We don't allow sleepovers, even for long-term friends. Has been very helpful avoiding the need for judgment calls. Now that dd is teenager, we barely know the other families and drugs and heavy drinking are rampant in our school. I'm glad there is no expectation that they will sleep over at friends'.

Anonymous wrote:A few people in this thread had mentioned having bad vibes before. Can you guys give me an example of what made you decide that particular family/parent was unsafe?

I’ll give you one. Not a sleepover but a play date. The host had a adult male family member who was mentally ill and lived with them. He wandered in their house and talked to himself. I realize that only at pick up. The moral of the story is that even if you know the parents, you don’t know all of their friends and family. You can’t ever be too careful. Now I do sleepovers and play dates with only a handful of very close friends.

Immigrant parents who never allowed us to sleepover unless related or family was in our same cultural/religious community who parents knew.
I remember sneaking out after Prom- wasn't interested in prom- to friend's after party sleepover at her house. Her mom was there and just about 8 of us, watching movies in living room. Literally no alcohol/drugs/sex but when I came home the next day...parents didn't talk to me for a week.

I won't pull the same silent treatment bus but being an adult in my 30s now, I definitely understand the worry and fear. Will allow sleepovers when kids are older but not if I didn't meet parents prior to.

Haven't met parents and also have never even talked to them? I would definitely get acquainted by phone first (not text) (although 2 moms of DS's friends I thought sounded pleasingly sane turned out to be REALLY bad and irresponsible parents. If you invited the friends to your house first that would give you some inkling of the parents (like, normal parents would also want to scope you out).

As for kids being nonfunctional for 2 days--how about parents? I stayed awake as long as I could when my ds had them.