Sleepovers for children: Psychologist discusses the pros and cons

Psychologist discusses kids' sleepovers and suggests implementing rules at your own home, such as no devices and common area sleeping.

Sleepovers at a friend’s house is common for most kids, but is it safe and beneficial? Tammy Schamuhn, co-founder of the Institute of Child Psychology, joined CTV Morning Live’s Kent Morrison with tips on what parents should think about.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Kent Morrison: We’re talking about sleepovers with friends, but what do you want parents to think about when they’re considering sleepovers?

Tammy Schamuhn: There are good and bad parts to this. There’s benefits, where kids can develop resiliency and they get to be exposed to different family cultures. They learn to be separate from their parents, so they learn to be more confident. But the one piece of information I really want parents to know is that when I treat children who have had sexual trauma, it used to be 40 per cent of that trauma of sexual abuse came from peer to peer abuse, meaning kids their own age or a little bit older, and now that stat is 70 per cent. So I’m actually more concerned about my kids being abused by another kid than another adult. When we think about sleepovers, we have to keep that statistic in mind. How well do we know this family? Do we know who’s there? Where are the kids going to be sleeping? In my house, when we have sleepovers, kids have to sleep in a common area. They just sleep in the living room, or we separate kids in different bedrooms. There’s no sleeping in bedrooms together.

Kent: So these are things to consider if you’re sending your kid, and also hosting a sleepover?

Tammy: Exactly. One of the rules that we implemented just this year was that when kids come to our house, if they have a device, we lock it up. There is no device because I don’t know what other parents are doing with their screen rules. I don’t know if kids have access to pornography on their phones, inappropriate pictures, and I’m not going to monitor those kids’ phones. That’s not up to me to decide what other families are doing, but in our house, we have to keep that separate. If my kids are going to someone else’s house, I’m going to ask those parents, “What are their screen rules? Where are the kids’ devices going to be if they have devices? Do they have parental controls on their devices?” It’s an awkward conversation to have. Same with older siblings. I want to know if those kids have older kids in the house. Who else lives in the house? Are there firearms in the house? Are those firearms locked up? It’s awkward, but I think if you’re going to go this route, you don’t want to be a statistic. We want to have these really difficult conversations, and if we can’t have these vulnerable conversations with these other families, it might not be a good idea to move forward.

Kent: If you can’t have that conversation, then maybe that’s the barrier, right?

Tammy: Once you get to know these families, you can feel really good about sending your kids there. Asking those questions allows us to have those really great relationships with our neighbours and our communities, and I don’t want to deter families from having that. Just be ready to have them, but it’s okay to not have them too. One thing my business partner does with her girls is she does these warm-up trials, where the kids can stay right till bedtime. They put on their pajamas, they brush their teeth, but then they go home right before the end of the night. So they’re still part of the sleepover right to the point where the kids go to bed for families who aren’t comfortable.

Kent: There is pressure for kids sometimes because it’s supposed to be this big, fun thing and a rite of passage. How do you know when your kid’s ready?

Tammy: I would do a dry run with family, like grandparents, cousins, just to see how they do with that. Do the dry run where they stay up to a certain time. Practice scenarios with them, where they’re going and they’re staying away at a neighbor’s house for part of the day, just to see how they do with that, and play it by ear. Allow them a time to check in with you when they’re at the sleepover, and allow them an out. Like saying a code word to the host parent. What is that code word so they’re not embarrassed? When kids spend the night at my house, I check in with them separately away from the other kids to see if they feel good and if they want to go home or not, and I don’t shame them.

Send your questions for Tania and Tammy via text message to 10-400.