Last night my 8 year old daughter and I were discussing sleepovers. She’s never had a sleepover at a friends house. We’ve kept her sleepovers to just family members. I’m very, very cautious about where my daughter goes and would have to know the parents really, really well before I would even consider letting her go to a sleepover. Well last night while we were discussing sleepovers she threw a big complication into the sleepover idea. She said, “I would love to have a sleepover with *insert boys name here*.” Even though I know her best friends at school are boys I was not ready for that. At all. Now this is a purely hypothetical discussion since she has not been invited to sleepover at any of these boys houses and probably never will. I just wasn’t really sure how to respond to this innocent request. I’ll admit my knee jerk reaction was “No, you can’t have a sleepover with boys.” That reaction was met with an innocent, “Well, why not? They are my best friends.”
At 8 years old having a boyfriend is not even on her radar. Some of the kids in her class will tease her and her best friend and tell them they are boyfriend and girlfriend. They always act disgusted and roll their eyes at them. So even though I know they are at a purely innocent age I would still have a hard time letting my little girl go to a sleepover at a little boys house. I honestly can’t pin point exactly why. Maybe it’s one of the few aspects of my life where I’m old fashioned. Or maybe I’m just overprotective of my baby girl. I just can’t seem to put into words to her why I would never allow her to have a sleepover with a little boy.
During our conversation I just tried to change directions and ask her if she would be interested in having a sleepover with some of the girls in her class. She of course said she would. She just wasn’t nearly as excited about it. They like to play princesses and Barbies. She likes to play Sonic and Mario. So I guess for right now I’ll just hope she never gets an invitation for a sleepover at a little boys house so we’ll never even have a cross this bridge.
How do you all feel about co-ed sleepovers? Would you let your child, either boy or girl attend a co-ed sleepover?
