How do you get out of a sleepover party invite?

[Anonymous]

Never heard of anti-sleepover parents before! You learn something new on DCUM everyday!

[Anonymous]

If as parents you are uncomfortable just say "no". It isn't that hard and parents have the right.

[Anonymous]

My kid has a friend whose parents won't let him have sleepovers, and they also don't let him eat Halloween candy. I think it's a shame they are so fearful and feel a little sorry for the kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid has a friend whose parents won't let him have sleepovers, and they also don't let him eat Halloween candy. I think it's a shame they are so fearful and feel a little sorry for the kid.

My parents, who were far less involved in the neighborhood than I was, once made me throw away a handmade treat because "you can't trust treats made by people you don't know." No matter how many times I said, "but she's my friends' grandma, and I do know her," they still made me throw it away. Clueless, they were.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
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.

Please raise a child and send him/her off to college. Then report back.

Not the PP you're responding to, and my kids aren't in college yet. But I can report from my freshman year experience at an Ivy that my Korean-American roommate with extremely strict parents was drunk out of her mind the majority of nights and slept with a variety of boys, in our room and elsewhere (it was just grand, being woken up in the middle of the night by orgasmic sounds). To her credit, it seemed like more than half the dorm was sleeping around amongst themselves and smoking lots of weird stuff for most of the year.
I grew up with pretty laid-back, trusting parents and didn't feel compelled to do any of this. It really felt like going to school with a bunch of little kids who've been freed from their parents' yoke.

Ya know, I think that you are mistaken about the cause/effect of laidback/trusting parents=responsible college kids. I'm willing to bet that many of those laidback and trusting parents were laidback and trusting BECAUSE they knew that their kids were, for the most part, responsible kids. I'm not really buying the idea that b/c the parents were laidback and trusting, the kids became responsible.

[Anonymous]

My DD is having a sleepover for her 8th birthday. It was totally her idea and I warned her that not everyone (whether girls or parents) are comfortable with sleepovers. She understands so I let her have it. I e-mailed all the parents of the invited girls, separately from the actual invitation, and said if anyone isn't comfortable or doesnt do sleepovers, they should plan on picking up at 9 when the movie is over. About a third chose this option which is about what I expected. I let my DD go to sleepovers with families I know well but, I also respect other people's choices. Some kids are not emotionally ready for sleepovers, some parents are not comfortable with the idea (for many reasons as listed above) and it is what it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD is having a sleepover for her 8th birthday. It was totally her idea and I warned her that not everyone (whether girls or parents) are comfortable with sleepovers. She understands so I let her have it. I e-mailed all the parents of the invited girls, separately from the actual invitation, and said if anyone isn't comfortable or doesnt do sleepovers, they should plan on picking up at 9 when the movie is over. About a third chose this option which is about what I expected. I let my DD go to sleepovers with families I know well but, I also respect other people's choices. Some kids are not emotionally ready for sleepovers, some parents are not comfortable with the idea (for many reasons as listed above) and it is what it is.

You're very reasonable. I agree with everything you said. However, I do feel a little bad for the kids who are ready for sleepovers (and want to have them) whose parents are anti-sleepover for (what appear to me) to be paranoid, irrational reasons. Whether it's that they had a bad experience with a sleepover as a kid (projecting your own childhood onto your kid is not a great parenting technique) or think their kid will be abused (due diligence is appropriate, but paranoia can be debilitating) or whatever nutty reason they've created in their own heads - as you say, it is what it is, and it's not my place to argue with them, but it's a shame.

[Anonymous]

To all the people who think kids will be "traumatized" by leaving at 9:

I am in my mid 20s and was not allowed to go to any sleepovers until I was 14ish. I didn't care. I didn't think I was weird and my friends didn't care. Look, this might be a no siblings/unhappy home thing. I came from a happy home and had three sisters. Every night was a sleepover.

If you were a miserable anxious bitch with the same for parents then I can imagine that you were desperate for all the sleepovers you could manage. And I can understand why your kid wants to get away from you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To all the people who think kids will be "traumatized" by leaving at 9:

I am in my mid 20s and was not allowed to go to any sleepovers until I was 14ish. I didn't care. I didn't think I was weird and my friends didn't care. Look, this might be a no siblings/unhappy home thing. I came from a happy home and had three sisters. Every night was a sleepover.

Yes, because of course all kids' experiences will mirror yours. That makes sense.

[Anonymous]

Is going to a sleepover really that big of a deal? Who cares? Go, don't go--whatever! The parent is in charge and can have any number of reasons or no reason at all for keeping kids from doing things. I didn't altogether forbid sleepovers with my kids, but I strongly discouraged them and always looked for an excuse to avoid them or pick my kid up early. Why? Because I found that the host parents never enforce any bedtime, and it's a huge pain in the ass for me to deal with a snarling tween all the next day. Not a major issue, but it's my preference. The suggestion that I am somehow traumatizing my children or depriving them of an essential component of their childhood or setting them up to be hookers in college is patently absurd. Do you people listen to yourselves?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is going to a sleepover really that big of a deal? Who cares? Go, don't go--whatever! The parent is in charge and can have any number of reasons or no reason at all for keeping kids from doing things. I didn't altogether forbid sleepovers with my kids, but I strongly discouraged them and always looked for an excuse to avoid them or pick my kid up early. Why? Because I found that the host parents never enforce any bedtime, and it's a huge pain in the ass for me to deal with a snarling tween all the next day. Not a major issue, but it's my preference. The suggestion that I am somehow traumatizing my children or depriving them of an essential component of their childhood or setting them up to be hookers in college is patently absurd. Do you people listen to yourselves?

Yes, those suggestions are patently absurd - but no more than you discouraging sleepovers because "it's a huge pain in the ass for me to deal with a snarling tween." What a self-centered attitude!

[Anonymous]

Some kids are just rebellious, want to push the boundaries.

Other kids are less in need of thrills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is going to a sleepover really that big of a deal? Who cares? Go, don't go--whatever! The parent is in charge and can have any number of reasons or no reason at all for keeping kids from doing things. I didn't altogether forbid sleepovers with my kids, but I strongly discouraged them and always looked for an excuse to avoid them or pick my kid up early. Why? Because I found that the host parents never enforce any bedtime, and it's a huge pain in the ass for me to deal with a snarling tween all the next day. Not a major issue, but it's my preference. The suggestion that I am somehow traumatizing my children or depriving them of an essential component of their childhood or setting them up to be hookers in college is patently absurd. Do you people listen to yourselves?

Having a tween that can't handle a one night alteration in her sleep schedule without becoming a snarling complainer is the real problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD is having a sleepover for her 8th birthday. It was totally her idea and I warned her that not everyone (whether girls or parents) are comfortable with sleepovers. She understands so I let her have it. I e-mailed all the parents of the invited girls, separately from the actual invitation, and said if anyone isn't comfortable or doesnt do sleepovers, they should plan on picking up at 9 when the movie is over. About a third chose this option which is about what I expected. I let my DD go to sleepovers with families I know well but, I also respect other people's choices. Some kids are not emotionally ready for sleepovers, some parents are not comfortable with the idea (for many reasons as listed above) and it is what it is.

I'm not quibbling with this PP since she isn't arguing that she does this but: What does it mean to be "emotionally ready" for a sleepover? Don't kids learn to handle things emotionally by doing them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I'm not quibbling with this PP since she isn't arguing that she does this but: What does it mean to be "emotionally ready" for a sleepover? Don't kids learn to handle things emotionally by doing them?

Yes, but only if they are right on the crux of being able to handle them. If they are far away from being able to handle them, then the experience won't help them learn at all -- they will be too overwhelmed.