What is the right age to give your child a bag of clothes, a toothbrush, a few dollars, and tell him (or her) to survive the night?

What age is ideal to let your child eat pure sugar for 3 straight hours while watching 3 screens and going to bed at 3am?

What milestone have you reached when your child prefers other kids parents over you?

Today we’ll delve into sleepovers.  If or when should your child have a sleepover?  What are the ground rules if you allow them?  What could go wrong?

This is the latest in a recurring series on my developing thoughts on parenthood and raising children.  Find all of them here.

Their Independence Day

When children are young, parents often imagine the day their children leave for college as the day they are “on their own.”  In reality, they are building independence from the moment they leave the womb.

I’ve mentioned previously how our middle child, Rogue Two (age 4 years) started making waffles in the toaster by himself, without our knowledge, not long after his third birthday.  He’s the child in the mall that wanders off on his own not because he is distracted or lost or turned around, but because he has somewhere he wants to go and doesn’t care if you are with him.  While he mimics and follows (and annoys) his older brother, he desperately wants to do things on his own.

Rogue One, age 9, was not as intrepid when he was younger.  He had more separation anxiety and more hesitancy with new environments.  He’s never been clingy, but he has not been as intrepid as his younger brother (which is probably a good thing).

Rogue One is old enough now, with enough peers doing their own thing, that he directly compares his life with others.  His stuff, his activities, and his parents.  He knows that our household isn’t run the same as others, and of course that occasionally causes complaints.

Earlier in the year, Rogue One was invited for a sleepover at the house of a friend from school.  He had already spent plenty of nights away from us, but always with his grandparents.

He was ecstatic and ready to go.

*I* was not ready — I was extremely hesitant, and wavered on whether we should do it. I did a few sleepovers growing up, but not many, and not until I was older.

The friend was very nice, the parents very responsible, and the home not far away.  Rogue One implored me to let him go.

Rogue One had already spent enough time away from *us* that I knew that separation anxiety was unlikely, and he had enough sleepovers with cousins at his grandparent’s house that he already had an idea of how such things generally ran.

He sometimes seems to behave better with other parents than at home with us (i.e. on field trips), so he had shown some ability to follow direction from other parents.

He had spent time at this family’s house on his own without incident.  But once it came to spending the night it was breaching new territory.

Ultimately I relented.

The Ground Rules

We reminded him of general ground rules and talked to the parents a little about what they may expect.

• Respect their house and their house rules; the corollary being don’t do anything you know would get you in big trouble at home
• Don’t ask for things that you would not ask for at home or would not get at home (i.e. tons of cookies out of the cupboard if no one is eating dessert)
• Don’t DO anything, or let someone do to you, something that would not be allowed at home (this an include getting into the medicine cabinet and of course inappropriate physical contact)*
• Go to sleep when you are told it’s time to go to sleep (a relatively normal bedtime was planned)
• If you become upset or uncomfortable or do not want to stay for any reason, call us and we’ll come get you (which we told the parents directly)
• There are no secrets — be prepared to divulge everything*

*Added after post originally went live

That’s basically it.

Making sure the child knows they have a way out without embarrassment is key.  If they become nervous, can’t get comfortable, get in a fight with the friend, etc.  They need a way out.  I didn’t particularly emphasize this, but I think it is more important than I recognized earlier.

Similarly, having supervising parents who will keep tabs on the kids and will not them go wild is obviously incredibly helpful.  These  parents weren’t going to let Rogue One go rogue.

He had a great time — it was basically a play date but instead of sleeping at home he slept somewhere else.

What Could Go Wrong?

I mentioned ground rules for Rogue One to follow, but what about screening the destination household for potential pitfalls?

As a pediatric emergency medicine doctor I am acutely aware of what can happen when children are poorly supervised or unsupervised, especially with some children having less self-control.

While most potential pitfalls are benign — eating too many cookies — some are catastrophic.

Given the heroin epidemic, widespread use of prescription pain pills, ubiquity of alcohol, there are many other things a kid can get into by mistake (or on purpose).

At age 9, Rogue One is unlikely to be seduced by drugs or alcohol, but he is not far from the age where usage climbs dramatically, andhe’s certainly old enough to try something  by mistake (or on purpose) without knowing what it is.  I have not asked other parents about these.

