A Mom Explains Why She Won’t Allow Her Child to Have Sleepovers – Do You Agree?

Every kid eventually gets invited to one. The sleepover. Spending the night at a friends house with a whole bunch of other kids sounds like a blast right? One mom had to disappoint her child by denying her the sleepover and she explained why.

Janel Mills wrote a blog post on Scary Mommy that explained why she does not allow her children to have sleepovers.

...we generally do not let our girls attend sleepovers.

When I say “generally,” this is what I mean: We do allow sleepovers with very specific people. We have a small circle of trusted family and friends who have allowed our girls to sleep at their houses overnight. These are people who we know extremely well, and they have proven to us over the years that they are trustworthy when it comes to caring for our girls. So, in this spirit, our girls are allowed to spend the night at their grandparents’ houses.

That’s it.

That got me to wondering. When is the right time to allow a child to have a sleepover?

My son was invited to his first sleepover at 8-years-old and was allowed to go. Granted, we knew the parents well enough. The father was his baseball coach so we saw no problems with that.

Would my son be allowed to stay at a complete strangers house overnight. Probably not, but it's a call I'd make by getting to know the parents to make sure my son would be well cared for. If he really wanted to go, I'd do everything I could to make it happen and make sure he is safe.

Also, here in Maine, I feel like we know our neighbors a lot better than other places. Between school, sporting events and events around town, you get to know you're community pretty well. The smaller your town, the more people you know.

We all have different parenting styles and I wouldn't judge anyone by their choices on this issue, but it does make for an interesting discussion.

How have you handled sleepover invitations? Are there only certain people you would allow your child to stay with? Do you think this woman's rule was too strict?  Let us know what you would do when your child comes home with an invite for a sleepover in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter.