Is there an age limit for boy-girl sleepovers?

[pinball]

Wondering bc of the other thread.

[Starr]

Some parents have them, others do not in my experience. When I was a teen the boys came over after my friends parents went to bed 

[pinball]

Just now, Starr said:

Some parents have them, others do not in my experience. When I was a teen the boys came over after my friends parents went to bed 

What are you talking about?

[bolt.]

To me, there's a difference between boy-girl sleepovers where all the kids spend time together and sleep in the same room; vs boys or girls sleeping separately after having an event together; vs boys and girls from different families sleeping in the same home, with separation, without really any intent to 'sleep over' as any kind of event.

I don't think boy-girl sleepovers where all the kids are equally involved in it as an all-genders social event, and where they all sleep in the same room are ever a great idea -- except perhaps for those very young ages of babies and toddlers. To me, that's just not a great precedent, and also, you never know what things curious little kids are going to get up to -- even before puberty.

I'm okay with *highly supervised* boy-girl sleepovers in which separate sleeping rooms are arranged and enforced -- perhaps by the mom sleeping in the same room as the girls, or other types of active interference being run. I think that's a good procedure for kids, and I would also (while I'm not enthusiastic about it) permit it for teens. The closer friends the teens are, the more supervision I feel they would need. A dating couple, for example, would need a lot of active supervision and separation in my opinion.

I also think that other forms of staying over, where boys and girls are proximate need some level of supervision. For example, we have family friends with two boys who have always hung out with our two girls (later, one girl, one non-binary) when we stayed at their house for overnight trips. This never felt like a 'sleepover' for the kids' sake, but it did require shifting levels of supervision and separation as the kids went through various stages. (Now the teenage boys sleep in the upstairs living room, and the teenage girls/nb sleep in the boys' usual bedroom, with a closed door and a set of stairs between them.) It's not active surveillance, but it is intentional separation for bedtime -- ie not a sleepover.

It's similar if girl guests are staying in a home with men or teenage boys, but the girls are sleeping over with sisters/daughters (not there with the intent to socialize with the boys). I expect the host female adult to keep an eye on things, but I don't freak out. I'm most concerned about teen and adult males with looser ties, such as step-dads, step-brothers, uncles, boyfriends, etc. than I am about a long-term married couple or a full biological teen sibling. (But I am concerned, to some degree, about all of those men and young men.)

Camping is a unique situation, where I could see kids of all genders sharing a sleeping space, but also sharing it with a married couple or an adult female, in such tight quarters that shenanigans would be difficult to get away with. If sleeping space was apart from the parent(s) I'd want it divided by gender/sex.

Edited May 16, 2023 by bolt.

[SKL]

In the same room, I wouldn't allow it past maybe 7yo, unless a responsible supervisor was in the same room.  In the same house but different rooms, if I trusted the kids to stay in their own rooms / areas all night, that would be fine.

No, not every teen is predator, but kids together get dumb ideas ... and execute them.

I have a close person who was accused of raping a girl at a sleepover.  The girl eventually recanted after it was revealed that the boy was gay and didn't accept the girl's advances.  No thank you to that whole scenario.

I always considered myself a "free-range mom," but I gotta say, raising teen girls is terrifying.  If you disagree, you haven't had teen daughters or you've forgotten what it's like.  😛

Edited May 16, 2023 by SKL

[rebcoola]

We are a seperate rooms sleepover house.  Of course when 1 of your kids is trans and the other is Pan it doesnt matter what gender you invite over.  I  don't love sleepovers because of all the potential pitfalls.  So its a few very trusted friends who sleepover in our movie room which is on a separate floor from bedrooms. 

[Farrar]

nt

Edited May 17, 2023 by Farrar

[Clarita]

As a mom of a boy and a girl, never. My kids aren't over the age of 10. At best I see is my daughter or son having a sleepover and I sequester the sibling in their own room while the other use the family room or play room for night time activities. Likely though I might send the sibling over to grandma and grandpa's house. 

