<p>“If she was under 18 and it was my D, I would say “no way.” At 18 however, I would just make sure she has adequate knowledge about drinking and driving, drugs, and birth control.”</p>
<p>I agree. She’ll be in college shortly, so this is a good time to help her learn how to do things like this as safely as possible.</p>
<p>Happily several of the girls in DS’s group have very strict parents and no way would they agree to something like that (keeping me from having to be the mean one).</p>
<p>I SO agree on the not “necessary” part…why do the host parents agree to something like that? Trying to be “fun parents” I guess.</p>
<p>SO agree on the not “necessary” part…why do the host parents agree to something like that? Trying to be “fun parents” I guess.</p>
<p>I agree that some people are not comfortable with sleepovers- my niece for example, had never stayed at anyones home who was not family until she went off to college.
My kids by contrast had lots of overnights with friends, both hosting and guesting and I think they enjoyed getting to know their friends families, as I enjoyed getting to know the kids a bit better.
( plus I also enjoyed longer visits without so much driving and picking up)</p>
<p>The not needed part- I think just goes with what you are comfortable with- however, to decide that your adult children, who are headed to college in a couple months, " don’t need" to have an overnight- is kind of silly. Do you decide for other adults in your household what they " need" or do not “need”?</p>
<p>When my D was 18( just a couple years ago) I would have been thrilled if she had settled for a co-ed overnight as the height of adventure.</p>
<p>Instead she was planning a trip to volunteer abroad- she wanted my help, but I was in denial that she was going 8,000 miles away.
She made her plans & booked everything any way- she worked two jobs to pay for it & was on the plane 7 mo after high school graduation.</p>
<p>I really don’t know anyone who makes parenting decisions on how they will be perceived by their kids or their peers, but by their childs responsibility and maturity level.</p>
<p>Many of the wildest girls I knew in college had the strictest parents in high school. I look at it as if you are treated as if you can’t be trusted without doing anything wrong then why should you even even try to be trustworthy.</p>
<p>No, not trying to be “fun parents”. More a combination of “why not?” – I trusted my kids and knew their friends pretty well, so I wasn’t actually worried about what would happen – and there being a pretty good, obvious reason to do it. A “pretty good, obvious reason”, insofar as I remember, meant things like (a) they were all hanging out together, it was late, they were still doing something like playing a game or watching a movie, and no one wanted to leave, keep his or her parents up, or make them (or us) drive meaningful distances later at night, or (b) they were all going to some Magic, The Gathering tournament together at 7 the next morning, and some of them lived far enough away that they would have had to get up really early to join the others, plus they wanted to practice beforehand, or (c) they had planned a marathon of 3-4 thematically connected movies which would take until 4:00 am to watch (and all of which were NEVER watched before everyone fell asleep). We always told the boys to sleep in one room, the girls in another, and sometimes it happened that way, but lots of the time they just fell asleep wherever they happened to be. You could tell.</p>
<p>Personally, I liked it a lot when my kids had sleepovers, because I got to know their friends a lot better giving them breakfast, a time when they didn’t mind having conversations with adults, and the parents were usually willing to hang out and chat when they came to pick kids up, too, so it was really a nice way to get to know everyone.</p>
<p>Appreciate all the opinions. Thanks!</p>