Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #658 Sleepovers 101

Transcript

#658 Sleepovers 101 · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Time poor parent who just wants answers.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Now, well, we want to delay sleepovers. We need to
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: highlight that there are risks and really what this comes
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: down to is talk to your kids. Just say, I
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: know you want to have the sleepover. I know it's
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: going to be really fun, but what are you going
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: to do to stay safe?
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: And now here's the scars of our show my mom
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: and dad.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: One of my favorite things to do across the summer
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: holidays with my friends when I was a teenager was
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: have sleepovers. All the guys would come to my house
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: and we would sleep over. Then we'd get up in
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: the morning, catch the bus to the beach go surfing.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: This is probably from about the age of thirteen Kylie,
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: maybe fourteen. And if it wasn't my place, it was
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Ben and Jay's auntie at Spoon Bay on the Central Coast.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: She had a house just down the road from the beach.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: We'd go and sleep over there. There'd be five or
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: six of us in the rumper's room sleeping with I
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: don't know, like just sleeping on the carpet pretty much
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: or on the couch. And first thing. In the morning,
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: we'd run down to the beach and go surfing. Sleepovers
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: were a huge part of my adolescent years. Don't think
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: that I really had them very much, if at all,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: prior to my teen years, but just loved them. Sleepovers
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: much of a part of your growing up.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I do remember a handful. My earliest memory, I would
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: have been about six, wow, and my mum had my
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: baby sister, and I went and stayed with my auntie,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: and all I remember is sleeping in my cousin, my
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: boy cousin's bedroom with his blue wall paper and his
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: trucks up on the shelf, and seeing the shadows of
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: the trees swaying in the breeze and the outdoor light.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Spooky.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: It was very spooky, and I remember just staying awake
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: for half the night, scared, but too scared to say anything.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Right, So, when I was younger, I had sleepovers at
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: my grandparents' houses, and I loved sleeping over at Nana
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Pop's house like that was that was just the most
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: awesome thing. But other than that, that was pretty much it
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Nana Pop's place. And then as a teenager, sleeping over
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: with my mates before we went surfing, we'd camp out
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: in the backyard. We'd pitch a tent and go down
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: to the shops by a whole lot of lollies. Hubbabubba
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: was my favorite, and we just chew gum all night
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: and talk and then get up early in the morning
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: and go surfing.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I wonder you don't like gum these days.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, I can't stand this stuff terrible. So the conversation
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: that we're having today about sleepovers is prompted by emails
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: via podcasts at happy Families dot com DOTU. Somebody wanted
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: to know what do you do about sleepovers, especially during
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: the summer holidays, Christmas holidays. We've got all these family friends,
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: kids wanted to catch up with their friends from school, neighborhoods,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: camping stuff in the backyard. What do we do? How
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: do we get this right? A sleepover's okay or not?
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Over the last few years, there's been a lot of
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: noise made on mummy blogs, on Instagram and social media
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: about why so many parents are saying no, kids cannot
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: have sleepovers, not going to let it happen. The risks
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: are too high, the rewards are essentially not worth the risk.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Not going to do it. Our approach, Kylie has not
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: necessarily been that. But at the outset, before we even
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: begin this conversation, I want to highlight this is a
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: hard one to respond to from a science based perspective,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: So as a scientist, I always want to know what
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: are the studies show. There's not really much research out
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: there about kids and sleepovers. Research does show that there
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: is risk associated with sleepovers, but for most of us
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: who have lived through childhood and had the experience, we
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: know that so long as it's safe, it's cool, like
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: it's awesome. Yes, you eat too much sugar. Yes you
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: stay out way too late. Yes you are right off
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: the next day, and your parents wonder if I'll ever
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: let you do it again. But it's so much fun
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: to hang out with your friends late at night. And
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: so we're going to kind of try to thread this
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: needle and talk about the pros and cons the risks
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: and rewards of sleepovers for kids at any age.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Well, I think if we start at the really high end,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: the high end, the high end of the disasters that
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: could possibly happen, right there are definitely some safety concerns, yes,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: without doubt that you would want to alay before you
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: would make a decision to let your child have a sleepover.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: And I will never ever minimize those concerns. And for
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: those who have been affected because of those concerns, not
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: being satisfied, devastating tragedy casts the longest shadow through the
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: lives of people who have been affected. There So, the
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: research does tell us that kids are most likely to
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: be harmed by people known to them, and the younger
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: they are, the greater the risk. So I think in
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: harmony with yesterday's conversation about kids and alcohol, and there
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: was one key word that was the very heart of
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: our discussion but delay, delay, delay, hold off. And I
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: think that there's some real wisdom there when it comes
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: to kids in sleepovers, especially sleepovers with friends. Now, if
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: you've got family members that you know are safe, whether
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: it's grandma and grandpa or the Arnie and uncle because
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: they're going to catch up with their cousins, you obviously
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: assess that as you you need to, and you want
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: to make sure that there's appropriate mixes of a lack
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: of a mix perhaps of genders. You want to make