No one wants to host a sleepover (w/o other parents) of kids below the age of 6. I mean who wants to try and put someone else's 4 year old to bed, my own 4 year old is enough of a handful. 

If the friend's parents are also over then to me that would be a different story and we would discuss how we would arrange kid/parent sleeping arrangements. 

I totally recognize these are just my guidelines based on my own life experiences, which may not be statistically correct, but nevertheless hard to ignore. 

[Alice]

17 minutes ago, Farrar said:

I missed the other thread, but we are fine with them at any age as long as everyone else is fine with them and comfortable. That's the other parents, the kids in question, etc. We have enough space for separate sleeping spots and rooms. My kids only occasionally had mixed gender groups over once they were teens, but they did each attend mixed gender sleepovers a few times.

I grew up going to big, massive, mixed gender sleepovers as a teen. We'd watch movies all night, eat and cook silly foods, and crash out in the living rooms and dens and so forth. I have a blase attitude about it. I'm bi so if sexuality was going to be the determinant for me as a kid, then I wouldn't have been able to sleepover with anyone, lol. I raised my kids with a similar expectation.

I had to rethink my own presumptions last summer when my son really wanted to do a mixed gender sleepover with friends. I was kind of wary and he pointed out that the assumptions are usually that there is going to be something sexual going on between girls-boys but that if any of them are/were anything other than straight that wouldn't be the issue. His best friend is a girl and he also found it really sad that there was a different standard for them than for a girl-girl friendship. I thought about it and told him he was right. (He also pointed out that if the purpose was to have sex they could just go do that somewhere and not ask to have a sleepover. Which was also true). We decided we were ok with it but only if all the other parents were. In the end they did have a small sleepover, it was at someone else's house and the Mom was more wary of the idea than me. 

My oldest went to college this year and his group of friends had many "sleepovers", starting from the very first week. And yes, I'm not naive and I know college student "sleepovers" can be very different. But the ones he's told us about sound exactly like what Farrar describe, they watch several movies and eat junk food and hang out in one person's room until they all fall asleep. Then he usually makes them all breakfast. 

[Grace Hopper]

We didn’t really allow “fun” sleepovers ever, just had visiting cousins stay over or us with them, otherwise a no-sleepover family. 

But when my kids hit college, they had all sorts of friends stay over. Sometimes it was all guys, mostly it’s all girls. And we have lots of bedrooms and different areas of the house where genders can be well spaced. I have an open door policy for these young adults but all of them know us well enough to know there’s not to be any cohabitation. We’ve never had an issue with any of them respecting boundaries. 
 

So it’s probably not the sort of answer you were looking for, it just makes me chuckle to think we kinda did things in reverse (with safe and healthy outcome).

[pinball]

44 minutes ago, Farrar said:

I'm bi

Everyone bi person on here is a married middle class white woman with kid(s).

i wonder how statistically significant that is

 

[Wheres Toto]

My oldest used to attend mixed gender sleepovers in high school.  Usually they were after a party or a dance or some event and everyone would just crash in one place so nobody (or nobody's parents) would have to drive late at night.    It was a large group of friends where none of them were romantically interested in each other.   

I've hosted mixed gender sleepovers at the science center I run for my younger kids.     My dd (gay), her best friend (male, gay), a new but good friend (non-binary), and occasionally ds (non-binary but doesn't mind being called he).    Among their friends there is a lot of trans, non-binary, and gay or bi teens.   Now, the center is more like a camp-out with everyone in one room, sleeping on the floor, in a room with no door, security cameras and a giant picture window looking out on a commercial area.   So, not exactly conducive to intimacy.   I sleep in the main room in front of the door so nobody is sneaking out at night.  

[EKS]

I had a close male friend growing up.  We stopped doing sleepovers around age 12, I think, but that was more because we had started growing apart at that point than there being an issue with sleeping over.  In fact, supposedly kids who grow up together tend to have little sexual interest in one another when they are teens and adults.  I know this ended up being true for us.

