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[quote=Anonymous]When I was growing up, sleepovers started around age 7 or 8 I think. For our kids now (ages 12 & 15) they each started sleepovers around age 6 and both still do them now.

I worked for child welfare so if ever there was a parent who was like "I need to know the parents and the kids before even a playdate, never mind a sleepover", it was me.  But especially in elementary school, we got to know her friends and their parents. We hosted sleepovers and our kids went to other people's houses. We literally NEVER had any problems.

Tweens and teens gets a little tricky, they do get louder and stay up later to a degree.  But I enforce a level of quiet after midnight that they respect and many of them pass out when it's lights out/quiet time.

Both kids are now vaxxed & the 1st slumber party for the younger one when it was safe (post vax, before Delta variant) was at a new friend's house. I feel like because my DD has a phone & I met the parents and asked to see where everyone would be sleeping, but I don't feel as much like I have to already know the parents before she sleeps over, I just need to have met the kids and heard about them a lot and then check the home out before our kid stays over.  And she can always call to be picked up if she's uncomfy.

But at that 1st slumber party when I picked DD up, she had a great time (parents took them to an outdoor county fair type thing then to an outdoor pizza place, then home) but she also said at like 1:00am most of the girls decided to sneak out and go to a PARK near the home. Only 2 girls stayed back and in bed (mine being one of them) and when she told me this and I realized the parents didn't notice or care, that was it, no more sleepovers at this girl's house.

And our oldest, he used to do more sleepovers younger, now not so often, more often when they go out and do stuff outside (go to an event, play sports, or we take them somewhere) and then they want to come home, eat (they make their own stuff a lot now), and play games. We know the parents of the friends he goes back and forth with pretty well and we all communicate so it's really just to spend more time doing what they'd probablyl do alone if no one was visiting.

I did a LOT of sleepovers in high school, mainly because my friends and I were spread out so far in our city, and we just enjoyed doing it.  I got to know my friends families, their cultures (I went to high school in New York City, amazing diversity at my school) and also the differences in class (my friends who worked in their families businesses after school so I helped them if I was hanging out, vs the ones who lived in much fancier apartments/houses and had housekeepers/nannies living in and cooking). My parents were very inviting and we had an indoor pool in our apartment building so I was popular as a sleepover destination too.

And - and HELL NO this is not going to be the rule with our kids, but they're not on DCUM & this is anonymous so I'll say it here - when I was 13 and my parents were both traveling for work sometimes, instead of me needing to stay at someone else's house, I was allowed to invite a friend over and we stayed alone in our apartment. Inevitably word would spread among my local friend group that my parents weren't home and there were knocks & doorbell rings for ages, people wanting to come in and "hang out".  And the benefit of being trusted with that kind of responsibility was I took it seriously, I never let others in, there were never any "it wasn't supposed to turn into a party" things, never had to kick anyone out. And I told them it was because I knew them and no way were they coming to hang out and mess up my house!  So that was interesting, but that option will NOT be given to my kids, not even when they're 16. It's too easy for that to get out of control, then and now.[/quote]

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