Are sleepovers really necessary to the growth and development of children? Really?
How beneficial are they?
Well, as a biblical counselor, I hear all kinds of stories about what happens at sleepovers – the majority of them not good. I hear about first time uses of alcohol, marijuana, even cocaine, sexual abuse, sexual experimentation, watching inappropriate movies (sex, horror, language, etc.), and other terrible things that children under the authority (or lack thereof) are subjected to. Many of them are first time experiences which is even more sad!
So, do I recommend sleepovers for children or young adults? No.
Are they sinful? Not always but they can be. Why do we insist upon these events except when they are absolutely necessary?
In a day and age where we complain about child abuse and sexual abuse affecting people and leading them to addictions as older adults, why do we give the flesh and Satan an opportunity to introduce our children to such things? Some will say I am over-protective but why risk it unless necessary?
-Mark (seeing too much in the counseling room to make me comfortable with doing the things the way the culture/world says we should do them…I want to be biblical not cultural)
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Finally, I found someone who supports my convictions! For 14 years our family did not ever allow our children to have sleepovers at other’s homes, nor host them at ours. We were misunderstood by many, including our own children. The only sleepovers that occurred were when our entire family was traveling out of town and we would stay with friends or relatives, or in the case of an “emergency” situation which then too all the children would stay at one family’s home. Then our life changed a bit, and we allowed the older children to stay at a friend’s house, and then it happened again, and again. We have now “caved in to cultural peer pressure” and it’s very hard to reclaim what we had established for many years. I appreciate your insight as a counselor. All of your reasons are many of my own. Might I also add that a family has been created to be a family with its own unique rules, structure, values, and individuals. We were put together as a unit for a reason, and in a (hopefully reasonably) functioning household “there is no place like home” should simply be a foundational reason to come home every night to your own bed.