<p>Im sure many have faced the pressure to host or have a child attend a coed sleepover in high school. How do you deal with that, especially with seniors? Weve made a practice of immediately saying no but as seniors, in less than a year they will be on their own anyway. Senior child is pushing hard for one after a dance/party and we find ourselves weakening. Are we crazy?</p>
<p>We have hosted many sleepovers for our D and our S. For D’s sleepovers, the boys all left at around 1:00 a.m., and similarly for S’s sleepovers, the girls all left a little after midnight. We did not supervise, nor ask them to leave, it was not even discussed. I don’t think either of my kids would have even dreamed of a co-ed sleepover.
They have never been to a sleepover either, where kids of the other sex did not leave.</p>
<p>I would imagine, though, that most kids would not sleep at all, but just slop around on the couches, watching T.V., talking and eating. But I have heard of a few stories from other parents, and I just shake my head in wonder.</p>
<p>I didn’t like the idea either, but both my Ds have stayed at girls houses and guys have also stayed over…and in my house, nunerous times, guys have crashed on my sofa…it was no big deal at all…if they are gonna mess around, they don’t need a “sleepover” to do it</p>
<p>I would come downstairs and there would be two girls on the sofa, 4 guys on the floor, one guy actually slept on the dog bed…it was soft…</p>
<p>They know that I will come down anytime, and chat etc… The parents need to be there, but seriouslly, it was no big deal</p>
<p>Rule was boys stayed in the living room and kitchen…and if in a bedroom, had to be at least 3 people in there at all times</p>
<p>I never had any issues…I think it was because my house was the go-to house and they didn’t want to lose that privelage</p>
<p>We were not into coed sleepovers in HS. I also don’t go by the “they’ll be in college soon and can do what they want next year anyway” philosophy. Let them do it in college, no problem. But that doesn’t mean to “get ready”, that they have the same leeway in HS. For instance, my kids can drink in college and I don’t have a problem with it but they could not in HS and were never at unsupervised homes and such. </p>
<p>Back to coed sleepovers. Once, my D’s cast was having the cast party after the show and it was going to be a sleepover out of necessity given the hour and that kids at our HS come from six towns and can conceivably live as many as 17 miles from one another. However, we don’t allow our kids to do coed sleepovers in HS. But what we did and we were NOT the only ones who had a concern at this idea, was to talk to the parents hosting the cast party (whom we knew) and they ALSO were strict about this and said that they would be supervising the entire time and stay up and when the kids went to sleep, the girls would be on one floor and the boys on another and they’d be enforcing it. We did allow our D to go given the attitude and supervision by that parent. Generally, I don’t recall hardly any coed sleepovers. She may have gone to a couple but again, we checked with the parents first. We did not host any.</p>
<p>We didn’t allow them, didn’t allow D to go to them in H.S. If she was going to be out past curfew (since she had a Jr. driver’s license until she turned 18), we came and picked her and her car up at the party.</p>
<p>My d had a very close group of friends who we knew well. We hosted all of them (boys and girls) for several sleep-overs surrounding events that, by nature, lasted well into the wee hours (so our thinking was it would be safer for them to just stay here rather than drive) such as prom, homecoming and New Years Eve.</p>
<p>Here is what we did:</p>
<p>Write to all parents concerned before hand;</p>
<p>Hosted parents here for pictures and then for a potluck dinner after the kids left for the prom or homecoming; The parents were also invited for New Years;</p>
<p>The kids’ party was set up in our finished basement; I went down often to replinish food and to just be a presence;</p>
<p>The kids all knew that there was a designated time (2:00 am) after which the girls went up to the second floor to sleep in the bedrooms up there (our bedroom is on the first floor, between the basement and second floor);</p>
<p>I made a big breakfast in the morning…</p>
<p>We never had problems with this…the kids did sleep, some (well most did…some times the guys stayed up all night which was okay as long as they were quiet) and I know the kids enjoyed it. </p>
<p>It can be done, but only if you know the kids involved very well!</p>
<p>“the girls would be on one floor and the boys on another”</p>
<p>I’m not sure how I understand how this helps. Is it meant to prevent the kids from having sex? It’s hard for me to believe that two kids would go at it in front of all their friends in a big shared room. And if they’re sneaking into the bathroom or whatever, they can sneak just as well from two different floors.</p>
<p>I might add that one of the arguments we are getting is that none of the 10 kids (~5 boys/5 girls) involved are a “couple”, all are friends only and nothing would happen. Probably very unlikely anything would happen anyway since it’s a group setting. May be a safe assumption but i guess the bathroom scenario raised is something to think about. Are seniors too old to play games like Truth or Dare that might get out of hand? Parental presence is certainly a key.</p>
<p>How do you know the kids aren’t gay?</p>
<p>That sounds like a nice small group of friends. Even though I have never hosted, I think that I might under those circumstances. Just make sure that all the parents are aware that it is a co-ed sleepover.</p>
