still parenting time. There's no reason to feel the need to explain yourself, to apologize, to be embarrassed.

[Anonymous]

This is why I told my DD the first time the idea of "sleep over" came up at age 5 that we don't do sleep overs. Sorry. She tells her friends and her friends know the answer.

She can go to the party up until late but then needs to leave. My best friend growing up could not go to sleepovers even as a teen. She lived to tell and she is not sheltered or maladjusted.

[Anonymous]

Actually I'd say sleepovers really shouldn't exist for middle school and beyond. They'll have plenty of sleepover time in college.

[Anonymous]

If your daughter wants to go to the evening activities, I agree with the pp's who say pick her up at bedtime. We have done this numerous times at sleepovers without anyone thinking it is odd or strange.
FYI: We had a bad experience when my daughter was in middle school with a family that we knew only casually, but DD had been "good" friends with the host and several of the other girls. Long story short, they turned on her in the middle of the night and she felt helpless and did not know what to do. She cried for a while laying in her sleeping bag and just waited for the night to be over. (we had not gotten her a cell phone yet, plus I think she would have been too embarrassed for us to pick her up in the middle of the night.) Extremely traumatic. My advice is to always have a back up plan or code words that DD can use to get out of a situation like this.

[Anonymous]

I have happy memories of having fun at sleepovers at friends' houses - staying up too late, gossiping, watching bad TV. That being said, I think 8 is too young. I would say sixth or seventh grade would be the earliest I would consider letting my son sleep over at a friend's house.

[Anonymous]

If you don't feel comfortable, decline the invitation. Don't create a whole issue around you picking your DD up early and interrupting the party. The party is a sleepover - take it or leave it. Nothing wrong with leaving it. Decline the invitation and stop the drama.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you don't feel comfortable, decline the invitation. Don't create a whole issue around you picking your DD up early and interrupting the party. The party is a sleepover - take it or leave it. Nothing wrong with leaving it. Decline the invitation and stop the drama.

I say just ask the host when the activities end (pizza at 8, movie over at 9:30, whatever) and pick up at a reasonable time. You won't be "interrupting" anything.

[Anonymous]

Yes. "stop the drama."

[Anonymous]

I used to love sleep overs too, bff's parents were complete morons. Let's see, we snuck out every single time to make out with the neighborhood boys, smoked pot with her older sister, snuck out and went to parties with her older sister (high school parties while we were in 7th grade), watched the excorcist (that was the most traumatic thing of all, still hate it)
I'm not trying to scare anyone, but really, you have no idea about other parents, even if you know them. Her parents meant well but they had NO CLUE what we were up to.
And the guns thing scares me since I have 2 very curious boys.

[Anonymous]

I always put a caveat on invitations that anyone is welcome to leave early if they are more comfortable sleeping at home. Sort of offers anyone an out as I know different families operate differently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Serously. Somebody explain to me why you don't like your kids to go to sleepovers. Is there something about them that I am not getting?

My DD could not fall asleep at sleepovers -- at her last sleepover (years ago when she was about 9) I had to go pick her up at 1 am. We even tried sleepovers at our house and she'd leave her sleeping friends and go sleep in her own bed. As the kids get older they are up most of the night and then they're impossible the next day (tired, crabby, miserable to siblings, unmotivated to do sports or homework, whatever). Then as they get into middle school and beyond, that's when they sneak out of your basement, ring neighbors' door bells and run (at midnight). Ha ha. Then older still is when more experimenting is involved. Now that I have older and younger children, I think I may try to skip the whole sleepover evolution for the younger ones.

But my DD never had a problem leaving a sleepover party at 9 or 10. There's no embarrassment involved.

Is she going to live at home during college? after marriage?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I used to love sleep overs too, bff's parents were complete morons. Let's see, we snuck out every single time to make out with the neighborhood boys, smoked pot with her older sister, snuck out and went to parties with her older sister (high school parties while we were in 7th grade), watched the excorcist (that was the most traumatic thing of all, still hate it)
I'm not trying to scare anyone, but really, you have no idea about other parents, even if you know them. Her parents meant well but they had NO CLUE what we were up to.
And the guns thing scares me since I have 2 very curious boys.

I cannot imagine what the kids of you anti-sleepover parents will be like in college?? Oh, boy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to love sleep overs too, bff's parents were complete morons. Let's see, we snuck out every single time to make out with the neighborhood boys, smoked pot with her older sister, snuck out and went to parties with her older sister (high school parties while we were in 7th grade), watched the excorcist (that was the most traumatic thing of all, still hate it)
I'm not trying to scare anyone, but really, you have no idea about other parents, even if you know them. Her parents meant well but they had NO CLUE what we were up to.
And the guns thing scares me since I have 2 very curious boys.

I cannot imagine what the kids of you anti-sleepover parents will be like in college?? Oh, boy.

Missing the point: 18 yo are an adult and 5 yo are not.
Going to slumber parties growing up do not make kids any less reckless when they go to college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to love sleep overs too, bff's parents were complete morons. Let's see, we snuck out every single time to make out with the neighborhood boys, smoked pot with her older sister, snuck out and went to parties with her older sister (high school parties while we were in 7th grade), watched the excorcist (that was the most traumatic thing of all, still hate it)
I'm not trying to scare anyone, but really, you have no idea about other parents, even if you know them. Her parents meant well but they had NO CLUE what we were up to.
And the guns thing scares me since I have 2 very curious boys.

I cannot imagine what the kids of you anti-sleepover parents will be like in college?? Oh, boy.

Missing the point: 18 yo are an adult and 5 yo are not.
Going to slumber parties growing up do not make kids any less reckless when they go to college.

Keep telling yourself that. The first chance your little precious gets to be without mommy breathing down her neck, she's going to go wild.