Momfuel & Mindset SEASON2: Episode 2 - Sleepovers!

Sleepovers used to feel simple… until we became parents. In this episode, we’re talking about the modern-day debate around sleepovers — the anxiety, the safety concerns, the pressure from kids, and the guilt parents sometimes feel for saying no. We’re diving into how parenting has changed, why so many parents feel more cautious now, and how to navigate conversations around boundaries, trust, peer pressure, social media, and keeping kids safe without parenting from fear. We’re also talking about the emotional side of it all: wanting your kids to have fun childhood memories while also listening to your gut as a parent. Whether your answer is always yes, always no, or “it depends,” this conversation is honest, respectful, and incredibly relatable for today’s parents.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We're back. It's your mom friend. I'm Chrissy. And I'm Jess. And today we are talking about sleepovers. Sleepovers used to feel simple until we became parents. In this episode, we're talking about the modern day debate around sleepovers, the anxiety, the safety concerns, the pressure from kids, and the guilt parents sometimes feel for saying no. We're diving into how parenting has changed, why so many parents feel more cautious now, and how to navigate conversations around boundaries, trust, peer pressure, social media, and keeping kids safe without parenting from fear. We're also talking about the emotional side of it all. Wanting your kids to have a fun childhood memories while also listening to your gut as a parent. Whether your answer is always yes, always no, or it depends, this conversation is honest, respectful, and incredibly relatable for today's parents. This is a good topic, and I'm excited for this conversation because sleepovers are something that I struggle with. But the world we're parenting in is completely different in some ways, right? Like, so I don't think that there was an emphasis on the things that we have now. When I was a kid, sleepovers were like anytime I wanted to go on a sleepover, like my parents never said no, really. Like I could go to friends' house, any friend's house. And I don't know that they had the same concerns that we do today. One, none of us had cell phones, none of us had, you know, access to internet or things that maybe our kids do today. So maybe that wasn't an issue. Maybe there was just a lack of awareness of, you know, the things that we worry about today. I don't I don't honestly know. Maybe we should ask somebody. Maybe we should have somebody on, you know, a generation ahead of us and and ask their point of view on what they thought about sleepovers or why there was. Because I honestly just I would love their thought process or what what it was like then when it came to being okay or not being okay with sleepovers and what their point of view was. I know for me personally, I do struggle with it. I think that there's just an awareness now that, you know, we can we can talk about like sexual assaults, right? A lot of them are people close to people, family members, things like that. So if your kids are going to a friend's house, it could be somebody there. Like that's something that's always in the back of my mind. I'm somebody, I'm you guys know this, I'm very boisterous. My kids don't have cell phones. So they have to rely on asking somebody else to contact me if something was to go wrong. That doesn't sit right with me. They also have access to the internet if their friends have phones, right? Like they're just there's so much they have access to so many things that is out of my control. And it's not that I'm parenting from fear, it's that I just want to protect them. That's that's my ultimate goal. Right or wrong. I don't know, but this is something that I do struggle with.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Yeah, I would say the same is true for me, Jess. I there's a very few houses that you know any of my kids have been able to sleep over throughout the years, even my adult children. And I think it's because of all the things that you just said, you just don't know. And honestly, sometimes it just boils down to different family values too. And so, and what they watch on TV and what the kids are exposed to, or curfews or no curfews, or cell phones in their bedroom at night? No, Emily does have a cell phone, but she's not allowed to have it in the bedroom at night. It stays in the living room plugged in. Does she have a cell phone all night when she's at a friend's house? You know, how what does that look like? Is she accessing social media platforms that she typically wouldn't be accessing from home? Is she seeing things on YouTube that she typically wouldn't see from home? And and I'm not saying that that's going to happen. I'm just saying it could happen. And so I think again, not parenting from a place of fear. And I do understand that she's going to be exposed to things, whether it's at a sleepover, on a bus, at school, on the walk home, no matter where you are, what you're doing, you're going to be exposed to things. And it's really about teaching her how to make the right choice and how to ask a trusted adult for help if she needs it. I can't shelter her from everything. I couldn't shelter my older kids from everything. And in fact, I prefer to have kids here. I preferred sleepovers here. Again, not because I'm a control freak, but I just I know that I am very particular in what I allow, what I don't allow. I'm a little bit on the strict side. So I know that, you know, she's safe and her friends are safe here. And again, I'm not saying that that's not the case when she's at someone else's house. I just, I just feel better when it's under my house. So yeah, I mean, I I can see both sides of it, right? But then I feel bad if if it is no. Is she missing out? Does she feel left out? You know, those types of things, especially if like there's a big sleepover and there's a lot of kids over. And and again, you put more kids in a room for a sleepover. That could that could be fine. It could be not fine. And so it's just at what expense? I don't know. I don't know what the answer is.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