[freesia]

Ok, I’m just remembering my last mixed gender sleepover with my best boy friend who moved to Africa when I was 10.  He absolutely kissed me goodbye during that sleep over. It was quite chaste—but it happened. I’m not traumatized by it. But, yeah, 10. 

[Shelydon]

10-11 here. 

[ArteHaus]

We don’t have an age limit because we don’t allow sleepovers…ever. Why should sleepovers even be a thing?

I can’t find a good reason to have them. 

Besides, I don’t believe that *most* children are “predators”. I think children are curious and that can cause issues (girls and boys have potential to encourage undesirable behavior, and I am as leery of young girls as a parent to a daughter would be of boys, that’s natural.). I am more concerned with the parents more than the children anyway. 

I am not sure this was ever a good practice, or how this solidifies friendships or “helps” children socially. As a 90’s kid, we had so many sleepovers, and even the “good” kids got into shenanigans. Like, prank calling the police…not a good idea:) So, not every outcome is sexual.

FWIW, boys and girls are made to “like” each other and procreate. I don’t think this is missed on kids. They get it, so certain things are inevitable. Kudos to the parents that have a hell-no approach to putting the two together. It doesn’t even make sense. Absolutely nothing wrong with boy-girl friendships, but a sleepover…forget about it.

 

[Clarita]

1 hour ago, Clarita said:

I totally recognize these are just my guidelines based on my own life experiences, which may not be statistically correct, but nevertheless hard to ignore. 

I also want to say that this fear is not actually based on thinking children in general or even that some children are "predators". The bad things that happen are often reenacting something that young children have seen intentionally or unintentionally (bad things going on in their environment, screen time, etc.). They may not be aware of what they are actually doing and/or sexual attraction. It's just in my experience male/female interactions were more traumatizing than female/female. 

[KungFuPanda]

1 hour ago, pinball said:

Everyone bi person on here is a married middle class white woman with kid(s).

i wonder how statistically significant that is

 

People without kids don’t usually post here, so I’m guessing the numbers are higher out in the wild.  In places where it’s dangerous to come out you’re less likely to know the truth about everyone around you. It would be easy to think something you don’t see doesn’t exist. 

[Heartstrings]

1 hour ago, pinball said:

Everyone bi person on here is a married middle class white woman with kid(s).

i wonder how statistically significant that is

 

I think the boards themselves skew to married (or formerly married), white, middle class and female, as do most homeschooling spaces so I’m not sure you can draw many conclusions.  We aren’t a very representative population.  

[katilac]

On 5/16/2023 at 12:38 PM, pinball said:

What are you talking about?

That boys came to her friend's house after her parents went to bed. 

[Melissa Louise]

On 5/17/2023 at 6:34 AM, pinball said:

Everyone bi person on here is a married middle class white woman with kid(s).

i wonder how statistically significant that is

 

I have zero patience for bi women with straight passing privilege thinking they have some sort of authority around any of this.

Technically, I could describe myself as bi (sort of goes along with the white, educated, female bit - plus the sexual/romantic attraction to women!) but I don't, because my 90% of my entire adult life has been straight passing.

Anyway....

~

Sleepovers - I was a sleepover-OK mum, and hosted a lot.

All of my kids had opposite sex best friends.

Those sleep-overs seemed to die out around age 10. Mixture of reasons, but mostly mother-related. Mothers of girls thought it wasn't appropriate for them to sleep over with a boy, which is totally fair and understandable. Mothers of boys thought...idk what they thought! That it wasn't appropriate, I guess. I think the thinking is that sexual experimentation might take place, and that opposite sex sexual experimentation has consequences that differ from same sex. Which it does. So I totally understood and it was never a fuss, sleepovers just stopped being a thing, and the kids did other fun stuff.

~

Opposite sex sleepovers only recurred in  my house when ds was 17 and his girlfriend moved in with us.

 

Edited May 19, 2023 by Melissa Louise