Why are sleepovers so important?

[Anonymous]

My parents were born in the early 1950s (one grew up in this area, one in NY) and regularly had sleepovers. Not sure where this whole “our parents didn’t have / survived without” sleepovers narrative is coming from

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Europeans don’t do sleep overs

Asians don’t do sleep overs

Black people don’t do sleep overs

Latinos don’t do sleepovers

This is a very “new world” whites thing

Really? We used to have massive sleepovers in the early 80s with our group of friends who were white, Black, Asian, and Latina. We rotated hosting.

Don’t know about Europeans.

+1 I am Asian (Indian-American) and did sleepovers growing up. Don't paint all these ethnic groups as a monolith!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We love sleepovers. Hosting and attending. Well, I love hosting, not attending obviously.

I was actually molested at a sleepover by an older brother who was a few years older. It was bad, but had very little to do with it being a sleepover and everything to do with poor parenting and supervision on the part of both our families.

Me and a neighbor girl regularly got up to some real weird experimenting stuff from the ages of 8-10. Ironically, she wasn’t allowed to have sleepovers and her parents rarely allowed her to come to my house. Kids can get up to no good any time of day.

ok troll.

Sleepovers are like beestings. Most of the time it's fine, but then randomly one time it's really bad and then you have to be vigilant around bees for the rest of your life. If you ever were abused or witnessed abuse at a sleepover, it's basic common sense to keep your own kids out of these situations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I loved sleepovers and began hosting and attending in third grade. But by HS, these took a darker turn with alcohol brought in, sneaking out, etc.

Completely understand not allowing sleepovers, OP. I’m a mom 3 with one DS and it was my DS who had more sleepovers than my girls ever did. He’s a college student now and has had the same close guy fiends since ES. I know the families very well.

I was super strict with my oldest and would be only allow infrequent sleepovers with families we knew well and fully admit if there was anything sketchy about any of the families (think older siblings, single parent, live in relatives or too many unknown details) then it was a hard no.

What is sketchy about single parents?

Or what’s sketchy about older siblings, or live in relatives like grandpa? In those posters view, everyone is assumed to be a sexual predator or criminal. I honestly pity them and their kids. They can keep their children under house arrest, it’s a great way to raise well adjusted adults.

Person who asked about single parents here.

Older siblings are sketchy. They are usually not supervised as well as the younger ones( and this is fine because they are older), and they
watch and say stuff that is not age appropriate for younger kids.

I grew up with older siblings and I matured much faster than my children are now( saw all the boyfriend and girlfriend drama, heard conversations I shouldn’t have etc). Nothing necessarily wrong with it, but it's not what I want for my children.

Lol wait what? How could you possibly avoid this? Only by having an only child….or somehow making sure you had one set of twins and then no other children??

My kids are 2 years apart, so close enough in age.

My siblings were 3-10 years older. You wouldn’t believe the stuff I used to read in my much older sibling's room...

So I am referring to much older siblings, say
greater than 5 years apart.

Hahaha I see…..
So, just to be clear: a sibling 2 years older is okay, but 3 years is too much? What if there are 3 kids, each 2 years apart? Your kid can only sleep over if she’s friends with the middle child, not the youngest?

Hahaha you don't see.

Read again. I answered your question in the last sentence.

She can only sleep over if they are no kids in the house that are significantly older than she is( 5 years or more).

[Anonymous]

Sleepovers are not essential. If you allow it great ! If not that's fine too. I don't want other people kids at my house, play dates sleepover etc.
My wife is the opposite she loves having kids over. So I go along with it as long as I don't have to do any of the cleanup or planning.
It's worked well for us

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sleepovers are not essential. If you allow it great ! If not that's fine too. I don't want other people kids at my house, play dates sleepover etc.
My wife is the opposite she loves having kids over. So I go along with it as long as I don't have to do any of the cleanup or planning.
It's worked well for us

Ok grandpa, the kids will be off your lawn.