I always go back to like once your kids are exposed to something, you can't take it back. Once that is, you know, once that light switch is flipped, like there's you can't get it back. And I it sounds like I'm parenting with a closed fist or I'm parenting from fear, but I I'm I'm parenting from a view that I just want to protect these kids. I want to preserve their childhood as long as I can. And if that means saying no to a sleepover that I just doesn't sit right with me or just like listening to your gut, I'm with you. I like to be the house that the kids come over to. I and it's agreed, it's not like a control piece, but there is a piece of control. Like I do get to, I'm like you, like I tend to be on the stricter side, which is funny because I never really thought of myself. But now that my kids have friends and and, you know, like I just see social media and and the way that, you know, kids use cell phones and stuff, and I'm like, these guys do have a little tough with me because I don't, I'm not ready to let go of that piece of their childhood yet. Like I want to preserve their childhood as long as I can. And watching Deegan, you know, sit on the floor and play with race cars at 13, or sit at the table and build Legos at 13, I love that about him. Briley will sit and play Barbie still. She's 11. Like, I love that about them. That is something that I'm proud of because I feel like if there was that's a piece of their childhood I'm preserving. And I feel like I'm able to do that because I'm on the stricter side when it comes to iPads or, you know, the no cell phones and things like that, no social media, no Snapchat, no, you know, these kids that have Snapchat. I was talking to a mom the other day who shared with me that there's kids who parents won't let them have Snapchat. This was one of her daughter's friends. They will use their friend's cell phone to make a Snapchat account. And then when they're at school, they use their friend's phone. And I was like blown away. She's like, no, this is legit. And I said, I looked at my two and I was like, you ever. They're like, we know, we know, we know.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

