I had some ideas for writing about hospitality but wasn't truly feeling inspired to write on them so nothing got written but tonight as we have company (my niece and nephew spending the night) I felt inspired to write once again.
Heidi and Lars are here for a "sleepover" - a not very common word around here as generally sleepovers are something I prefer to avoid. I love having families stay with us- in general we truly enjoy overnight company but mostly I try to steer clear of sleepovers - why is that?
Here are my reasons.....
- Children generally behave better when they have had a good night of rest and sleepovers are a good way to prevent a good night of rest. I love providing opportunities for my children to spend time with other children during the day (within reason) but think that night is not so necessary).
- Sleepovers can become not so fun when a child decides around 11 pm or midnight that they actually would prefer to be at home.
- Sleepovers can be a good way to spread lice (this really isn't a big deal but it is a fact and so I thought I would share it.)
- I have read scary statistics about molestation and things like that and a place like a sleepover can be a very possible place of it happening. Because this does concern me I have found it easier just to say "We don't do sleepovers" rather than picking and choosing between families to figure out where I think it is safe and where I am not so sure.
The first and last reasons are the biggest ones for me.
Now my kids do get to go on trips with us where we stay at family or friends house (especially cousins) and they do pretty much get the sleepover experience but much of the time we are there too (though sometimes we will be off on a trip of our own and they stay there without us) - but we don't just sleep over at someone else's place for the fun of sleeping there - there are other reasons too (like being far from home). My kids do also go to Bible camp so it isn't like we are fully sheltering them - this is just one area that I have chosen to say "no" about.
As far as my niece and nephew here tonight, they do come from out of town, they have been staying at my parents but for fun we did decide they could come over here tonight to give them a little more cousin time before they leave. I find that a little different then just doing a sleepover with others from church or our homeschool group.
Anyway - that is my take on sleepovers - I would love to hear your thoughts and what decisions you have made on this for your children.
2 comments:
Our oldest is only 3.5 so not into "sleepover years" yet but I plan to use the same rules my parents had. We could only host sleepovers. We did not attend them at others' houses. This allowed my parents complete control of who we were sharing our time with, what movies/music/etc we might be exposed to, and Mama always said she liked that she could hear everything between the living room and the kitchen. Since we did sleep over at other people's houses, my Mama did have to come up with extra crafts and things to do at ours but she said knowing we were safe was worth it. We also could only host them on Friday evenings when we did not have any Saturday plans so that if we did need an extra rest time that would be okay.
That sounds like some good rules for sleepovers. Thanks for sharing!
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