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Teen Challenges
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| Yes | 27% | 193 votes | Total: 709 votes | |
| No | 73% | 516 votes |
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Add to FavoritesLiving in today's world, where multiculturism is a strongly promoted and healthy attitude to any person's daily habits, our teens should be equally encouraged to have a wide mix of friends - including those from the opposite gender. However, staying over for the night, as teenagers, when hormones may well be raging should be a situation that is carefully considered by the adult(s) designated as being in charge. It is quite probable that the large majority of teens can be trusted to be sensible and act responsible when given this opportunity. Define rules from the start that both parties agree to and will be comfortable with.
A few years ago, I stayed over at several friends' houses frequently on weekends and during school/college holidays. There might have been several of us, just two of us; same sex, different sex; whatever. Nothing scandalous happened, it was just friends staying up all night - talking, watching movies, eating, drinking. I probably would have been reluctant to stay over unless I trusted them not to raise an issue of peer pressure - and chances are, most teens will be able to extract themselves from situations where they might be cajoled or nudged into something they didn't want.
In this day and age, as a parent you may instantly fear the worst but, the fact is, your teenager will grow up eventually. How well prepared they are for adulthood depends on how much you have enabled them to learn the essential lessons from life. If you don't want to let your child have a sleepover somewhere else where you aren't able to supervise, suggest that it can be your teenager who hosts the sleepover under your roof. Bonus points for you as a "fun" parent. For you, it provides the opportunity to know exactly who's there, what's happening and to set some ground rules (just don't be unnecessarily strict).
At the present moment in time your teenager may still be living at home with you but imagine what could happen in a few years time (or less). Their chance to travel away to college and university beckons and life by their own rules is going to be different, whether you have made the choices for them or not. If they have been trusted with their own freedom and responsibility for the past few years, you can rest assured that they will cope just fine on their own where the temptations of the world at large will be far greater than any coed sleepover would have been for them.
Life is similar to a school. It is there to teach us lessons. All we have to do is be willing enough to learn - both from successes and failures. And life's greatest lessons can not be discovered by someone else making the choices for us, we have to establish our own path in life; no matter where it might lead us. So give your teenager a chance today, if you've previously refused the idea of a coed sleepover, let them make the choice this time - the gift of your trust could make them think over the outcome and potential consequences of any decision they make alone.
Learn more about this author, Gina W.
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No
Parental supervision of a sleepover for either girls or boys is such a head-ache of a responsibility that it is difficult to imagine that some parents would be willing to sponsor a coed sleepover. But the trend in parenting today is towards caving in to teens' demands rather than taking a firm stand based on adult judgment.
Teens may use the argument that they will soon be going to college where they will be living in coed dormitories or in apartments where there is opportunity to co-mingle with the opposite sex at any given time. But this same argument has been used to defend teen-age experimental drinking and the early exposure to other situations requiring adult judgment. The argument doesn't hold water.
The fact is that teens are still children, but children with raging hormones and a sense of invincibility. Rarely do they understand the consequences of their risk taking behaviors. Teens are frequently engaged in experimental behaviors that lead to disastrous consequences.
No matter how parents try to keep a step ahead of them, they will find ways to feed their youthful needs for thrills. It's as if they have become two year olds with too much but too little knowledge and the autonomy to invent their own disasters. Like the moth to the flame, they are attracted to the very things that will undo them.
Parents need to reduce teens' exposure to dangerous situations, not sponsor them. There is too much risk for both the parental hosts and the teens in a coed sleepover. If the children are not supervised the entire time, every last one of them, there is too much room for error.
If one of the teens brings drugs or alcohol to the party, that could spell disaster. If any of the teens is unsupervised for any length of time and becomes injured or is accosted by someone at the party, that leaves the parents open to law suits and other legal action, not to mention that the parties involved have been injured with possibly irrevocable consequences.
The only situations where a co-ed sleepover might be acceptable is one in which there are separate sleeping facilities for girls and boys with more than adequate adult supervision.
Ask any parent who has volunteered to accompany students on a class trip or a church camping trip what their experiences have been in thwarting young people's plots and schemes. Even in these situations, the job of protecting teens from themselves is monumental.
Parents must make themselves aware of the attitudes of their children's friends' parents.
It is alarming how many parents believe allowing drinking at teen-age parties is acceptable and that co-ed parties is actually a good thing because it prevents teens from driving drunk.
Why parents allow this is difficult to understand since they can be arrested for a variety of offenses for doing so. Are they trying too hard to be friends rather than parents? Have they caved in under pressure? Or are they trying to live their lives vicariously through their children and give them more freedom than they were allowed as teens? In some cases, they may have just been duped. But this is precisely why parents must step up their game during their children's teenage years.
The time has come for the resurgence of more traditional attitudes regarding teen dating and social interaction. Permissiveness does not work. Just read the statistics regarding teen pregnancies, STD's, date rape, the trend towards younger and younger teens engaging in sexual activity, and other alarming occurrences when children are placed in situations where adult judgment is necessary but lacking.
Parents may not be able to prevent their children from being exposed to all dangers, but they should not condone or sponsor them. Until teens develop the self discipline and maturity to understand fully the consequences of their actions, parents must control the environment as much as they are able.
Learn more about this author, Elizabeth Wordsmith.
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