And I struggle with that too, because then that is part of being a child and a teenager and hiding from your parents and lying and want to dip your toes into something that you're not allowed to. So, yes, I understand. Like, two, I did eventually let Emily get Snapchat, but things are very strict with that. But I know I'm not naive. I know she sees TikTok, not on her phone, but on her friends' phones. I know she has access to other platforms. And so it's like, how do I shelter her from it and preserve her childhood? And while teaching her how to use it right and in keeping her safe on those platforms. Because if if I just shut it down and I say absolutely not over my dead body, but I don't teach her how to be responsible with it, what am I doing? Am I causing more harm than good just by shutting it completely down? And I was shutting Snapchat down. And then I had a couple of people, one being, well, a couple of my adult children actually explain to me like how you can put some parameters on Snapchat and whatnot. And so she's allowed to have a few, a few folks on there, kid friends and adult siblings. But yeah, I struggle with that chess because I don't I don't know what the right answer is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Yeah, I I think that just just talking about it, I I agree with you. Shutting it down like straight out, I do think you're doing more harm than good. But so my kids are totally opposite. Here's the thing no two kids is the same, right? And so my two kids are complete opposite. Deegan struggles with shutoff. So, like we've had to learn so their iPads, they can text. They can FaceTime and they can text on their iPads. And and I literally check their iPads every day. And we've had to have multiple conversations with Dee about the way that he communicates. He has no regulation when it comes to if somebody doesn't answer within a certain amount of time, like he's messaging them again. And there will be like a list of text messages and like no response. And I'm like, that's not good texting etiquette, dude. This is it is you have to learn how to communicate with people. And this right here is not okay. Like you're this, this isn't good texting. Okay. Like we, and it's teaching him how to, and like you said, if I just shut it off, like he's never gonna learn how to be able to communicate appropriately via text message. And he's not the only one. Like he has friends who do the same thing, and I'm like, ugh, like this is something we have to learn to teach these kids, like blowing up somebody's iPad because they're not texting, or because they're not getting a response quick enough, or because they want something from them, or they want to, you know, FaceTime, or they want to whatever. And if they're not getting the response that they want, right? Because we're teaching kids instant gratification if they don't get back instantly. And okay, so my kids have they only can communicate via iPad, which means as soon as they're outside or they leave the house, right? The iPad's at home. So they'll be gone all day. He'll get home and they'll have these messages because it's you didn't get back to me. Where were you? What are you doing? And it's it's teaching kids in a in an instant gratification world how to effectively communicate responsibly with this iPad. So my conversations with him are teaching him how to use this iPad. And you're right, like if I shut it off completely, we're never gonna have these kinds of conversations. It makes me cringe when I see these messages and I'm like, dude, we gotta talk about this. This is not okay. Riley's completely opposite. She's not the same. She sends a hey, she doesn't get a response back, it goes away. It doesn't bother her. Her the way she operates is completely different than her brother. But I do think that shutting down, but going back to sleepovers, I don't know that shutting down is doing more harm than good. I really don't. I don't think that we're harming these kids by being overprotective with them at this age. There's gonna come a day when they, I think, okay, I'll I will say this communicating our reasons for why. I feel like back in the day when I was being raised, there was no communication regarding why the answer would be no. Whether it was for sleepovers or something else, no means no, because I said so, right? Like those were the answers we got, which didn't teach us anything when we now become adults and we're doing it, or we hit that 16, 18 when we're able to make our own choices. Now we're learning trial by air because we don't know why you didn't say no, and now we're just gonna go out and figure it out ourselves. Where if we can communicate, try and effectively communicate why I'm very open with my kids, why they don't have access to the internet or cell phones. I'm open with the kids when it comes to sleepovers, like it, you know what my concerns are to hold like, okay, I just read something the other day that said, this is going slightly off topic, but it said something like, Be honest with your kids. Like if alcoholism runs in your family, be honest with your kids about why you chose not to drink. Be honest because if they don't know, they're gonna have to learn it at some point. Like that really hit home with me because I'm honest with my kids about my drinking. Like I'm honest with them about my sobriety. Would they celebrate it with me? This is too something I think that we can learn how to effectively communicate honestly with them about these types of situations.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Yeah, no, I think I think having open and honest communication makes sense. And that's the, you know, that's what I've had with Emily. You know, I struggled and I was shutting whatever the heck it's called now. Snapchat down. And then I finally gave in, but you know, within parameters, as I said, and I've explained like absolutely not to TikTok into Instagram and to all the other platforms because she it she doesn't need it, it's not healthy for you or your brain, it's an addiction, all the things. So that's where my limits are. Let's, you know, as you were talking, I was thinking about Emily going on sleepovers. As I said, she doesn't go to very many, but the ones that she does, she is 99.9% of the time, first person up in the morning. She is an early bird, and she will be up six o'clock, six thirty, and waiting for her friend or friend, depending on the situation, to wake up forever. And for her, that's not like she feels awkward because she's in someone else's house, and then the parents might still be sleeping, or she doesn't want the dog to bark, or whatever the case is. So when you think of those little uh nuances too about sleepovers, you know, kids that might stay up all night and then sleep well into the day, you know, how does that and you know, how does that work with your kiddo? That does not work for my kiddo because she's an early riser and she goes to bed at a decent time. So I think, you know, she tends to think twice about sleepovers as well. Oftentimes, I don't even need to say no because she just declines the invite. And when she wants to, usually it's at like the same house or two, and her friends know that she's an early riser, so they give her a time and what shake she can wake them up, you know.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

They're not up by the right. They're not waking us up till eight. So good luck. That's so funny. That is funny. It is true. I do think that my kids have no issue sleeping over. Like my kids are super independent, and and I think that they would. I do know Beezer likes to be home. She is a homebody, so she is somebody who would rather stay home if she gets invited or whatever. And D, he's just a he's a free bird. He would go and stay over anywhere. But he is my my people pleaser one. So he is the one that I do actually struggle with because I feel like I have a lot of conversations with him about peer pressure, about saying no. Like, if you know that you're like, what are your do you always talk about your family values? What are our what are our values? What do we deem as okay and not okay? And that doesn't end, like that just begins when you step out of the in our house. It's a known. When you step outside these doors, it's not a standard for every family. So when you're in somebody else's house, your values and morals still stand. And you have to, I am trusting that you will adhere to those no matter where you are. And he's the one that I I worry about the most because he tends to be the more moldable, you know. Oh, my if my friends are doing it, it's gotta be okay. And, you know, like he's just he likes, he's the he has that. And unfortunately, he totally gets it from me, just that people pleaser instinct in him where he'll he'll go along with the flow just to keep everybody else happy. And I'm like, I'm trying to work that out of him. You have to be able to stand up for yourself, you have to be able to, if you know that something's wrong, then you have to be the one, even if you're the only one to take the stand and say, I'm not doing that. The these are that girl stand on her own all the time. Like if it means the difference between right and wrong and she's the only one, she does not care. And I'm like, I love that about her. And I'm trying to trying to instill that same thing in Deeg.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

And that's Emily, too. If something's wrong and or her uh buttons go off, we we talk about our uh button. If something's just not sitting right with you, something's telling you something's wrong, listen to it. It's your body's way of telling you there's something off, there's something wrong. Listen to it. And so she is very aware of her uh-oh button and will abort mission anytime she needs to. And I also understand that there's going to be times of peer pressure, there's going to be times that she's gonna have a hard time saying no, she's gonna want to sit up fit in, other than kind of saying no, thank you, right? I understand that's part of being a teenager. So what I hope is that she has what she needs to keep herself safe, right? To keep her friends safe, and then ask for help, no matter what the consequences are, because there's always consequences, positive or negative. And when you're on a sleepover, and on any other day, you might be the one to say, no, thank you. I'm all set, I'm going home now. But if you feel stuck, you don't have a way home, it's late at night, whatever, and there's something going on that you're not comfortable with, but you go along with it because of the circumstances. Let's talk through that, right? What are ways that we can keep you safe? What could you do next time? Those types of things. And there still might be consequences for behavior, but first things first, your safety always remains top priority. And then we will discuss consequences once you're safe. So I think not that sleepovers are unsafe, 90% of the time they're not. You know, I I don't want to catastrophize and say like all sleepovers are bad or something bad's going to happen every time you're a sleepover, because that's not the that's not the case. And it only takes one time for something bad to happen. So making sure that we equip our kiddos with the skills, the knowledge that they need to be able to ask for help, to say no, to own up to whatever happened and move forward. So I think that's that's important to me too, because again, I'm going back to like, I can't protect her from everything as much as I want to. And so I want to equip her with what she needs to be able to get through situations in a safe way.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Yeah. And I just was thinking like normalizing. So something I talk about in the reconnect room is getting comfortable having uncomfortable conversations. Sometimes the people closest to us are the hardest uncomfortable conversations to have, which is wild because we are the we're a family. And well, as you're talking, it's like we need to get comfortable. We need to normalize having these types of conversations with the kids, even from a age-appropriate level, no matter how old they are, normalize asking, you know, questions, normalize being honest with them about, you know, why you're saying no. Normalize obviously age appropriately if your kids are younger versus, you know, our kids are older now. Normalize, normalize this stuff. That way, when they're in relationships, as they get older, coming to you and talking about this stuff isn't uncomfortable. Like I remember being like, oh, I can't talk to my parents about that. Why? Why do we create these situations? Like, and again, we do the best we can with what we have, but I am a firm believer that if we could normalize having difficult conversations or normalize, and they don't even have to be difficult, normalize uncomfortable conversations, normalize talking about, you know, why you're saying no or or being honest about some things or asking them, you know, or I just think that we allow the disconnect to happen because we don't want to. We're the parents, we say no, we know why we're saying no, but they're the kids and they just have to obey. Well, that creates like a disconnect in the relationship and being able to share the whys. Just sit on a conversation. Like Jimmy and I were talking last night. Deegan's 13, he's getting older, he's getting, you know, more aware of girls and this kind of, you know, the whole like, which that's a whole nother topic that we could unpack the whole like dating at it when you're a teenager. And Jimmy's like, I really just want him to be able to come to me and talk to me about this stuff. And I was like, that's awesome. You know what you have to do? You gotta sit with him, you gotta talk to him, you gotta let him tell you. You we can't just shut it down and be like, no, you're not doing this, but like giving him the space to be able to, and and sometimes that asks asking difficult questions, asking honest questions, sometimes just listening and letting them, letting them, you know, share with whatever's going on. I don't know. I I don't have a ton of, you know, I we're learning this is the first time I'm doing this stuff. Like we're learning as we grow. We're learning, they don't come with manuals. I do know that I just I you're right. Like I well, protecting them, but also equipping them with the tools they need to be able to protect themselves, which is so important.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

And uh to piggyback on what you were saying about having, you know, uncomfortable conversations. And I mean, ideally, that would be great for me to have an uncomfortable conversation with Emily or and her being comfortable to having an uncomfortable conversation with me. The reality of that though, I don't know. However, I know that she'll go to her adult sister, I know that she'll go to you know her aunt. So as long as we give them a village of trusted adults that they can go to if it's not us. So ideally it would be me. And I understand that she may not be in that space for whatever reason. And so making sure that we give them a village in which they can go to if they need to. So as long as she's talking to someone about this stuff, whatever this stuff is, I'm okay with that. Doesn't have to be me.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Do you think that there is how do I want to articulate this? I think that we can find a balance between caution and fear. I think finding a balance between being honest with our kids, finding out if they actually like you've said, Emily doesn't always even want to go. And she now she's capable of, you know, she's old enough and capable of making those decisions, you know, saying no and not wanting to. I also think that there's ways that we can do alternates. You know, I think that sometimes that is the fear for kids is that they're missing out. And it's like, okay, actually, you know what? A lot of so this wasn't even a thing. But when we moved out here, Briley was like, I want to do a sleepover with so and so, the girl that she went to dance with. Don't know her, don't know her family, whatever. And the little girl's like, Well, my family doesn't do sleepovers, but we do. Late overs. So if you're okay with picking her off at like 10 or 11, she could come over and hang out, whatever. And I was like, and the amount of times that I've heard the term layover out here is like constant. It is a thing. Can Bradley come over for a layover? I don't even know what that is. That's and that's ultimately they don't do sleepovers, but they do know they'll come over, do dinner, watch a movie, hang out, whatever, and then still get picked up. So you're not sleeping over. So what are some alternatives that you know that you could do to still make your kids are not missing out on a childhood? I think that we as parents put so much pressure on a childhood and what a per what a fun, perfect, you know, childhood looks like. And it has to involve all of this stuff. And if your kids don't do it, like we talked about in the if you didn't listen to our youth sports episode, go check it out where we talk about the pressures that parents put on ourselves to ensure that these kids have an incredible childhood, which includes all of this stuff. When ultimately sometimes we're adding, are we doing more harm than good? Like, are we by by setting these unrealistic standards for what we think their childhoods need to look like?

