<p>Teri, First of all your “lock in’s” sound like a blast! I think that there is a big difference between your well supervised party and an impromtu gathering at a friends house where no parent is actually awake. Our kids school always hosted post prom and post graduation parties at the school. These were EXTREMELY well organized and chaperoned events that featured door prizes and amazing themes/games etc. everyone usually goes to them. (Our school also organizes and takes 300+ seniors to Disney every year. We are really fortunate to have such an incredibly motivated staff and involved parents in our community) Luckily there has not been a drug/alcohol/car related death in our school in several years.
The theatre director rarely has the kids strike the set after the last performance. Our parties usually started around 10:30 or so and kids/parents were great about picking up at 1:00-2:00. Some smaller groups usually organized their own sleepovers after the party and I don’t know if they were co-ed or not. My D always stayed home.
We originally started having the parties at our house because Freshman year there was a sleepover cast party that was not well supervised and we figured that it was better to have the party and supervise it well than be at the mercy of someone else.The breakfast thing IS great and several times after a cast party at our house, parents hosted a big breakfast at their homes. I would not have been happy making pancakes for that big a group after making the dinner and staying up all night. Just managing the trash and the kids belongings was a big job in itself. We actually took a picture of our garage floor during one party. One whole bay of the garage was covered with shoes! Ahhh…I’m really going to miss those parties, we loved hosting them.</p>
<p>cgm, Our cat freaked out at our first cast party and attacked one of the boys! We always put her in her carrier, in our master bathroom after that. She was really annoyed at all of those kids invading her space!</p>
<p>Co-ed sleepovers are taboo at our public school. I’d never even heard of one until my son attended homecoming with a girl at her “Country Day” school. We insisted on picking him up at 1am. Date’s mom mentioned that “a bunch of girls were sleeping over”, but son told us the truth, even though he saw nothing wrong with it. I can’t believe there are so many trusting parents out there! I also can’t believe how many of you trust that YOU can do such a great job of supervising. It’s a situation where sex could easily happen so why take the chance? One thing that has changed since we were in high school is just because friends have known each other forever and are only “friends”,doesn’t mean they aren’t having sex.</p>
<p>I also can’t believe how many of you trust that YOU can do such a great job of supervising. It’s a situation where sex could easily happen so why take the chance?</p>
<p>so, in a situation where students are bisexual or homosexual do you forbid them to attend or have any overnights?</p>
<p>toledo,</p>
<p>My impression from many of the posts in this thread is that some (not all) of the parents here who endorse co-ed sleepovers do not care whether the kids have sex, in fact, they expect it to happen and that is why they provide condoms.</p>
<p>These are high school seniors. They’ve probably had sex already, and if they haven’t, it’s still not the end of the world if they do.</p>
<p>I agree it isn’t the end of the world- but I don’t " expect" them to have sex.
I don’t believe teens are as sex crazed as television and movies would have you believe.
I didn’t supply condoms when my kids had coed overnights while they were in school, but if your daughter was a gay female and her friend that was staying over night a gay male, would * you* feel that you either had to supply condoms or forbid the visit?</p>
<p>Oh, please, Bay. I’m the only parent who has admitted to providing condoms (maybe mini, too), and I made it pretty clear that, rightly or wrongly, I did NOT expect sex to happen at my kids’ co-ed sleepovers. The condoms were provided to make a point: that safety was a really high priority, and that even if we thought they weren’t “needed” – and shouldn’t be needed, I would add – we were going to err on the side of safety. The point got made, and it had nothing to do with co-ed sleepovers. (It had a lot to do, perhaps, with latchkey kids, which is a different subject altogether. I worried a lot more about what my kids were doing at 6:00 pm when I wasn’t home than what they and six friends were doing at 3:00 am when I was 20 feet away.)</p>
<p>I would not have wanted to host a teen orgy at my house, but honestly I don’t think I ever had to face that question. I do not think that the mere presence of unrelated boys and girls on the same floor of the same house in the middle of the night makes sex a foregone conclusion, and I am confident that in my community such events were not the subject of malicious gossip or innuendo.</p>
