Should children have sleepovers? Why technology completely changes the answer

No parent is perfect, but exactly how one should parent has become a highly contentious topic of debate — especially when it comes to giving kids space and allowing them to learn as they go.

Most holistically minded parents would agree that keeping your children in the safety of your home at all times, occupying them through screens, and hovering over their every move will result in children who don’t know how to think, or do, for themselves.

But what about sleepovers?

“I did do sleepovers growing up, like early, I don’t know about as young as kindergarten, but I feel like first, second grade, I was definitely sleeping over at friends' houses and they would sleep over at my house,” Allie Beth Stuckey of “Relatable” recalls.

“My parents' rule was if I went over to anyone’s house, whether it was spending the night or not, they had to know their parents, not just, ‘I talked to them once on the phone,’ but like really know them,” she continues, adding, “I think that’s a good boundary.”

But things are different now than they were when Stuckey was a child.

“You should not only know their parents, but if your kid is going over to a house at any point of the day, you should also know their siblings, you should know what access to technology they have and what they’re going to be doing, what their rules are,” she explains.

“My stance is different than my parents', in that I say no to sleepovers,” she continues. “I do believe it’s a good general rule, especially with the access to technology that kids have today.”

Some children are exposed to horrific imagery, like pornography, at sleepovers — which can leave a devastating mark on a child’s psyche that follows him all the way into adulthood.

“I think there are good risks, and then unnecessary risks,” Stuckey says, adding, “I think it’s Jordan Peterson that said, ‘Let your kids do dangerous things safely,’ and I think that’s a pretty good rule of thumb.”

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