Reply to Do you 3rd graders do lots of sleepovers?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]None. No way to ensure they are safe. [/quote]

What are you doing to ensure they're safe at school? I used to work in a school district. They fingerprinted me and ran the prints for that state only. If I'd abused kids in another state (and only if I'd been caught and arrested for it), that wouldn't show up. I can't tell you how many times I was in an art supply closet or an empty classroom and a kid would come in to talk with me. Just the two of us. I coached gymnastics and no background check was done on me at all. I was a camp counselor and no background check was done on me. I've been alone with kids in all these places. So how are you ensuring your kids are safe everywhere they go without you? [/quote]

DP but it's an unnecessary risk. There's no upside and only downside. We don't do gymnastics either. I don't need to serve my kid on a platter to predators.[/quote]

The upside is tons of fun, it's deepening friendships, it's learning how different households do things differently (one family always has pancakes on Saturday while yours always has cereal on Saturday), etc. Tons of upsides. My point wasn't specific to gymnastics - it was to make the point that there's not much background checking on coaches in general. My friend's ex-husband was big into coaching baseball or Little League or something. He was a lawyer, grew up in the community, very well respected. Spent years beating the crap out of my friend though. You don't know people as well as you think you do. You're better off teaching your child how to set boundaries and how to talk to you when they're uncomfortable. [/quote]

Not PP and I don't have a blanket rule against sleepovers, but I don't think they are automatically as beneficial as you say. Some kids don't have fun. Sometimes sleepovers result in exclusion or teasing. Sometimes what you learn is that other households are dysfunctional or that other families have weird boundaries.

To me, this doesn't mean "no sleepovers." It means that a 7/8 year old should only go to a house where I feel very confident what the environment is going to be like. I think what you are expecting out of kids this age is more what I would expect from a 13 or 14 year old. As for coaching, my kids don't do any activities at this age that would put them alone with an adult who I had not personally vetted. No way is my 8 year old in any situation at a gymnastics gym where she's on her own with a coach -- I'm not an idiot. I attend all practices and meets and can see my kid the whole time. Same with Little League or any other sport. Older kids would go to stuff on their own but (1) like I said, an older kid would have more skills to deal with it, and (2) I'm vetting the heck out of activities and I don't send my kid to stuff where no one gets a background check, that's frankly weird.[/quote]

Both strategies should be used.  You can be cautious about where you send your kid to sleepover and what activities they do, and also teach your kids about the dangers of abuse in an age appropriate way, and particularly what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate touch.[/quote]

+1
This is what most normal families do.

That said I hosted one of my daughter’s friends at our club where they went swimming and the girl was uncomfortable changing in the swim change area because there was only a curtain around stalls in the women’s locker room.  I just took her to the family change area where she had a room to herself and I stood outside.  Her family must have been more cautious than ours and I respected her boundaries and tried to make her comfortable.[/quote]

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