<p>This is a tougher issue than I pretend, because I’m sure there are lots of situations where a co-ed sleepover would produce pressure to have sex, and lots of situations where the kids really feel more comfortable if their parents say “no”, for a whole variety of reasons. But I don’t like the message, either, that I don’t trust you to act responsibly because a boy/girl happens to be sleeping nearby. Nothing my kids did ever gave me reason to distrust them – quite the opposite, in fact. You have to know your kids, and you have to recognize that you might be mistaken about any number of things and decide on which side you want to err.</p>
<p>“do not care whether the kids have sex, in fact, they expect it to happen”</p>
<p>I do care. However, I think that access to coed sleepovers isn’t a factor in whether straight kids are having sex or not. Why would you do it in front of all your friends, with parents in the house, when you can just do it at four in the afternoon when parents are busy and it’s just the two of you? It doesn’t make any sense. I mean, sexually active kids are not that different from sexually active adults; are you more or less likely to have sex with your spouse if you’re sharing a one-room vacation cabin with eight of your friends?</p>
<p>By my comment, I was not judging whether it is okay or not for hs kids to have sex. And thank you , JHS for the clarification. Hanna, I think you might be a little out of touch if you think kids don’t or wouldn’t have sex in the presence of each other. From what I’m told, it is a common occurence nowadays, especially in dorm rooms.</p>
<p>I did one coed sleepover/all night party with my oldest when he was a senior in high school. It was after prom. After that night, I swore I’d never do it again. It wasn’t that any of the kids did anything “wrong”, just the length of time you need to be vigilant.</p>
<p>We have a large basement game room with ping pong, TV and games, pool table and small kitchenette. The kids all hung out down there and I had girls go to second floor when they wanted to sleep. I was up and down stairs all night long–checking in, taking food, monitoring that no one else had showed up (did and had to throw those kids out), making sure no one snuck in alcohol (confiscated a couple bottles), sniffing drink cups, consoling girls for whatever drama happened at prom, and on and on.</p>
<p>I stayed up until 7am when finally the last ones fell asleep. Then brought in breakfast around 11am after napping for a couple hours. It was exhausting but I just wanted to make sure nothing happened on my watch.</p>
<p>So…younger kids never had the all nighter.</p>
<p>One roommate in a dorm room =/= ten of your best buddies plus a pair of parents. Besides, it’s been my experience that the people who are selfish enough to do it on the top bunk in a double room are equally self-centered and obnoxious in their non-sexual interactions with people. If your kids and their friends are nice people across the board, they’re not going to be that kind of roommate.</p>
<p>But anyway, I didn’t say that sex at the sleepover was impossible, just that the presence or absence of that opportunity, such as it is, is not a factor in whether the kids are sexually active. It’s much easier to find an empty house in the afternoon when you’re a high schooler than it is to find an empty room in a college dorm. I care a lot about whether kids have sex, but if one pair is going at it five times a week in various locations, I’m not going to panic over the remote possibility of one additional act at the sleepover.</p>
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<p>It’s a good thing your trust is not the one I’m after… it’s the trust of the parents of the kids who are over here that I worry about. They’ve seen my house, they’ve seen where I ‘camp out’. </p>
<p>One mother in particular called me last winter, right before we hosted a lock-in for the seniors in show choir, the weekend prior to their first competition. She told me, “I never let (insert her daughter’s name) do co-ed sleepovers, but I know you, and know she will be safe there. She is really looking forward to it, and thanks for giving her the opportunity to participate in this, because if it were any other mom, I would say no.”</p>
<p>It’s OK if you do not want to stay up all night to insure nothing happens and therefore will not host one, but to make a blatant statement that I’m somehow I’m incapable of supervising is uncalled for. I’m starting to suspect that the parents here who are so mistrusting might be angry that there are events where this can be handled very appropriately, and they realize it, but because there are parents who do allow this, it makes them the bad guy when they say no.</p>