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: sure that there's appropriate supervision, appropriate sleeping arrangements.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: But the and in our experience with the younger kids
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: actually being easier if Nan and Pop or Auntie and
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: uncle can actually come under our house. Baby, see, we
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: have a night off and have a sleepover at our house.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Kids are in the same hot environment, the safety and
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: security and that their own bed and Nan and Pop
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: can kind of fall into the routine of the family
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: as opposed to everything being turned up.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: But it still feels like a sleepover because they're being
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: looked after by someone different. It's right, yeah, but I
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: think in terms of advice, in terms of the conversation
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: around this, so long as you know that the adults
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: who are in charge are safe and that there are
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: no other adults coming in that you don't know, because
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: that's a real risk. Right. You might send the kids
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: off to someone's house for a sleepover, even a relative's house,
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: but they have a visitor either from down the road
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: or from overseas or a family member, whoever it is.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: You don't know them, you don't know what the history is.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: We want to make sure that our can kids are
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: safe at all times. We need to know who's going
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: to be there, and that also raises questions with young kids,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: even with family, should there be a bedtime, what's going
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: to be the rule around screens. What kind of content
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: and programming will the children be allowed to watch if
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: there are going to be movies that are viewed. I mean,
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: we've kind of we've had our kids invited to sleepovers
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: from the age of six or seven with school parties,
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: and our general response has been, you know what, we'll
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: just pick them up at nine o'clock or ten o'clock.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Once it's late and they feel like they've had a
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: great time, we'll pick them up and we'll drop them
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: back the next morning.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: And obviously, at that age, at nine o'clock or ten
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: o'clock bedtime is way beyond what we would normally allow.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: So we're meeting them halfway. We're saying, no, we're not
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: really comfortable with you having the sleepover, but you can
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: have a late night, you can spend time with your friends,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: stay up late each your chocolate and ice cream Sundays
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: or whatever is you going to do, but we're going
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: to have you home. Yeah.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: So I think the advice that we're sharing here is
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: really helpful for kids. I'm going to say under about
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: the age of ten, maybe even eleven or twelve. It
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: just depends on you and your family. When it comes
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: to family, grandparents, auntie's, uncles, cousins, you want to know
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: where they're going to be sleeping, how they're going to
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: be safe, what programming, if any, and screens they're going
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: to have access to. And essentially you're looking after it
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: from a family point of view by having those conversations
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: with your parents or your siblings who are looking after them,
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: so they can have time with their cousins. When it
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: comes to friends, our strong preference is the kids get
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: dropped off, but then they get picked up rather than
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: having a sleepover until they're a lot older. And that's
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: just because the older they are, the more of a
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: voice they've got, the more they understand things like consent.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: They know what's right and wrong. Younger children they're just
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: more vulnerable, and therefore they think they need a high
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: level of oversight, a high level of parental involvement. As
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: kids get older, though, the challenges shift they become potentially
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: a little bit more complex. We start to deal with
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: shoes of screens and phones, cyberbullying, being on social media,
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: the potential for sending images that may or may not
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: be completely appropriate.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Speaking ouse.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I hadn't thought of that one and then
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: picking up on yesterday's conversation. By the time they're sixteen, seventeen, eighteen,
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: or maybe even a little bit younger, depending on the
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: kids and the family and the environment, maybe even fourteen
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: or fifteen. There's also the issue of alcohol and other drugs.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: So I think at this point.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: You've talked about all the big things. But the reality
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: is when you get a bunch of kids together and
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of sugar and a lack of sleep,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: you've also just got the emotional relational challenges that come
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: with everybody being together.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Your kids can kind of get nasty, can't they.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, when you get that angry.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Angry, you know what else they do that? They do
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: really dumb things. Now this is kind of harmless, but
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: I remember one sleepover at my house. So my mom
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: used to go shopping and she would buy stuff in bulk.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: I guess it's kind of a little bit like what's
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: the name of the like Costco, you know how he
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: can buy stuff in bulk. So Mum would Mum would
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: go shopping and we had to sleep over one night,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: I reckon it was about eleven o'clock at night. We
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: were all still awake, and one of the guys was like, oh,
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: I'm really hungry. So we opened up the pantry and
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: in our house we actually had like a walk in pantry.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: It was quite quite sizable. I don't know how this happened,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: but one of the guys saw out a two liter
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: bottle of chocolate topping, two liters of chocolate topping on
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: one of the shelves. His name was Aaron, and Aaron's like, ah,
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: chocolate topping, we should do a milkshake. And somehow one
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: of the guys said, hey, ada to drink the chocolate topping,
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: and we all said we'd pay him five bucks if
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: you could drink the top chocolate topping. So he tried
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: to drink two liters. He just literally put the bottle
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: to his mouth and started sculling this chocolate topping like coddies,
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: thick and rich. I cannot imagine how much sugar went
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: it is I reckon. He drank about a liter of it,