SPEAKER_00 23:13

And again, I think we live in a very different world than what we were living when I was Emily's age, right? It looked very, very, very different then. And so this is the first time I'm ever parenting in this type of kind of society. Um and yes, I have my adult children, but I had two at the time that kind of went through it together and they didn't navigate it alone, whereas Emily is being raised like a only child. So that dynamic is very different as well. She doesn't have an older sibling or a sibling close to her age that she looked, you know, looks out for her, and vice versa. So it's very different, and I'm navigating it very differently than I did for my older two. So I think it's so important just to like do what feels right for you and your family and not feel pressure from social media, what other people are doing or saying or whatever. Doing what feels right to you and your kiddo, while also giving your kiddos space to explore and learn and grow into their own individual person without like me stifling them. You know, I feel like I stifled my older kids to some extent and really sheltered them. It was a time in my life that I was working for child protection and was always in fight or flight and worried about everything and anything. Um, I'm parenting from a very different space now. So I think that matters too. And just really being aware of where you're coming from and taking a step back and really like, why is it now? Or why do I feel the way that I feel? Is it because of my own personal experiences? Is it because it's fear? Are they legitimate concerns? And then how do I equip my kid with the school's the skills to be able to have some independence explore while also remaining safe?

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Because feelings aren't facts. So you're like convicting me as you're talking because you're like feelings aren't facts. And and you're right, why are we saying no? And is it is there actual valid concerns? You know, you talk about your nervous system, and it's like we really our nervous systems do dictate a lot of how we parent. And if we're not okay, like parenting from fight or flight, like if we're not okay, like that is directly impacting the way that we're parenting our kids and the legacy, like what we're instilling them, that's ultimately going to be the way that they're parenting. Because you're right, like how much of our childhood, how much of the way that we were parented, how much of our childhood experiences are dictating what we have going on in our own parenting style and what's going on around us, like our nervous systems, and that absolutely directly impacts. So, what are we saying no for? And is it feelings? I'm a huge person. I sell it all the time. I tell my kids all the time, like your feelings are not facts. Like you could feel a certain way. But let's ask the questions and find out is there a real concern? Is there, are these feelings valid? Sure. You're human, you're feeling the feelings, that's okay. But if they're dictating your next move or what you do next, we have to figure out if that that's accurate information, good information, is it moving you forward? Like, what is it? What are your feelings dictating? And yeah, I mean, you're right. Like, is it are we am I parenting based off of uh fear? My nervous system? What what is it?

SPEAKER_00 26:27

Past experiences, my own childhood? Yeah. I mean, it's so important, and it's so easy to be like just automatic response, no, and and like we don't have the time, and like I have laundry do and you know, dinner to cook. Who am I kidding? I don't cook, but you know, like all the things we do as parents, all the things we do as parents, and now our kiddos like, hey, can I go to Johnny's to have a sleepover? No, like I don't I don't even have the brain capacity to think about it. I don't want to do with it. No, and so taking a step back and really like dissecting that what's the know all about and really understanding where that you're coming, you're you're responding in a way that is in line with your values and really thought out and not just an automatic reaction. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Right. The reaction practice the pause. Yeah, just about it first.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

I love that. Awesome. All right, well uh, thanks for hanging out with us on a mom, a fuel and mindset. If today's conversation spoke to you, take it as your reminder that happy moms don't come from doing more, they come from choosing themselves and owning their growth.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

And if you loved this episode, please be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with another mom who needs a little fuel and a mindset shift today.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

Until next time, keep showing up for yourself, keep growing forward, and remember happy moms own their growth. See you soon.