<p>mkm56 - that’s where we differ. First of all, once everyone is there, the doors get locked. No one else can come in. Where I camp out, I can see both the front door and back patio door. If I found any alcohol, the first thing I would do is call their parents (I know most of them). They know I mean business, because I’ve called parents before when something went amiss at our house (one night at a cast party, one guy brought over some sort of air gun and while the kids were playing charades downstairs, shot one of the other kids in the thigh. I knew nothing about air guns, but I know whatever it was, it hurt this kid, and I was FURIOUS that anyone had brought a gun of any sorts in my house). I immediately called his parents (1:30AM) and told them their son had brought a gun into our house and that this was unacceptable. The next night, the kid’s dad showed up at our house, with the kid, sat at our table, and apologized profusely. There were some consequences, but they didn’t share the details with me. The kid knew he’d made a bad choice, was very genuine in his apology, and felt comfortable coming back here again - we all let it go. He never (nor anyone else) tried anything like that again.</p>
<p>I have no problem staying up all night for my kids…these times are fleeting with them and to have a few nights here and there where I am up is worth it</p>
<p>in a few years, they will be gone and you will all alone in a big house with no kids around to stay awake for</p>
<p>and my hall closet always had condoms, they were just there</p>
<p>and my Ds friends all loved coming to my house and wouldn’t risk losing that privelege</p>
<p>and yes there were/are a couple of girls i wouldn’t leave alone in my house with a boy, but I am always there</p>
<p>I think its kind of sad that parents think it is too much to have to stay up until 7am, and lose a nights sleep for there kids…of all the thinks to lose a nights sleep over with kids, we should count our blessings that its just a co-ed sleepover and not somethng like illness</p>
<p>I enjoy when my Ds friends are here- I know they are safe, happy and having a good time</p>
<p>Yes, I had some moms call me, and that was good, and yes, they would call at midnight to see how it was going, no problem…</p>
<p>Each of us has different perspectives and none of them are wrong. From my personal hs experience, “opportunity” to have sex (with the current boy/girlfriend) was 90% of the equation. Everyone’s experience will differ. We all do the best we can to make the right decision. If you are happy to host a co-ed sleepover then I think that is great for you. I don’t think you should judge those of us who prefer not to.</p>
<p>If I was concerned about kids having sex at a co-ed sleepover at my house, it would not be
More likely, I would worry about the post-prom hook up with someone you were not even dating, or an alcohol induced “romance” where alcohol was consumed even before arriving at my house.</p>
<p>Right, Bay, but recognize, please, that your experience involved (a) a current boy/girlfriend, and (b) some lack of opportunity.</p>
<p>In my case: (a) We never had a co-ed sleepover that involved any current boy-girl, girl-girl, or boy-boy pair, at least as far as we or our children knew. (b) Every single child who ever slept over at our house had no lack of opportunities for sex without their friends and friends’ parents watching. It was normal for almost all of them to be in their homes, without any adult supervision, for several hours a day, at least, every day. And if not, that was the case with their best friend. Absent the sort of adventuresome kinkiness that corranged described, a co-ed sleepover would be one of the least attractive opportunities for sex they ever had. (But, you know what?, even when most of them were sexually active, as a technical matter, none of them were “going at it” every time an opportunity presented itself. For most of their high school careers, most of them were NOT doing anything ANY time an opportunity presented itself.)</p>
<p>teriwtt,
I admit that the layout of our house makes it a little more difficult. There is easy access to basement–drive to it and lighted walks. I did take keys of all the kids–not because I allowed drinking but so that no one would get the notion to run over to so and so’s house, etc. We live in a fairly small community and word of get-togethers gets out fast, thus the drop in kids. I did call parents and drive home those who showed up (as these were the alcohol bringing ones).</p>
<p>CGM, I somewhat resent your implication that if one doesn’t want to stay up all night, they are not a good parent. I have always stayed up until mine are home and we have some of our best talks very late at night. I didn’t work so that I would always be home for my kids and available to go and do with them. I just feel that hosting (in our case about 30 kids) a large group of kids overnight was too much extra responsibility.</p>
<p>Just about every weekend some group of kids stayed at our house and I had no problem with that–but was more like 5-10 kids and much easier to keep track of.</p>
<p>mkm56 - fyi - don’t fall for the taking the keys away again. Kids know to bring two sets of car keys and give you one, while holding onto another in case they want to sneak out. My own kids told me that and warned me taking away keys should not assure me of a kid not leaving in their car whenever they want.</p>