Of corse they are not essential, just like most things parents do for their kids like toys, play dates, taking kids to the park, sports, vacations, bday parties etc. You’d still be weird not doing them for your children. Maybe you shouldn’t leave all of this on your wife’s shoulders because you don’t think they are “essential” as your excuse to get out of helping with planning and cleaning. You honestly sound like a jerk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sleepovers are not essential. If you allow it great ! If not that's fine too. I don't want other people kids at my house, play dates sleepover etc.
My wife is the opposite she loves having kids over. So I go along with it as long as I don't have to do any of the cleanup or planning.
It's worked well for us

Ok grandpa, the kids will be off your lawn.

Of corse they are not essential, just like most things parents do for their kids like toys, play dates, taking kids to the park, sports, vacations, bday parties etc. You’d still be weird not doing them for your children. Maybe you shouldn’t leave all of this on your wife’s shoulders because you don’t think they are “essential” as your excuse to get out of helping with planning and cleaning. You honestly sound like a jerk.

Wow, you’ve been a busy troll lately!

Why so triggered over sleepovers? lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread proves that at least some anti sleepovers people have some issues to work on, to say the least.

Even the OP, she made a big stink about how annoying it is to be asked about sleepovers, but she never gave her reasons why she doesn’t do sleepovers, unless she’s the one with the sexual abuse craziness. If that’s true, I rest my case.

It’s perfectly fine for parents to ask any question they want when it comes to their kids and that includes why you don’t do sleepovers. They’re not annoying, it’s not a white people thing, it’s just parents wanting to know more about who’s around their kids. I’m happy to accept any reasonable answer like my child is too tired the next day. But if you’ll say something crazy like what’s posted in this thread, our kids will no longer be friends because I wouldn’t be comfortable with you around my kid.

Parents can ask questions, but it is really none of your business. And in my experience, it isn't "why don't you allow sleep overs" it is "why don't you allow sleep overs, and your concerns are wrong because xyz reasons".
What if the family chooses not to do sleepovers because the child wets the bed and doesn't want others to know that? What if there is some other medical issue that you don't need to know about? What if kids have anxiety about being away from their parents overnight but are embarrassed and don't want other people to know.
Lots of parents are less permissive than I am about other things and if they decline something I just ask if there is something else the kids can do together.

Our child wet the bed until they were 11 so we had a no sleepover policy until that ended. We didn't announce that was our reasoning because we didn't want to embarrass our child. We simply said, we don't allow sleepovers. Most people just moved on but some people were really pushy about it. The judgement was really off putting.
A compromise we had was hosting a pajama party. Kids came over for pizza in PJs and stayed until around 10 PM and then their parents picked them up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Europeans don’t do sleep overs

Asians don’t do sleep overs

Black people don’t do sleep overs

Latinos don’t do sleepovers

This is a very “new world” whites thing

Really? We used to have massive sleepovers in the early 80s with our group of friends who were white, Black, Asian, and Latina. We rotated hosting.

Don’t know about Europeans.

+1 I am Asian (Indian-American) and did sleepovers growing up. Don't paint all these ethnic groups as a monolith!

+1 I am Indian-American and sleepovers are some of my favorite childhood memories. We had multi-day co-ed sleepovers and they were a blast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sleepovers are not essential. If you allow it great ! If not that's fine too. I don't want other people kids at my house, play dates sleepover etc.
My wife is the opposite she loves having kids over. So I go along with it as long as I don't have to do any of the cleanup or planning.
It's worked well for us

Ok grandpa, the kids will be off your lawn.

Of corse they are not essential, just like most things parents do for their kids like toys, play dates, taking kids to the park, sports, vacations, bday parties etc. You’d still be weird not doing them for your children. Maybe you shouldn’t leave all of this on your wife’s shoulders because you don’t think they are “essential” as your excuse to get out of helping with planning and cleaning. You honestly sound like a jerk.

Wow, you’ve been a busy troll lately!

Why so triggered over sleepovers? lol

It’s not the sleepovers, it’s the attitude of “I don’t think it’s essential, therefore I’m not going to help” that actually sucks. How kind of you to allow a few playdates even though you don’t want other people’s kids in your house. Your family must be so grateful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread proves that at least some anti sleepovers people have some issues to work on, to say the least.

