Saying no to sleep overs/slumber parties.

[Anonymous]

Certainly food for thought...We have a 4-year old and it seems sleepovers are beginning earlier than they used to. We're not opposed to our 4-year old doing one in the homes of good friends at all where we know the parents well. He's slept over at the home of childless friends and he's always had a great time. Still, I can see how, unless you know the parents well, it's a complicated issue.

Incidentally, we're the type of parents who let our 4 year old and his friends play in the basement by themselves. We set some ground rules and let them have fun -- hasn't been a problem. We certainly check on them but we're not sitting there watching them. Other parents of friends of our son all say how nice it is that the kids are at the age where they can play by themselves.

[Anonymous]

We live in different times now so I would not feel bad about turning down a sleepover--my dd is too young for me to worry about this now but I cannot see allowing this until she was a lot older--and I will decide on that time when I feel comfortable. If someone got mad at you for not allowing (and I am not talking kiddie since they always get mad they are not worth having in your life. Parents set the boundaries.period and your boundaries are yours and are not anyone else's business. Have to say that I also wouldn't be psyched to have someone else's kid other than family or one of my closest friends because of liability--you never know what someone could say about you and unless I really knew this family 100%, I wouldn't want the hassle.

[Anonymous]

Wow, I am really surprised by the anti-sleepover sentiment on this board. My daughters routinely have sleepovers with their school friends and with family friends both at our house and at the other family's home. We always know the families, but not always extremely well. I just see this as a fun thing to do when you are a kid and certainly not a big risk for them. I guess I usually trust other parents I know to take reasonable care of my kids, as I do for theirs. In that sense, I feel like it is a bigger risk to have other parents drive my kids, since I have little idea what kind of driver they are, but I do that too.

And with respect to parents who have a no sleepover rule (although I've never met anyone who said this), I would not say anything to them about it, but I would think to myself that they are overprotective of their kids. And I do not think that the decision not to do it is without negative reprecussions for the kids. To be the only one who can't go to a party you want to go to because your parents won't let you is not a great position to be put in as a kid. But to each his own.

[Anonymous]

I remember growing up at sleepovers there were a few girls who always had to "leave early" for one reason or another. Sometimes the reasons seemed legit (like early soccer game or something like that) but yet it always seemed like the same girls. Maybe their parents felt the same way, but I never thought of it before now.

For the anti-sleepover parents, maybe you could drop your child off when the other children are coming over (in the case of a party, not just a 1 on 1 sleepover) and then arrange a time to pick them up - age appropriate of course. For example, in middle school I think some of these girls parents would get them around 11pm.

[Anonymous]

The bottom line is that parents need to trust their instincts and not let anyone influence them.
I grew up with very strict parents that would not consider a sleep over for one second. We knew not to even ask. It helps to tell your kids the rules way in advance. When we were 10, my parents told us no boyfriends until 18. No swimming unless they were present. When we were about 13 they told us no driving until 18, and no driving with teen friends EVER. It was not as stifling as you would think. We had other privileges that our friends never had, like interesting foreign travel.
I look at statistics on what harms kids like drowning, guns, car accidents, and molestation. Sleep overs, even in the best homes, are dependent on who else is there. Now with these coed sleep overs, well...go figure.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in Wilmington, DE and when I was in 3rd grade, my 1st grade brother's best friend's father brutally murdered his wife and two sons(6 and 2) before killing himself. It shook our small town, esp. the community at the small private school we attended. The scariest part is that my brother had spent the night there two weeks prior to the killings.


We were good friends with the family and my parents thought they knew them well. My dad owned a bunch of cafeterias and the dad was a regular at one of them and he and my dad would sit and talk over coffee, etc. Turns out the dad was addicted to cocaine and an alcoholic... The guilt my parents felt was unbelievable and from that day on their trust in people changed forever.

Needless to say, my brother and I never had another sleepover unless it was with our cousins.

[Anonymous]

I was one of those kids who was always picked up around 11pm at a sleepover party to go home. And yes - I felt like I was missing out on all the fun that my friends were having. And thought my parents were unreasonably strict. Now that I'm a parent, I see things more their way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just see this as a fun thing to do when you are a kid and certainly not a big risk for them.

Sounds like the criminal defense attornery who posted would disagree.

I'm glad she posted, BTW. Food for thought.

[Anonymous]

I think there's a distinction between slumber parties (multiple kids with potential for housewrecking) and sleepovers (one kid). I am not in favor of the former but don't see a problem with the latter.

[Anonymous]

I defied my parents when I was 12 and sneaked out of our house at 11:00 pm to go "hang out" with some friends who were having a slumber party. Both of their parents were doctors, living in a nice Bethesda neighborhood. During the party, the 9 year old brother walked into the room with a handgun pointed at us and said "freeze". I did not freeze, I just walked quickly out of the room. I kept walking until I got home. I never told my mother about it until recently (25 yrs later).
That 9 year old had a bunch of diagnoses, including ADD, and by 16 has a reckless driving charge.
I also, had a colleague whose dd had a very bad deforming facial laceration from a friendly Labrador at a slumber party. The dog just wasn't used to that level of activity and went nuts.
This brings home the point. I think that there are people out there that just don't get it. They don't assume that the dog would bite, they don't assume that the kids will get the gun. Since there is no polite way of reminding the host parents to be careful, I plan to avoid these events with my kids.

[Anonymous]

let us not forget Polly Klaus--she was 12 and at a sleepover.

[Anonymous]

I think the biggest thing for me and not letting my child have a sleepover at someone elses house is the molesting issue. Most children are molested by family, friends and trusted adults, not strangers. It really scares me. I would let my child (dd) stay over at a house where no boys or men lived, maybe single mom no boyfriend. If that is overprotected, I don't care. I love my child too much to take the risk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live in different times now so I would not feel bad about turning down a sleepover--my dd is too young for me to worry about this now but I cannot see allowing this until she was a lot older--and I will decide on that time when I feel comfortable. If someone got mad at you for not allowing (and I am not talking kiddie since they always get mad they are not worth having in your life. Parents set the boundaries.period and your boundaries are yours and are not anyone else's business. Have to say that I also wouldn't be psyched to have someone else's kid other than family or one of my closest friends because of liability--you never know what someone could say about you and unless I really knew this family 100%, I wouldn't want the hassle.

The only thing that really makes these times so different, is that the media is reporting incidents more, and that people feel more open to talk about things. There were drug addicts. pedophiles, guns, and all other things people have brought up, at the turn of the century as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:let us not forget Polly Klaus--she was 12 and at a sleepover.

She was not "at" a sleep over, she was hosting a sleep over. It wasn't the sleep over that caused her to be kidnapped, molested and murdered.
http://www.pollyklaas.org/about/pollys-story.html

[Anonymous]

I had never even thought of objecting to a sleep over prior to this strand. I have had to travel in the past due to work and my child has stayed with my parents, and have gone out evenings and had her stay with friends to cut the cost of child care. If you trust your friends (which is why they are friends in the first place) I really think that you should teach your child to trust in others as well. Sleepovers are a good lesson in independence.