The Sleepover Manifesto
November 14, 2006 at 16:10 When I posted last Thursday about 9-year-old E-Grrrl spending the night at a friend’s house, I mentioned that this outing was an exception to our “no sleepover” rule. A number of people commented on the rule, and Mignon asked about its origins.
Here are the reasons we’ve always had a “no sleepover” rule.
First, here at Chez V, we believe in the value of sleep for good health. In this regard, we’re in the minority since Americans are renowned for depriving themselves and their kids of rest in order to cram more TV, activities, games, social engagements, and work into each day.
E and I shoot for the recommended 7-8 hours a night for ourselves and 10 hours a night for the kiddos. We wouldn’t deprive the kids of food, why deprive them of sleep? Since very few parents share this value with us, we don’t normally allow the kids to do sleepovers.
Second, there is the safety issue, which is the hardest one to explain to kids and navigate as an adult. I worked with youth in my 20s and 30s and had to attend mandatory training on preventing and recognizing sexual abuse and molestation. I also worked as a reporter for a few years and learned more than I wanted to know about pedophilia and sexual abuse.
Kids are seldom abused by strangers but by people they know and trust: friends of the family, babysitters, neighbors, family members, teachers, coaches, ministers, youth workers, etc. It’s relatively easy to teach your child to beware of strangers. It's much harder to teach them to respect authority figures while letting them know it's OK to set boundaries with adults and challenge anyone who makes them uncomfortable or hurts them.
You don’t want to fill their heads with distrust for the very people that love and care for them in a variety of settings, but you also have to let them know subtly that “good” adults can do bad things and no one, absolutely no one, is allowed to hurt them or teach them to keep “secrets.” A lot of molestation is tied to overnight stays and the access it gives people to children, so we’re cautious about any kind of sleepover.
There are other sticky issues related to playdates or sleepovers at the homes of people you don’t know very well. What’s playing on the TV? Are people smoking in the house? Do the parents get along or do they bicker and fight constantly? Who has access to the kids? Is anyone monitoring what they’re doing on the Internet? Does the dad have porn magazines in the bathroom or sex tapes in the family room? Is anyone drinking or using drugs? (Go ahead and laugh, but unless you’ve spent time in someone else’s home, you really don’t know what they consider OK and what the environment is like. Sometimes I've been surprised by the lifestyles of white-bread suburban folks.)
While we know we can’t (and shouldn't) shelter our kids from every questionable influence, we do try to make sure they’re mature enough to handle what they might encounter away from home. For example, my kids are very easily freaked out by things they see on TV. Stories reported on CNN will make my daughter teary and sleepless; my son hates the action movies other boys his age love. He’s probably the only 11-year-old in his circle who hasn’t seen a Star Wars movie or anything from Lord of the Rings. He doesn’t even like to watch Scooby Doo! It can be really hard to “escape” the TV in other people's homes, and I’m still working on teaching my kids how to politely deal with situations where they're expected to watch something they don't feel comfortable with.
Of course, at this point you’re thinking I’m completely neurotic and overprotective, and maybe I am. There are a lot of people I’d feel comfortable having my children spend the night with, but we don’t allow it because it’s far easier to just have a “no sleepover” policy than to justify your decision-making process with your kids on a case-by-case basis. Who wants to hear, “Why can’t I spend the night at Susie’s house—she’s my friend, just like Molly, and you let me spend the night at Molly’s house!” Of course, you have your reasons, but it’s not always easy or appropriate to share them with the kids.
Finally, I’m a firm believer that spending half a day together is more than enough time for both the parents and the kids. I’m not comfortable always having other people’s kids in my house, and we try to preserve some family time. I’m not one of those “the-more-the-merrier” types--I need my space.
So there you go—the great sleepover manifesto.
How do the rest of you handle sleepovers?
November 14, 2006
Copyright 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved. www.v-grrrl.com
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Reader Comments (15)
I fully understand your concerns and you policy on sleepovers, though. Friends that your kids have are very important. My daughter had a nasty little friend from about the age of 4 to 10 - at which point she had a huge fallout with that kid, and that was for the best, I think. That kid lived in a very problematic household, and the older she got, the worse she was for it. For about one year when she was a freshman in high school, she befriended a girl who was one year older than her and of whom I was always very suspicious. That friendship fell apart when my daughter realized how devious that girl was. I think that it is very tough to control with whom your kids hang out. Frankly, I feel lucky that my daughter never fell under the influence of really bad peers.
I don't have any problem with other kids staying over the night here, but there are very few friends I will allow my kids to stay with.
How do you explain to other parents about your rules, without sounding nutty? I need advice! I have told Wyatt that it is our job to always keep him safe and take care of him, and until I really, really know people, and am super sure he would be safe, we don't do sleep overs or playdates with out me or daddy... he seems to understand that, but the other moms and kids don't! I don't know how to say it right.
:)
I'm not sure I succeed in explaining it without sounding nutty. ; )
I just tell them we don't do sleepovers, that I like to have all my chicks in the nest at night. Most people I've met are fine with that, but maybe they roll their eyes at me behind my back!
Later when I became a parent I have let out a big sigh of relief that the issue of sleep overs never became an issue, because, thankfully, "pyjama parties" are not very big in Greece.
I agree 100% with V-grrrl's concerns and her family's no-sleepover policy. Is there a "Good parenting" magazine or blog out there? I propose you send this in. Great advice for parents.
The D-man(my son) has slept many times out of the proverbial nest. He's camped out with his Scout troop(for a while without me) and bunked on the floor in a sleeping bag at several friend's homes.
We belonged to dinner club/group. One member's home was ground zero for all of our friends to bring their kids. They had four boys, D and two other munchkins made it eight boys and two small girls were in the group too.
The baby-sitter and her two other girlfriends made a financial killing. I still see "Britney" once in a while,now a young woman. She works at a dry-cleaner while going to grad school and she drives a better car than I do. She says she misses the dinner club baby-sitting gig. Wonder why.
She and her girlfriends would get them all asleep by 10:00 PM, sleeping in their bags in their Ninja Turtle PJ's. When our dinner party broke up, sometimes at midnight, it made no sense to wake them up and toss them in the car. They spent the night and we retrieved them in the morning.
The D-man had a good time and he learned about other families. Yes he learned about Frosted Flakes, a food not eaten in our house, but he gained a good understanding of how others live. He also enjoyed the time with his buddies. They are still friends though they live at different ends of the state.
I remember feeling anxious when my son did many of his several "firsts". Still do. I felt awful dropping him off at day care. When he began riding his bike w/ and without training wheels I remember the anxiety of watching how confidently he would ride way ahead of us finding every mud puddle and veering off the path to try riding "off road".
I remember taking him to school and wondering how he was progressing. I've left him at Scout camp. Worse after tearing my Achilles I was not able to hike a planned 50 mile hike. He went anyway.
Wait to you get to the point when they drive. Watching your son drive off to school and football practice in a large SUV will really warm your cockles.
I think practicing independence responsibly is a virtue in children you need to nourish. Children are very resilent. After a "sleep-over" or a Scout camp-out the boy would often take an afternoon nap on Sunday. He would be fine.