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: just pure.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: I'm assuming it didn't stay down for long he.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Kept it in but yeah, yeah, yeah, But every time
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: he booked, the whole room smelled like jobbler. It was disgusting.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Was like that. So there's there's also just the dumb things.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know if I was.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: The victim of a peanut butter face. Oh really, yes,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: of course one of my sleepovers. I was always the
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: one to fall asleep before everybody else.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: And we used to do the shaving cream, put the
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: shaving cream on their face and then they and then
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: tickle them. They'd slap their face and put shaving cream everywhere.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you did that one. So someone
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: painted your face with peanut butter. They did, that's brilliant.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: They did, stuck my hand and water hoping that I'd
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: wet my bed.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: We did noody runs. That's a boy thing. Skinny dipping on,
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: skinny dipping. Yeah, So there's all those kinds of things
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: as well. And in the age of social media and
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: telephones and cameras everywhere, some of those things which we
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: would look back to the nineteen seventies, nineteen eighties, nineteen
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: nineties as harmless fun in twenty twenty two, twenty twenty
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: three not quite so harmless, could actually get you in
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: a whole lot of trouble because the world's changed and
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: there are cameras everywhere. So I think what we want
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: to delay sleepovers. We need to highlight that there are risks,
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: and really, what this comes down to is talk to
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: your kids, just say, I know you want to have
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: the sleepover. I know it's going to be really fun,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: but what are you going to do to stay safe?
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: What are you going to do if the boys or
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: the girls or whoever is hanging out with start looking
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: at imagery that is explicit and vulgar and coarse and inappropriate.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: How are you going to deal with that? Or what
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: happens if someone wants to play truth or dare and
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: you find yourself in a situation where you're feeling pressured
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: to behave in ways that are inconsistent with what we've
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: taught you having those conversations, I guess giving them a
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: dry run before they get there can be super important
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: for keeping them safe and actually facilitating their ability to
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: have a good time.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: This reminds me of the conversation we had recently about
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: interesting mobile phones to our kids.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was last Monday, and well.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: The research there isn't a lot of research around sleepovers.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: I'm going to suggest that this is going to be
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: a conversation similar to mobile phones. I think that parents
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: are pretty conscientious in making decisions to help keep their
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: children safe, and so there isn't going to be a
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: arbitrary age that we say this is. This is you know, okay,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: this is great. It really is going to come down
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: to each individual family's needs and their children and who
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: they are, their personalities and their developmental level oka opposed
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: to their age.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: So let me ask you a couple of quick questions,
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: just yes or no. Number one, should there be a
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: bedtime for sleepovers?
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Yes? One?
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: And what time should that be?
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: That's up to the individual family. Okay, but I think
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: I think the reality is they're probably not going to
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: listen to you, but you can definitely have an expectation.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: But when we've had sleepovers at our place, we've just
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: gone into the kids and said, you know what, guys,
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: it's bedtime. We're going to bed. We expect that you're
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: going to go to bed, but we're also not silly.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: We know you're probably going to stay up. So if
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: you do, the expectation is number one, you stay quiet.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Number two, there are no screens, and number three you'd
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: be nice. And then we've kind of just gone to
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: bed because kids, Right, So there's that next question. For you,
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: if you're dropping your kids off to a friend's place
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: for a sleep should you talk to other parents about
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: your values, your expectations around the sleepover.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: I would be having that conversation before I even drop
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: them off. For me, my number one rule is, these
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: are people that I know well. These are people that
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I've spent time with, and I've spent time with in
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: their home. We've had conversations around the kinds of things
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: that I allow my children to do already, and so
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: the conversation that I'm then having with them in the
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: lead up to a sleepover is just kind of reiterating,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: just checking in. Kids said they're going to be watching
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: a movie tonight. Do you know what they're watching? We
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: don't let a children watch anything over a PG or
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: whatever it is is.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, So last question for your sleepovers. Good idea or
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: bad idea?
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Context matters. Okay, If I want to have a night
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: away with you, they're amazing, right, I'm.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: Going to say they're a great idea. So long as
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: you know the people, you've had good conversations with your child,
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: and your child knows that you are available at any
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: time under any circumstances. If they're concerned, worried, or need
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: to come home, even if that means that you've got
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: to get in the car and drive across town in
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: the middle of the night.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: I think for us the biggest thing is just follow
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: your guart.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, nice one.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: You might know people well, but there's just an egle
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: that you've got and you need to go with it.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Maybe you're wrong, but you'd rather be wrong with this
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: than wrong on the other end.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: Yes, safety is everything. The Happy Family's podcast is produced
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: executive producer. If you like more info about making your
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: family happy, please visit us at Happy families dot com
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: dot au.