Reply to do you let 10yo go to sleepovers?

Forum Index » Elementary School-Aged Kids

Reply to "do you let 10yo go to sleepovers?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]This post is especially interesting to me because literally today I finished a book on how to improve risk-assessment and make better decisions (the book is written by an FBI profiler), and the issue of sleepovers is one of the examples given in the book!  It particularly highlights the issue of letting your child sleep over at someone's house whom you don't know well.  I'm going to quote extensively from that section:

"In my experience I saw more people willing to let their children go with others they don't know well than to lend their cars to a good friend.  If you are a parent and you are being honest with yourself, you can probably think of times when you've allowed your child to sleep over at another child's house without a second thought...You did so because your instincts told you these people were safe, and they probably caused you to think so for these reasons:

--You assume that dangerous people don't have spouses and children, and they either live alone or in someone else's neighborhood
--You assume that no parent could ever hurt a child.  You think all parents possess an instinctual empathy that causes them to want to protect any child.
--You assume that people who look normal are normal...
--Your children attend the same school...

Yet all of these reasons are false...Even if they're not pedophiles or murderers, there are many questions that haven't been considered:
--Are there loaded guns in the house, and if so, is it possible for the children to access them?
--Do they own porn or violent videos that you don't want your child to see?
--Does either parent drink excessively or do drugs, including abusing over-the-counter drugs?
--Is either parent verbally or physically abusive?
--Do any members of the family have anger-management issues?
--Does anyone in the family engage in sexually inappropriate behaviors?
--Are there animals in the house?  If so, are they child-friendly?
--Are hazardous substances kept out of reach and safely stored?
--Is either parent careless about smoking, cooking, baking, space heaters, and likely to accidentally start a fire?
--Do they lock their doors at night?
--Are there other children in the home?  If so, what is their disposition?  Are any of them likely ot bully, abuse or threaten your child?
--Who else comes into the home?  Who else has access to the children?
--Does either parent have criminal records and if so, for what?

Are you thinking "Who could ask such questions?  They would think I'm a paranoid freak...!  You have a point...these are not questions that you can ask standing on the front porch...I would counsel to say that it isn't a good night for a sleepover...this is a stalling tactic, designed to provide more time to gather information."

The author doesn't say never to allow a sleepover, but she does think most parents are too cavalier about it and don't properly assess the risks/gather information for a variety of reasons (including inertia, laziness, fear of being impolite, feeling lulled into safety because everyone else allows it, fear of being thought of as a paranoid freak, etc.)

Anyway, just some food for thought.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics