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sleepover
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Anonymous
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My DS is 8 years old and I don't feel very confortable letting him go for sleepovers.
What do you moms think about it? With so many things happening in this world,I don't know what to do... |
Anonymous
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Really? My kids (7 and 8, boy and girl) have sleepovers all the time. We know all of their friends and the friends' parents and we are quite comfortable letting them sleep over at those homes. If I didn't know the parents or had never been to the home, I'd feel differently, but we know most of these families fairly well through school, sports, church, neighborhood, pool, etc.
If you are not comfortable with it, why not host the sleepover at your house? |
Anonymous
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Agree with PP. My 8 and 10 year olds sleep over all the time. Maybe start slow with families you know well. But soon many of the birthday parties will be sleepovers and he will want to participate. I think you can be careful about where he goes without preventing him from having sleepovers. And I agree to host a kid first if you are worried.
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Anonymous
| It's time. Well past time. If you aren't comfortable, start having sleepovers at your own home, and start cultivating closer relationships with the relevant parents. |
Anonymous
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I wouldn't say "well past time"--I have a 6-year-old and haven't even had occasion for her to be doing any sleep-overs. But I think I would have said that I thought she'd start around 8, so I'd say that 8 is a great time to start.
I agree that for both parent and child, it's great to start with people you feel very comfortable with. Perhaps that's a family member, perhaps a neighbor, perhaps your child's best friend. |
Anonymous
| I hate sleepovers. You pay the next day with interest as everybody is tired and cranky. |
Anonymous
| I'm 17:12. We had some unexpected ER visits when son was 7 (visits for us, not for him). It was a lifesaver that we could drop him off for weeknight sleepovers at homes where he and we were comfortable with him spending the night. I can't even begin to tell you how much easier it made it to deal with sick DH when I didn't have to deal with a scared kid. |
Anonymous
What are you top 3 fears about what could happen to your son over at another kid's house on a sleepover? |
Anonymous
What are your top 3 fears about not doing sleepovers? |
Anonymous
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I am a criminal defense attorney and I will tell you three things that HAVE happened at sleepovers.
Client #1: Teenaged boy with a younger sister. Younger sister and her best friend, victim, have a sleepover at younger sister and teenaged boy's house. Best friend will be going to Kings Dominion with younger sister, teenaged boy, and their family the next morning. The girls are elementary school aged. In the middle of the night teenage boy molests best friend, digitally penetrating her, getting oral sex from her, and telling her not to tell anyone or scream because then he will have to hurt her. Best friend victim skips planned trip to Kings Dominion the next day saying she is sick and has to go home and tells her mom in the car on the way home about the molestation. In this example, parents knew each other very well for years. Client #2: Tween boy only child. Tween boy has a sleepover at his house with 3 friends. They watch movies, eat popcorn, and have a farting contest. Then they decide on a night of almost no sleep to sneak out. The walk up to a school and start lighting fires. They burn a hole in some decking. They light grass and ground cover on fire. They destroy a few things on the way back to the house. In this example tween boy had a single mom who knew every child sleeping over as well as their parents. She and tween boy had been friends with some of the children and their families since preschool. Client #3: Tween boy who went to a sleepover with his soccer team buddies after a game. Soccer team buddies all stayed up all night. Somewhere in the middle of the night some of the bigger soccer team buddies began picking on the smaller boys -- wedgies, swirlies, bigger boys holding smaller ones down while farting in their faces, etc. Tween boy is a little kid like the size of a 9 year old at age 13 and super sweet, gentle, sensitive, etc. He is scared. He gets a knife from a kitchen drawer and brandishes it from 20 ft away telling the bigger boys to stay away. The bigger boys make a ruckus waking parents who see terrified tween boy with a knife and call the police. Police take tween boy into custody on Saturday night Sunday morning and he stays in JDC for days until we can get him out. In this example, tween boy's parents had been told by sleepover host that the sleepover would be at his mom's house. They had no idea and nor did their son that the sleepover would be at the dad's house |
Anonymous
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Do you have any statistics on how common these kinds of tragic stories are?
What percentage of sleepovers go awry this way? I'd venture a guess that the odds are greater that your child will be hurt in a car accident than that he will end up brandishing a knife or committing arson at a sleepover. |
Anonymous
| can you say over the top? My son just turned 6 wanted to have a sleepover but was nervous so for his b-day we had three of his friends spend the night. Worked out well and he has in turn spent the night at each of the boys' homes now too. Gotta let them grow up. |
Anonymous
| I would host the sleep over. My 8 yr old has guest over ALL the time. But has never slept over any where else. We just encourage her to invite to our house. I would not be comfy with her somewhere else yet. |
Anonymous
Who exactly are you saying is over the top? Surely not the OP for having concern about her child. 6 is way to young for sleep overs unless it is family. |
Anonymous
| over the top re the scary examples. Why is 6 too young? Maybe for you -not all of us are raising paranoid, timid children. These kids are friends and so are the parents. |