by Elizabeth Wordsmith

Created on: April 27, 2008

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.
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