Yup, you read that correctly, my daughter will not be attending your child’s sleep overs (nothing personal, I promise!). Kindergarten is right around the corner and we are so so excited. She is really starting to flourish and beginning to build life long friendships. Just like with preschool, I know that we will soon be getting invitations to all her new friend’s birthday parties. Inevitably some of these will include sleep overs in the future. I am all about birthday parties and my daughter having a great time celebrating with her friends. I will try my best to make sure she gets to go to these (even though I swear we can have 17 parties in one weekend, haha). But where I draw the line is at a sleep over.
Call me crazy, over protective, a helicopter parent or anything else; but my daughter will not be attending slumber parties. I used to work for Child Protective Services and have seen so many cases of children being abused with people that they were supposed to trust. I also grew up in a household where my mom would never let me sleep over at a friend’s house….ever. She would always tell me “una niña siempre duerme en su casa” (a young lady always sleeps at home). Now obviously I am not saying that children do not get abused at home, but I have way more control over keeping my daughter safe at home and it would be harder to do that at someone else’s house. Granted sleep overs are fun, and I am sure pretty safe most of the time. I just can’t control who comes in contact with my daughter. What if a neighbor, friend, family member, etc comes to this home and has access to my child? No thank you. What if my child has a nightmare, has to pee in the middle of the night and is uncomfortable walking around in the dark trying to find the bathroom? What if she gets cold or misses her mommy and daddy but does not want to speak up because she is out of her comfort zone?
I will also mention that my daughter does has regular sleep overs at grandmas’s house and will have them with my nieces at my brother’s house, which I am totally OK with. I will also be totally fine with hosting sleep overs at our house for her and her friends. That way, she can still have fun and I know that she is safe in her own home. She also has a built in BFF (her sister) that she can have fun slumber parties with all the time as well.
We also love to travel with our girls, so they will have those fun sleep overs at hotels, vacation homes, etc, but they will be with us.
Bottom line is, as a parent we get to make our own decisions on how we want to raise our children. You don’t have to agree with my choices but you do have to respect them. Their safety is my priority and they can still have so much fun with their friends without having to sleep over. I have spoken with many friends who take the same stance, so I know I can’t be alone in this. What are your opinions on sleep overs? Feel free to comment and share!