We recently relocated to our new home a couple of months ago. Our 9-year old daughter has befriended a boy of the same age. He is her classmate and they go to school together on the bus. He comes over a few times a week and she visits his house regularly as well. They seem to be best friends.
The problem is, they want to have a sleepover at our house. While my wife and I both feel the idea is benign enough at this time, we also feel on some level that it is not something we would want to do on a regular basis, or would necessarily condone in the next year or so.
The difficulty lies in explaining the situation to her. While we don’t want to seem unfair and bring up ideas that aren’t necessarily relevant yet, we don’t want to consent to something now and then later down the road try to explain why he can’t come over any more.
Has anyone dealt with this kind of situation; ie, sleepovers with the opposite sex, well before, but getting within the range of puberty?
It seems Ok to me. Saying no sends a bad message that the sexes aren’t quite equal and must be segregated in some way. That is not to say I would think it is a good idea when she’s older. However, she’s not and you can worry about that later.
I think it will be easier to explain in the future than it would be now. At some point, you’ll have to say “It’s great that you and Zosimus are such good friends, but you’re too old to have sleepovers now.” By the time you ahve to make that speech, she’ll probably have at least some understanding as to why. For now, it’s still OK and there’s no reason to spend a lot of time on how things will be later.
I, being quite the tomboy in my youth, frequently had sleepovers with boys and nothing naughty ever occured. My parents reluctantly put up with this until I was 14, after I had my first period.
I really don’t see an issue with a nine year old myself. If you’re worried they might engage in a little, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” I’d say let it go. If you make a big deal about the whole thing you’ll just confuse them and make them neurotic.
I was still relatively unaffected at 9 years old. The environmental damage and general conversion didn’t take hold until later. I used to take baths with my female friends until I was 6 or so.
Yes, as a matter of fact, I have, although from a different angle. I have an 8-year-old boy and his best friend is MY best friend’s daughter, she’s 9. We have sleepovers all the time. We let them stay up late, eat popcorn, watch movies, giggle, etc. And then when it’s time for bed, our son goes to bed in his room and his friend crashes out on the couch.
I really don’t think you have to worry about anything happening between the two of them, they’re still tiny. They could “play doctor” or “show-me-yours-and-I’ll-show-you-mine” I think that usually happens earlier in life anyway, but it’s not as if you’re letting a creepy 40-year-old spend the night with your little girl.
As far as the worrying you’re doing right now over “what about later” I don’t think you need to. As long as you educate your daughter about her body and how to deal with the changes she’s going to go through and explain to her (in terms that she can understand) why you aren’t comfortable with her guy friends spending the night anymore, I think everything will work itself out just fine.
My oldest daughter recently asked if her male friend could spend the night (she’s 15) and I didn’t have a problem with it, but that’s because he’s gay. If he weren’t, I would probably be more reluctant. At that age though, I don’t see a problem with it at all, as long as they aren’t sharing a bed or anything.
When I was 16, my mother let me spend the night a few times at my boyfriend’s house - and his parents made sure I spent the night in his sister’s room. My mom was strict so I was surprised she was ok with that. I think you really just have to have a sense of who your kids are and who their friends are.
Also, by the time it would be a problem she’s likely to not be into sleepovers anyway. I don’t remember having many overnight guests after the age of 13 or 14.
Well, I used to spend the night at my best friend’s house, who was a boy, all the way up until graduation.
The rules were - we were never allowed to spend the night alone (adults had to always be in the house), and never in the same room. We could stay up late and have fun, but when it was time to go to bed, I went to the guestroom - alone!
For the first little while, his father was always up late - without ever being intrusive, he was monitering us and making sure we obeyed the rules. If it got too late, sometimes he would come down and say, “It’s getting late, kids, I think it’s time for bed.”
It was made very clear that if the rules were ever broken, there would be no more sleepovers, period.
My parents knew and were happy with these rules, and allowed me to go over whenever I was invited.
I was a good kid, myself, and always obeyed, and my friend actually was more of a rule breaker than I was, but we never broke those rules. And nothing ever happened between us. I did kiss him once, but it wasn’t at a sleepover, and we were both adults by then. Make of that what you will, but it was all pretty innocent while growing up.
I think it’s ok, I like the idea of having it as a camp out in the living room.
My sons’ best friends are the two boys in a family of four siblings -the other two are girls. When we have sleepovers I put them all on the floor in sleeping bags in the same room like six sardines. The ages range from 5 to 11 years old, and there has never been any suggestion of anything “naughty” yet.
