How to suss if a family is safe for a sleepover? (And introducing the sleepunder)
Modern Parents are more sceptical of sleepovers but the kids seem just as keen making hard to strike a balance between adventure and safety.
While there is no definitive data on the popularity of sleepovers, parenting experts say as the awareness of sexual harm to children grows, sleepovers are less common than they were in the free-wheeling decades of the 1980s and 1990s.
We know now that the perpetrators of child abuse in 90 percent of cases are known to the victim. A vast majority of incidents occur not in a park, a church or at a school camp, but in a residence such as the family home or the home of someone else, according to sex therapist and parenting educator Jo Robertson. In England and Wales, a child is now more likely to be abused by another minor - a sibling, a cousin, the sibling of a friend, etc - than an adult and it is more likely to be a boy assaulting a girl.
How Robertson navigates with her own kids is one of the questions she gets asked the most.
Sex and relationship therapist, and Married At First Sight relationship expert, Jo Robertson.
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“I think that speaks to the tension that parents feel about it.”
“...they’re increasingly aware of harm to children and then desperately wanting to do the right thing while being practical.”
The idea of the sleepover seems to be maintaining its popularity for kids, says Taranaki-based parenting coach Caitlin Hocken.
“I think it's, it's going to always be an exciting sort of milestone for kids but definitely parents are becoming more cautious, which I think is a really, really good thing.”
But parents don’t have to ban sleepovers to keep their kids safe. Here’s how to suss out if a family is a good fit to have your kid for a sleepover:
Can you have an open conversation with the family?
“I think it is important to have conversations with the family even though it can be hard,” says Hocken.
“Just who is going to be supervising? What are the sleeping arrangements going to be? Who else is going to be in the home? Because sometimes there are extra people that are going to be in the home that you don't know.”
If the other host family is dismissive of those conversations or why you might be asking questions, that’s a red flag for Heather Dodge from Kaleidoscope Solutions, an in-school resilience program provider.
“If they're unclear about who will be home, sleeping arrangements or what activities are planned, that's a real red flag in my opinion.”
What about media and devices?
Families can differ widely for boundaries around devices, media content and alcohol.
When Robertson did allow her 10-year-old son to have a sleepover, it was with a close family friend. That family shared her strict views on no devices for her kids.
Hocken uses Common Sense Media, an age-based media website, rather than going by government rating suggestions to see if a show or movie might work for her kids.
“Different kids are more sensitive to things and that’s ok.”
How well do you know the family?
“I think the critical piece for me in all of this is you need a long period of time before you really know if your child is in a really, really safe space at someone else’s house,” says Robertson.
“So that’s not something you’re going to figure out in two playdates.”
She had known the family where her son had his first sleep since before he was born. Another measure she has is if a toileting accident happened, would she and her child feel okay if that other parent had to clean up Robertson’s child?
“Because that's going to be a really intimate kind of experience, and I want to feel confident in those people.”
For Hocken, she had known the family her child first had a sleepover at for more than a year.
“It's just a case-by-case.”
Don’t rush it
“It can be either really exciting or really scary for some kids depending on how the kids navigate their worries and I think it's a great thing,” says Dodge.
“In one respect, it helps them understand how to navigate new environments, communicate their needs and feel proud of doing something a little bit outside their comfort zone and of course, gaining that extra independence.”
“But not every child is ready at the same time, and, and I think one thing that I have to say about this is do not rush this at all.”
Have you tried a sleepunder?
If your kid - or you - are not ready for a sleepover, the sleepunder is an alternative especially when there is a birthday party. A sleepunder is when you pick your child up just before all the other kids go to sleep, say 9 or 10pm. They get all the fun of a sleepover while still sleeping in their own bed.
Dodge has heard from numerous parents who had to do a midnight pickup because their child wasn’t settling or was too upset to go to sleep.
“I think it's really good to intercept that happening.”
Robertson has done the sleepunder for her child, picking him up from a birthdays slumber party at 9pm. She dropped him back at 7am for the pancake breakfast.
“I think what's really great is if you can build a few allies, so he wasn't the only one being picked up because there was another family who were doing the same thing.”