What I am asking about is guns.

I’ve cared for multiple young children who have died from firearms, including one who died when a cousin accidentally shot him with a loaded, unsecured firearm that was left in the home.

I work in an ER that treats as many (or more children) with gunshot wounds than any other hospital in the country.

It’s not a daily occurrence, but it happens often enough that it’s something I think about.

Published by Hunting Mark.

I found this handy chart online that lets you identify firearms per capita by state — Wyomingites love their guns.  My state is in the middle somewhere (literally and based on the numbers).

In our old neighborhood, before we moved to the suburbs, Rogue One used to routinely go spend time in the neighbors houses for a few hours at a time.

That includes the home of a couple with two great kids.  We were friends with the parents, who happened to be far more conservative ideologically than us.  I had wonderful discussions with the dad about all sorts of random political and religious topics.

What I never asked, was whether they stored guns in the home.

Perhaps afraid of hurting sensibilities or causing a disturbance in a very close neighborhood (also literally — houses were really close and we were up in everyone’s business), I didn’t ask.

One day, standing in their bedroom and talking politics, I learned they stored a loaded shotgun under their bed, along with some unloaded weapons.  The purpose of the shotgun was to have it readily available in case of intruders.

Putting aside the debate over security concerns in this neighborhood (which was arguable), I was taken aback.  I was also upset and embarrassed with myself.

Rogue One (and occasionally even Rogue Two when he was about 2 years old) would spend time in this house without us, and sometimes with the parents doing activities outside.

I know the dangers of unsecured firearms.  While these parents have a legal right to their guns (not something I am debating today), I don’t want my children in a house with unsecured firearms.

I just don’t trust any young child on their own with these weapons, particularly city kids who had minimal exposure, training, or understanding of the handling and dangers of firearms.

The Fallout

I was not happy to learn about the shotgun.  While I was upset and embarrassed to not ask this earlier, I did calmly tell them my concerns.

The husband, who was close to being a survivalist and the lover of arguments, surprisingly had no problems trying to rectify the situation.  While they both believed their kids would never touch the guns, I told them I disagreed (and some studies back up that basic training doesn’t keep boys from doing stupid things with guns).

They acknowledged the potential danger, removed the bullets and stored them in a separate, hidden location where a young child was unable to find/reach them.

So the fallout was that there was no direct fallout.

Guns and gun regulation and gun ownership is its own political maelstrom, and it’s easy to engage in heated and angry debates over whether individuals need gun(s) of various types for various purposes.

Ultimately when it comes to our children we have to set the rules.  While my wife sometimes thinks I ruffle feathers on purpose by engaging in debate over divisive topics, when it comes to our children’s safety, there is no such thing as divisive.

There’s our children’s basic safety and well-being, then there’s everything else.

I’ve now made it more of a point to ask parents directly about firearms when our kids will be in their own without us.  I’ve yet to have a parent become upset about it.  Admittedly none of the ones I’ve asked own a firearm, which is probably why.

If I had been raised in and lived in Wyoming, maybe we’d own a gun ourselves and I wouldn’t consider asking the neighbors.

Next Steps

Rogue One is spending the night at a friend’s house right now after an impromptu invitation.

This friend has spent a lot of time at our house, and Rogue One has been at their house many times.  It’s walking distance (my wife walked him over), and while we’re not close friends with the parents, we’ve interacted with them numerous times over the past two years and know them.

When Rogue One is older he will want to spend time with kids whose parents we are less able to meet — middle school and high school are bigger, the parents less omnipresent, and the expectation of independence higher.

It’ll require more effort to understand what happens in those houses when he reaches that point.

But for now he’s young and not independent enough to go places I can’t investigate.  I *can* tell you I’ve checked, and this family does not own a gun.  It doesn’t mean he’s “safe” or that nothing bad will happen, but at least I remembered to check this one important box.

Postcript: Rogue One stayed up until 11pm and was a zombie the next morning.  He was so tired he wanted to skip his last day of magic camp; a week-long daycamp learning magic tricks, culminating in a performance that afternoon.  We of course said there’s no way he’s skipping camp because he stayed up late partying.  He had a great final day, though admittedly we didn’t really discuss a bedtime with the neighbor’s, so it’s partly our fault.