Bisexual daughter and sleepovers
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Anonymous
This |
Anonymous
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Can you have an upfront conversation with your daughter?
Just say what you said here: we love you and support you, and to be honest we are struggling with how to handle sleepovers. We trust you, but we don't feel comfortable having someone stay at the house if there will be sexual activity. Can you help us navigate this? Involve her in figuring out boundaries. If you trust her, then let her know you trust her. If you don't, then that's another story. |
Anonymous
| Assuming she has had the HPV vaccine, two girls hooking up is less risky than a boy and a girl hooking up. She isn't going to get pregnant and while STDs are still a risk, it's not quite as big a risk. So, I don't think those two things compare. |
Anonymous
Sure, this sounds great, and there's never anything wrong with engaging your teens in a mature conversation. But to set this up as a "I trust you/I don't trust you" is going about it the wrong way. I do trust my teenagers to be as honest with me as they can AT THE TIME. What I'm less sure about is their judgment in the heat of the moment. Sexual feelings at this age are incredibly powerful. My teens can be perfectly level-headed and tell me that they know what their boundaries are. They will be telling me the truth. But I also know that they have developing brains and can make impulsive decisions in the moment. They may not be able to anticipate all the factors that will impact their decision-making. That's why it's my job as a parent to set boundaries and guardrails for them. Yes, we can and absolutely should talk together. But at the end of the day, if I do put up some boundaries because I think my kid may struggle in a situation, it's not because I don't trust them and think they will willfully lie. It's that I know they might not have the maturity to handle a situation. |
Anonymous
I don't like the idea of her having sex in my house. Whether she can get pregnant or not - whether she gets a disease or not. Don't want her doing it here. Sorry. |
Anonymous
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I have 2 lgbt teens. I let them have sleepovers. It seems cruel to isolate them. I guess I agree with your DH. I’ve raised them with my values. They know my stance on topics related to drugs and sex. They’re good kids and follow rules in general, so I hope they’re respectful of these rules too.
The thing is, if they want to have sex, prohibiting sleepovers won’t prevent them. If I know they have a specific boyfriend/girlfriend, we don’t allow one on one sleepovers, but we’d allow a slumber party/group party. That’s our compromise. |
Anonymous
Do you allow one on one sleepovers with kids who are presumably just friends? I wouldn't have such a problem with group sleepovers either, but that's not something that my daughter and her circle of friends are doing at her age. It's the one on one sleepovers with girls that up until recently, I would simply have assumed were platonic friends that I'm worried about |
Anonymous
Because no kid has ever gone against their parents stance regarding drugs and sex. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
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I would consider group sleepovers or having them sleep in different rooms on different floors (what we did when having opposite sex friends spending the night for various reasons-travel, divorce, etc). There was a reasonable 'curfew' and then they were off to the guest room and to my own own bedroom.
In our home layout, there was generally a master bedroom or someone else staying in between the rooms so impossible to sneak out of the rooms without waking them up. |
Anonymous
She is 15. Lets just say she has a sleepover and has sexual contact with another 15yo girl. Are you not ok with that? Not judging either way but im pretty sure a lot of teens this age are having sex, at least with a female attraction there is no chance of pregnancy. |
Anonymous
I’m not a regular mom, I’m a cool mom |
Anonymous
I mean every human being will have sex most before they are completely independent. I don't see why we lump that with drug use or abuse. It's completely normal. That said it's ok to be uncomfortable with having your teens have sex while you are home. I agree with the poster that said, make it a discussion, she will help you navigate it and let her know what you are and aren't comfortable with (ie, sex in the home) for down the line. Don't assume younger teens are all ready to get down. Statistically actually, they aren't! |
Anonymous
No kidding. OP, you know what I'd say if this was my DD? Until she gets over this week's trendy fad of being "bi," at 15 years old no less, there will be no sleepovers, period. There are consequences to attention-seeking actions. I would say that with all compassion, of course. |
Anonymous
Yes. If you don’t allow sleepovers while you did before she came out, you’re basically punishing her for being open and honest with you. I know it’s more nuanced than that, but it won’t seem that way to a teenager. I feel like I’ve done a good job raising them and setting reasonable rules. Like I said, I don’t want them fooling around in my home, but it’s not like prohibiting sleepovers prohibits sexual exploration. A couple at my kid’s high school got suspended for giving/receiving oral sex in the elevator. Usually students aren’t allowed but he had broken his leg so he got an elevator pass, snuck his gf in and they were messing around instead of going to class. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I’m not interested in putting my kids on lockdown to prohibit exploring their sexuality, and I see prohibiting sleepovers as an extension of that. It’s fine if you disagree, but really consider the message you’re sending if you don’t allow overnights. Not just the no sex rule, because that’s a fine rule. Also consider how your teen will perceive it, whether it can close down communication with her, if she’ll feel like you’re trusting her and her decisions or if she’ll feel like you think she’s too slutty to have a friend who’s a girl without trying to get in her pants, if she’ll think others perceive her that way, if she should be hiding her sexuality or be ashamed of it, and how it’ll come across to your husband if you veto him instead of finding some kind of compromise. Compromises could include only having groups if its 1:1 that worries you (although we all know kids fool around in groups settings too), having them sleep in different rooms, having frequent check ins. You can also come up with a plan and consequences for what will happen if she breaks the rules. Is she allowed to have her friends over to visit without sleeping over? Are they allowed in her bedroom? To be alone in other parts of the house? To be alone in a room with a closed door? If you answer yes, you’re giving them an opportunity to get physical. And in that case, I don’t really see the point of allowing some opportunities but not sleepovers. It seems like an arbitrary rule in that case, and I try hard not to make arbitrary rules that my family doesn’t like, especially when there are negative social effects that stem from those rules. I also try really hard not to be perceived as punishing them for being honest with me. If you found out your kid had gone to a party and had been drinking once or twice, but they told you without prompting and said they don’t want to participate in that anymore, would you prohibit all parties from there on out? Your kid would be so isolated. Would you punish them for being honest? Or would you discuss the situation and help them figure out a way to deal with it and minimize temptation, but still be able to carry on with a normal social life? Not that sex and drinking are the same thing, but I can’t think of a better parallel. And I certainly don’t have all the answers. This is just the kind of stuff I think about and discuss with DH before we make rules. You might consider the same things and come to different conclusions. |