One funny thing happened a few months ago with another friend who came to stay the night with her two kids, a girl aged 6 and a 4 year old boy, with my two boys who were 5 and 8 at the time. Bath time came around and up till recently we stuffed all the kids in together, but this time my friend and I wondered if this was OK or not, and how to explain it to the kids. We decided to sell it to the girl along the lines of “wouldn’t you like to have a bath all by yourself and we’ll put princess bubbles in it for you” Well it all fell to bits as the boys spotted the bubbles and stripped off and dived in before we could open our mouths. The girl was hopping about tugging her clothes off; my friend and I looked at each other and she said to her daughter, “wouldn’t you rather wait and have a bath by yourself?” She and my 8 year old son just looked at us goggle eyed and said “Why???”
At which point we said, “OK, get in” and left them to it. So even at 8 years old the kids didn’t have any clue as to why they might think of being separated. And neither friend nor I wanted to go into it with them.
HB, I think your approach is spot on, but must quibble with one state-of-mind, psychological detail! I think we can underestimate kids - by age eight even boys, who perhaps develop less quickly than girls, are a bit more savvy about matters pertaining to sex in general and their sexuality in particular than you appear to be crediting them. Surely sexual awareness/understanding/interest etc develops on a cline up to puberty, rather than rocketing (as it were!) out of nowhere at puberty.
Oh yes, my son is very aware and has most of his facts completely screwy. He is also at the “tits and bums” stage of life and I would not want to leave him alone with a little girl in the bath - there would certainly be investigations going on!
But at that point the fun of bubbles (plus I guess two younger boys in the bath too) had driven all thoughts of that out of his mind, and I didn’t want to introduce it.
He does ask a lot of questions and is at the stage where he thinks “pregnant” is one of the rudest things he can say - snerk, snerk!
This stage is at once endearing and tedious, but any sexual awareness he does have is not consistent but fades in and out. I just don’t want to be the one who gives him the idea that bath time with friends or a sleepover COULD have sexual connotations. Time enough for him to work that out by himself at a later date.
My 16 year old’s best friend since she was five years old was a boy. He was about four years older than her and had a pretty bad homelife, so he spent a LOT of time at our house. They had regular sleepovers, first making big piles on the floor in front of the TV, but as they got older when he stayed he slept on the couch. They are still best friends even though he’s lived out of state for several years. Every summer she spends about a month at his home. I trust him though, more than anyone in my own family.
Wow, thanks to all of you for so many replies on this issue. I agree that it’s ok for them to have a sleepover at this age and have come to realize that any possible changes in the future should be dealt with at that time, rather than giving her an incorrect perception about things (that are perfectly ok) now.
It’s good to know there are so many other parents who have contemplated and have successfully dealt with these matters.
We regularly have anywhere from 4-6 extra kids over. Saturday night there were seven children sleeping in our home. Our kids (boy & girl) are both 13, so we definitely had two segregated rooms.
When they were 8 or 9, we would let all of the kids sleep together in one bedroom. After 9, they began the “camp out” method in the living room. At 11 or so, we simply stated that boys went in one room and girls in the other. There was no need to give further explanation, and this was not questioned.
I guess that we are simply sidestepping the issue, but it is so easy to sidestep: just make sure there is a relatively even number of boys and girls so nobody feels left out when you split them up. Most of the know why. Besides, I don’t think I need to explain the facts of life to every kid that comes here; I just need to explain the house rules.
My cousin goes to a small private school and through the years his best friends have been girls. My aunt has let them sleep over and he doesn’t seem any worse for the wear.
Now he’s 13, though, and so are the girls. It seems that by this age he has gone from “these people are my friends” to “these people talk about shopping and hair WAY too much - where are my video games?”
I’m glad there are so many positive replies because my impression of whether this is OK is that it is but I had very little practical experience with the matter.
Some people have pointed out that 9 year olds do think about sex more than we often give them credit for. I would say that young kids do think about sex, but generally not in the same way we as adults do. I am basing this mostly on my reflection on my memories of that time. I certainly didn’t really understand sex and I have the distinct impression of not caring about it like I do now. Nevertheless I had heard of sex and had some ideo of what it entailed.
I’m in my 30s and wondering if you could let me know when, if ever, this stage will end.
Anyway, coed sleepovers werre unheard of in my parents’ house, but when my wife was a teenager she often spent the night at her (male, gay) best friend’s house. I suspect we’ll be fairly lenient with our own children, but still monitor.
