Reasons Why Sleepover With Friends Are Better Than Vacation With Family
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*This commodity represents my own personal opinion and choice to say no sleepovers. Nosotros all accept differing opinions and make different choices when it comes to our kids. Bottom line: we're all doing our best. Respectful, courteous, and constructive comments are welcome.
Last week, I saw my lilliputian boy'southward life flash before my eyes and information technology shook me to the core. We were coming back from the puddle and I had stopped to talk to a neighbor. He was on his trivial bike, waiting patiently for me thirty anxiety ahead at the corner. A three-year-old's patience just extends and so far, and everything that happened next happened in an instant. I was too far away to stop it. Seeing the truck speeding, I saw my piddling boy, inching frontwards, pedals in motion.
I tin only thank some angel that day for diverting what could accept been any parent's absolute worst nightmare from coming true. Picayune buddy pedaled beyond the street simply a split 2d before the truck sped through the end sign. I felt despicable. Rotten. And that nighttime, as I watched him sleeping serenely in his bed, tears poured down my cheeks and I vowed to him and God above that I would keep him safe, no matter what it took.
Terrible, Horrible, No-Adept, Very Bad Parents
We make our children wear bike helmets and life jackets to protect them, but as they abound up, how do nosotros safeguard them from more abstract dangers, like child pornography, sexual abuse, and cyberbullying?
As an eleven-year-old, my parents sat me down with a very serious wait in their eyes. A lilliputian daughter nosotros knew very well had been molested at a sleepover by someone she knew very well. For that reason, my mother and father announced that our family would non be doing sleepovers. Never—nada, zip, aught. To a tween amidst a competitive popularity contest, the world had officially ended. Suddenly, my parents were Terrible, Horrible, No-Adept, Very Bad Parents. How could they ruin me like that?
The battles we fought over the no sleepovers rule were hard and long. I felt they were being prudish and paranoid. Naught like that would ever happen to me. They claimed they did it considering they "loved me so much." To me, they were simply Terrible, Horrible, No-Skillful, Very Bad Parents.
The party that inverse everything
It was the start of 7thursday grade and the coolest girl in school was throwing a back-to-school sleep party. Everyone who was anyone would be there. I begged, I pleaded, and my parents consented to permit me go, but they would pick me upwards at 10:00 pm. "But the party won't exist over!" I cried. "Nothing'due south going to happen, I tin take care of myself. I volition await so impaired existence the start ane that has to go!"
Their respond remained firm: ten o'clock, take it or leave it.
The party was definitely cool, by centre-school standards. There were boys there, cute ones. Brandy'due south mom left and with a wink, told us all to "behave." By 9:45, anybody was playing spin the bottle, and Brandy had brought out her mom's liquor bottles. At this indicate I felt so uncomfortable that everything inside of me screamed, get out of hither!
Never was I so relieved to run across my parents' headlights pull upward to the drive. I waved goodbye to my friends and sprinted out the door. I'd never admit it, but I was kind of grateful for the no sleepovers rule and my Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Parents.
Sleepovers gone incorrect
You just have to open a paper to read the horrible things that can happen at sleepovers. Terminal year, a Nephi, Utah teacher was charged, but plant innocent, of molesting an eleven-yr-erstwhile old pupil who was sleeping over at his house every bit his daughter's friend. The girl claimed he gave her a foreign pill for a headache and she woke up in the night to discover him touching her inappropriately.
In one example, a Sacramento husband, begetter, and elementary school teacher was found guilty of committing lewd acts confronting children while photographing his crimes. The victims were friends of his girl who were sleeping over at his house. He slipped drugs into their drinks and took advantage of them without them knowing. The community was shocked—coming from someone they trusted and admired.
Child pornography is very real. It is out there, and with so many social media avenues to exploit them, children are more vulnerable than always.
In 2012, the community of Star City, West Virginia reeled from the horrifying revelation that two 16-yr-quondam girls had lured their best friend to a remote location and stabbed her to expiry. Equally detailed in the book Pretty Fiddling Killers, this gruesome event was preceded past a sleepover in one of the girl's homes. After the mother cruel comatose, the girls pulled out a canteen of vodka and started drinking. From in that location, things went horribly awry when the girls started undressing, snapping photos of each other, and kissing. A fight occurred and after the sleepover, events escalated from bad, to worse, to murder.
The thing with sleepovers
These are patently farthermost examples of what can happen at sleepovers, simply in that location are other things like cyber bullying, inappropriate movies, video games, jokes, or behavior that you wouldn't normally let in your firm. When kids are away from their parents, they are more probable to experiment with drugs, booze, sexual activity, and plain sometime mischief.
The long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse are hard to shake. Depression, cocky-loathing, and feelings of guilt haunt victims well into their machismo. Kids who take had such encounters don't understand what happened to them. They keep silent; they think information technology is their fault.
I never knew how terrifying being a parent was until I became one. Instead of thoroughly enjoying an amusement park, I retrieve of a million ways my kid can go lost in ane. Every parking lot causes me anxiety. Every stranger eying my child strangely gives me the chills. It only takes once—i distraction, in one case of negligence, or rationalization that "merely this 1 sleepover is okay." Information technology only takes one person that we "trust" to alter things forever.
Fun alternatives to sleepovers
In that location's no denying sleepovers are a fun part of childhood and boyhood. Late nighttime giggling, stories, and harmless pranks are what make sleeping over so much fun. Chances are, about sleepovers are innocent, simply I'm not taking my chances on the one that's not. Hither are a few alternatives that contain all the fun of a sleepover, without the sleeping. {Who remembers the sleeping part anyway?}
- Belatedly night play dates: Simply like a regular play engagement with friends, on this supervised play date, friends come in their jammies, bring junk nutrient, games, and sentinel movies. Parents pick everyone upward effectually ten:00 or a designated time.
- Tardily-overs– Let older kids have their fun, supervised by an adult, then parents pick up at a designated time.
- Night games- Being out afterward nighttime is totally cool and fun. Host a supervised night games political party where older kids and teens play popular games like glow in the dark baseball, sardines (a version of hibernate-and-seek), ghost in the graveyard, etc.
- Breakfast bash: Friends come in their jammies, ready for a crepes, pancakes, or a yogurt bar.
******
My No Sleepovers Rule
For me, sleepovers but aren't worth information technology. Similar that truck speeding toward my fiddling boy when I was too far away to assist, when my child sleeps over at another's business firm I lose control of the situation and of their safe. I literally put their life into someone else'southward easily. That is a take a chance I'm not willing to accept. Never—nada, nada, goose egg.
That speeding truck was a wake-up call that I accept a profound, intrinsic, larger-than-life responsibility to keep my children safety, in all aspects. I don't heed being the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Parent who says no sleepovers. I tin can be the hateful mom if that keeps my kids safe. One day, they'll understand.
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Source: https://howdoesshe.com/no-sleepovers/
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