Thursday, January 22, 2009

needing some parenting advice...

my daughter was invited to a sleepover this weekend. she loves sleepovers and usually i'm fine with it. here's the glitch, i do not trust these parents. every time she's stayed there things have happened that i don't approve of. each time i say it's the last time i let her stay there and my husband convinces me i'm overreacting. so tonight i told her she can't go. i'm done with those people. of course, she was hysterical because everyone else is going (which i doubt) and surely i'm trying to ruin her life. she said she feels like i'm punishing her. what kills me about it is that she's a really great kid so i hate to make her miss something fun. but that being said, i just don't trust these people. i feel like they have really poor judgement. they are the parents who want to be "cool" and let the kids do thing that are not appropriate for third graders. do you ever encounter this issue and how do you tell your kid? i know whatever reason i give her will repeated, verbatim, to the child who invited her. then most likely to her parents. my kids attend a relatively small, private school. i don't want to have issues with this family, i just don't want my daughter at their house. any advice?

4 comments:

Musings from Me said...

That is a tough one... I have never had to say no to a sleepover, but I have had to say no to my daughter going to a house for a playdate. I arrived to pick her up...she was 7, the friend was 9, both were swimming in an ancient swimming pool filled with underwater diving gadgets...no adult by pool. Three adults in house...all painting a room. One of the adults was on phone. Never again. Same child was at our house for a sleepover. Misbehaved so badly I had to threaten to call her mom.

Go with your instincts and say No. You will feel better. Yiour daughter will get over it. She might even thank you in years to come when her friend is perhaps doing things that she should not.

themrs said...

i already told her no, was struggling about how much info to give her as to why! she came home today though and told me that her best friend is not allowed to go. her parents do not trust this family either. that made my daughter feel better:) it's hard because i've given these people so many chances but it's obvious they have no common sense! i just can't let her be there.

Samantha@IW said...

Good for you for standing your ground- her safety is more important than a fleeting sleepover. If it were my daughter I would tell her that her friend's parents don't do things in a way that makes me feel okay about her being there. I would also tell her that its important not to tell anyonelse that, because she wouldnt want to hurt her friend's feelings or make her feel bad. I would also let her invite the friend over sometime soon. We've actually encountered this situation before!

Ann said...

You did the right thing. I've had this problem. Don't worry about hurting feelings. The home I wouldn't let my daughter got to burned down one day, killing the dog, from the parents' careless behavior. Three years ago, the mother died of an overdose. Sad.

One solution I used was to let my daughter have the friend at our house on another weekend, since the child was not the problem.