Even the OP, she made a big stink about how annoying it is to be asked about sleepovers, but she never gave her reasons why she doesn’t do sleepovers, unless she’s the one with the sexual abuse craziness. If that’s true, I rest my case.

It’s perfectly fine for parents to ask any question they want when it comes to their kids and that includes why you don’t do sleepovers. They’re not annoying, it’s not a white people thing, it’s just parents wanting to know more about who’s around their kids. I’m happy to accept any reasonable answer like my child is too tired the next day. But if you’ll say something crazy like what’s posted in this thread, our kids will no longer be friends because I wouldn’t be comfortable with you around my kid.

Parents can ask questions, but it is really none of your business. And in my experience, it isn't "why don't you allow sleep overs" it is "why don't you allow sleep overs, and your concerns are wrong because xyz reasons".
What if the family chooses not to do sleepovers because the child wets the bed and doesn't want others to know that? What if there is some other medical issue that you don't need to know about? What if kids have anxiety about being away from their parents overnight but are embarrassed and don't want other people to know.
Lots of parents are less permissive than I am about other things and if they decline something I just ask if there is something else the kids can do together.

Our child wet the bed until they were 11 so we had a no sleepover policy until that ended. We didn't announce that was our reasoning because we didn't want to embarrass our child. We simply said, we don't allow sleepovers. Most people just moved on but some people were really pushy about it. The judgement was really off putting.
A compromise we had was hosting a pajama party. Kids came over for pizza in PJs and stayed until around 10 PM and then their parents picked them up.

Your reasons are valid, but you can just say your kid is not comfortable sleeping in someone else’s house, I don’t see many people pressing the issue further. I also had parents of of a 9 yo tell me that they don’t do sleepovers because their son is still wetting the bed, there was no embarrassment, shaming or making fun. It’s possible you’re making it a bigger issue than it is.

On the other side I also had parents wanting to send the kid to a sleepover, and he definitely wasn’t ready because he stayed up the entire night, lurking in the kitchen, wanting water, a snack, his plushie etc. No big deal in the end, but it shows sometimes it’s good to ask questions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We love sleepovers. Hosting and attending. Well, I love hosting, not attending obviously.

I was actually molested at a sleepover by an older brother who was a few years older. It was bad, but had very little to do with it being a sleepover and everything to do with poor parenting and supervision on the part of both our families.

Me and a neighbor girl regularly got up to some real weird experimenting stuff from the ages of 8-10. Ironically, she wasn’t allowed to have sleepovers and her parents rarely allowed her to come to my house. Kids can get up to no good any time of day.

ok troll.

Sleepovers are like beestings. Most of the time it's fine, but then randomly one time it's really bad and then you have to be vigilant around bees for the rest of your life. If you ever were abused or witnessed abuse at a sleepover, it's basic common sense to keep your own kids out of these situations.

What? Are you equating a bee sting allergy to CSA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sleepovers are fun for kids period. What is there to not understand about staying up with your friends and hanging out for a long time? I would think it's self explanatory? I get not being into it if you have any doubt about responsible parents but I actually think less could go wrong than going on field trips where there's a lot of kids going somewhere and not a guarantee of 1:1 oversight.

Except when they're not. A lot of bullying goes on at sleepovers, too, but mean girls like you wouldn't know anything about that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wasn’t allowed sleepovers and hated my parents for it. Lead to me being excluded. My parents are anxious people and it negatively impacted me big time.

Generational trauma. I'm sorry, that is hard!

Why do some people have to have a label for everything? It's really annoying. Not everyone's experiences are exactly the same and you putting a label on them that way is so demeaning and lacks empathy.

[Anonymous]

The only family I know that does sleepovers are social strivers - they actively want their daughter to be the popular girl at school and host parties, sleepovers, ask for a million playdates, etc. This is for an 8 year old, and we're just not comfortable with sleepovers at this age.