Sometimes my kids wanted me to say, “no, you can’t go,” or “no, you have to come home.”
This is true.
We had a plan worked out, a sort of signal, not that head-tapping thing that Jerry Seinfeld and Elaine did, but more like this: When my kids would call home and ask to stay longer at a friends house, I would ask them a yes or no question…
“Do you want to stay?” If they said no, I would tell them they had to come home, and they could blame it on me for being the mean mom.
True there were times when my kids begged to stay, or spend the night. But we had a rule, no spending the night. For one thing, grouchy kids the next day was not worth it. Second, you never know what goes on at someones house.
I think everyone should be home to sleep in their own bed. This was back in the 1980’s, not a popular idea at the time — not with kids and not with their parents. Yea, parents would often hassle us about our “rule.”
Now, there were a couple of times when my arm was twisted and I gave in…one time my daughter stayed over with girlfriends in the 6th grade, and she got the stomach flu and had to crawl to an unfamiliar bathroom, in the dark. That changed her mind. I got her phone call at 6 a.m. — she’d been waiting to call for three hours.
There was one more time I caved. But that was it, I stood firm, “No sleepovers.” And now that my daughter is married, with kids, she sees my point-of-view. Looking back, she says girls running around where there are older brothers, or even a dad, is too risky.
I let my third child stay one night at a friends and afterwards, he said he wished he had stayed home. I think it is easier to just stick to the rule, and for the last two kids we did. Maybe by then the younger ones got the message and just didn’t beg us. But I do think it is easier to set the rules early on.
As a mom, I could never go to sleep until my kids were home, and they knew that.
Here’s a Conference Address, 2010 that agrees with the “no sleepovers”: Courageous Parenting
