“Mom, my friends were wondering if we could sleep at their home.” We didn’t know this family very well, so I was a little surprised by this question. I didn’t realize that my kids were old enough to start sleeping out.
Of course I grew up going out to sleepovers, and so did my husband. Each of us has a variety of experiences. It just happened to be a bad thing. I was exposed to things that were not worthy of my age. It was in a situation that was uncomfortable for me. I was bullied late at night while my parents were asleep. We saw a movie that I definitely shouldn’t have seen at that early age. It was argued that I would never have known, but when my parents are asleep and don’t pay attention when the darkness comes out, there’s something about that time after 10pm.
My husband has fun and positive memories of watching funny movies, playing video games, sharing jokes, playing pranks with each other, and becoming innocently stupid. I had some of those memories too. We wake up late and laugh until my side hurts, dance to our favorite songs, put on each other’s hair and make-up. Some of our number one childhood memories come from sleepovers, but we live in other times too.
It’s not the 90s anymore
We live in the age of internet and are ready to get porn. We live in the age of social media. There, millions of people can consume and comment on innocent photos and videos taken by children. And it’s very difficult to know where other families stand on these issues. Can children access the internet? Do they have social media accounts? Do they have their own mobile phones? Do they record and post things online? Are they scrolling and looking at what’s not being monitored?
And there is the issue of physical safety. It’s awkward situation to ask parents if their parents have guns in their homes and whether they’re properly stored. Are there any alcohol available? Are children constantly supervised or are they allowed to wake up much later than their parents? There are many questions.
We decided to only allow vacations with families we have known for quite some time. Of course, other children and family members asked, and I had to turn them down. But as the issues continued to arise, we had to be really open to our kids about our standards and decide what the rules regarding sleepover were.
Set boundaries
Currently, they are only permitted in very small and selected groups of families. My husband and I have known our parents for decades and we are very pleased with the rules they have and the level of supervision in their home. But what happens when our children get older? Do we broaden our scope and allow them to be with people who know shorter or barely know the time we know?
Choose your friends often
There are some concerns regarding sleepovers. What do children feel like? Are these kids having a positive effect? Do they make a good choice? Will they be kind to our children or will they take the opportunity to bully them? This was more of a problem for my girl. It appears that the girls decided to struggle with each other at a young age. There are often catty and petite girls during play dates. Those girls are not the kind of people I want to sleep over to my girls. It seems to be a disaster recipe.
Parental supervision
Another problem is when parents go to sleep. Do they allow children to stay up as long as they want without supervision? My kids were once invited to sleep in one house and parents ultimately stated they had to sleep at 1am, so they put themselves in bed while the kids stayed in the living room. This is not something we feel comfortable with at all. We want our children to sleep in front of our parents, at least at our current age.
The age of the internet
I’m also worried about internet access. Are their computers in the bedroom? Are children allowed to be closed doors, closed doors, or otherwise not monitored? Do they have a mobile phone that can be used without supervision? With the surge in porn and other online evils, we just want our kids not to be at risk online at our friends’ homes.
Home safety
It can be difficult to raise a gun topic with another family, but this is especially important, especially if the kids are not monitored in any way. Do you have a gun in your home? Are they still locked up? Is your child accessible or is it possible to access an unsupervised gun? The possibility that children could pull out their guns and show off, causing a horrible accident is too realistic. We want to make sure that children will have zero chances to see guns at friends’ homes.
Character count
Beyond that, we need to feel satisfied with the personalities of our parents and other children in our home. How do they treat our children? How sure are there no abuse of any kind in your home? It takes quite a while to find out someone’s character. This is a really sticking point for us when it comes to sleepovers. It takes a long time to be sure someone is safe for things like sleepovers.
Slow options
As it stands, we don’t know that we will expand our “safe” families far beyond what we already trust in our children. Our family and two family friends. that’s it. Luckily, some families nearby started “late over.” My daughter was invited to one last year. All the kids watched the movie and played the game until around 9:30/10, but they all went home. The children were under supervision for the whole time, so their parents were allowed to stay if they wanted. It was a great opportunity to do something fun late at night and feel very grown without having to navigate the actual sleepover.
Photo Credit: ©GetTyimages/BlackCat