<p>In 10th grade, my D was at a B’day party, not even a sleepover one, and she told me that a boy & girl, who were not a couple, were having sex in the bathroom. The Birthday girl’s parents, who are very strict, kept coming into the basement with food, but there were too many kids, and too scattered, for them to actually “count”.</p>
<p>What do you consider out of hand? I played Truth or Dare in college, and it got PG-13 at times, but not R or NC-17.</p>
<p>Any two kids who’d sneak off to the bathroom during this kind of event are doing the same sneak at 4 p.m. There’s nothing especially aphrodisiacal about the hours between midnight and 7, or the presence of sleeping bags and a big crowd.</p>
<p>mini: Haha, true enough. I suppose it’s a question of probabilities. ;)</p>
<p>I don’t know any of my sons’ girlfriends’ parents who would have said it was OK to “sleepover” our house! (Even if I had said yes - which, NO THANKS.)</p>
<p>Our house was open for the boys every weekend. On NY’s Eve, one girl hosted party (sleepover) for several years. I was glad none of the kids were driving. I know the kids well, & trusted them.</p>
<p>As far as I am concerned, my kids’ friends can sleep over whenever they want. My younger d. jokes about going to a motel with a friend (she is a complete prude) - I always ask her whether there is anything wrong with her own bed. </p>
<p>The median age of first sexual experience in the U.S. is currently around 15. By 17, we are about at a standard deviation beyond the median. So, for the vast majority, it is not a question of whether they’ll be having sex, only a matter of where.</p>
<p>As for group sex, most of the kids are extraordinarily Victorian - it will have to wait til college.</p>
<p>We’ve hosted many of these through the years and have never had an issue with it. These have been popular after events like semi-formals, prom, cast parties, New Year’s Eve, etc. My kids’ friends have always known that they’re welcome in our home at any time. The kids all bring sleeping bags and, in most cases, have slept in our finished basement rec room. Together! If the worry is that the kids are going to have sex, trust me, the kids who are doing so don’t need a co-ed sleepover to do it!</p>
<p>I"m going to be the party pooper here and say no coed sleepovers here. To me its just asking for trouble. There’s not really a need for it that I can see.</p>
<p>what we’ve hosted are more along the lines of what I would call a lock-in, with many rules, including: parents must know and have given me their permission for their child to be at our home; at a certain time, boys and girls separate onto different floors… this usually means second floor and finished basement; no one is allowed to leave after a certain time unless a parent has authorized it with me ahead of time, or is picking them up.</p>
<p>The most important thing I do to make these (perhaps once or twice a year while the kids were in high school for special things like prom/cast parties, etc.) happen is that I take a long nap during the day so that I can stay awake most of the night. I can usually make it until 4 or 5AM (thank you show choir trips for training me for this), and I strategically place myself at between the stairs to the basement and the stairs to the second floor. If I sense all the kids are asleep (and they usually are after a long day of whatever the event was), I might doze off, but usually I’m still barely conscious when my husband wakes up around 5 or 6AM and takes the 2nd shift, which ends when all the kids are gone. I go to bed then and sleep until I need to. If the kids don’t like the rules, then they don’t have to come.</p>
<p>Regarding the gay issue, does that mean if you know your kid is gay, you don’t allow any sleepovers of the same sex? Like someone said, whatever they aren’t allowed to do during the night (with a strong adult presence), they will do at 4PM in the afternoon. You can’t cover it all.</p>
<p>With my kids having been involved in performing arts, I know several of their male friends were gay (no females ever outed themselves if they were), and everyone knew who was in a relationship with who. I always thought this was funny because when we took show choir trips that began at 2AM on a Saturday morning, and wouldn’t return home until 3 or 4AM the following morning, the director always insisted that there was no co-ed sitting on the bus. Parents always laughed at that because everyone always knew there was at least one gay couple at any given time. You can’t cover everything with rules.</p>
<p>I agree that if kids want to have sex, you cannot stop them. Opportunities abound. Same could be said of high school drinking. I’m not opposed to a sleepover but I do believe these situations should be very supervised (parties in general…due to drinking…and sleepovers in general due to sexual opportunities). My kids only went to parties where parents were home and if a coed sleepover for an event, there was supervision and the parents had some rules about it. As parents, we can’t prevent things. I just don’t think we need to make it easier and I do think such situations should be supervised. Yes, they are unsupervised in college and yes, I expect my kids will drink and have sex in college. If they do in high school, they may choose to but I am not going to make it easier to do so. I have had D’s boyfriends sleep over my house as well. I can’t prevent everything and I didn’t. But I still have rules and supervision when they are in HS. I found plenty of other parents who also cared whether parties were supervised and such. Some parents don’t. Some bad things went on at THOSE parties. My kids were not there, however.</p>