First Sleepover?? Help with questions to ask...

[RegionMom]

You could try a pajama party but not a complete sleepover.  Let him go over and do all the stuff he would do normally, even dress for bed and brush teeth, but pick him up for sleep at home. 
That way, at pick-up, you could assess how the other family lives, and also how your child reacts to being away for so long. 
Next step might be to have a child come to your house.
I think 4 is a little young.
My daughter is almost 10 and has been to several sleepovers, but there is almost always one girl who gets picked up before all the rest sleep because they are just not ready to let go of home and routine and their personal cozy comforts.

But then, I have also seen ads for summer sleep-away camps for children as young as 5 years old. And I was concerned to have my 10 year old son leave for 3 days this summer with Scouts!!

Try having a meal out with the family.  develop a friendship.  If the families mesh well, when the children get older, it could be quite handy to have a trusted emergency person for overnights. 

It happened to me when in-laws were out-of-town and I had to have emergency surgery.  My kids learned FAST that they would be ok!
But I would not reccomend it. 

[Cupcake Fiend]

Thanks for the answers everyone!  I feel better knowing I'm not being totally overprotective!

I don't think I was clear in my original post -- what religion they are doesn't matter to me.  It's their values I need to know about.  What kind of stuff do they let their kids watch on tv or movies, do they think it is fine for the kids to stay up all night playing gory video games, etc.  I have a very dear friend who lets her three year old DS watch Harry Potter and movies like that and I would be very uncomfortable with the boys getting exposed to that type of thing just yet.  Too scary/violent/dark for them right now.  And by their personalities, I'm pretty sure Thing 2 will be ready for that kind of thing a bit before Thing 1 is.

The weapon issue is very important to me and it is something I will be asking EVERY family the boys spend time with away from me.  I have my reasons for feeling like I do about weapons, and yes I am overprotective and I know it but that's how it is going to be.  I just have not figured out how to express those questions yet in a polite way.  I thought I had some time before I had to start asking them!

Anyway we won't be letting him go this time, in any case.  He's far too young and I know it wouldn't work.  I'll have DH talk to the mom when he sees her at school this week and see if they can arrange for a regular playdate sometime.

[kingsrings]

I once did have the most humorless grilling ever from another parent. When she finished, I did NOT want the child to come over that day or any day, ever. It was a playdate for about three hours, and I've had job interviews that were less stressful and intense than that questioning.

Wow. Just what kind of questions did she ask? It must be hard for the child to have a parnoid parent.

[Alida]

It's funny, I never even thought about asking about weapons (we own a number of long guns, handguns, swords, knives and other weapons related to my DD and my martial arts training), because our daughter has, from her earliest years, been taught what to do around a weapon of any sort. 

I've never had anyone ask me about our weaponry, either, but we do not make a secret out of the fact that we shoot, etc.  This area is chock full of hunters, so most homes have at least one gun.

[Cupcake Fiend]

We own about 6 swords between DH and I and a few daggers, but they are all safely stashed away where Thing 1 & Thing 2 can't get to them for now.  Eventually we'll bring them down and display them again but we don't have a place for them right now.  And they aren't even sharpened!

I won't have guns in my house. When the time is right I will have DH and FIL teach the boys how to handle one (FIL has several).  But I need to be ready for that and I don't know when it will be.  Until then they are taught not to touch guns - even toy ones.

[andi]

Personally i think 4 is a bit young for a total sleep over.  But there are children who are emotionally ready and do fine - but i think it's odd in a situation where the parents have never met eachother.  I'd always err on the side of caution (but i'm totally overprotective so ...).

We also own a variety of firearms due to hubby's hunting hobby along with bows and arrows.  All are kept in a locked 5 foot, steel gunsafe bolted to the floor of our office closet.  We do keep one handgun in our bedroom - on the top shelf of a 6 foot armior that has a door lock - and our bedroom door is always closed.  We always put it in the gunsafe whenever anyone is coming over - and hubby will move it quietly if we have unexpected company.  We plan on teaching our child saftey when he is of age as well - but in the meantime i don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable in our house or be liable for anyone that isn't careful.  I now ask about weapons since it's something i'm aware of and many of our friend's hunt as well.

[EvilAlice]

The weapon issue is very important to me and it is something I will be asking EVERY family the boys spend time with away from me.  I have my reasons for feeling like I do about weapons, and yes I am overprotective and I know it but that's how it is going to be.

I don't think that's overprotective.  It's just common sense.  There ARE people who have weapons around and they're not secured.  I think it's a much more important question than movies etc.  If your kid sees a movie you don't really approve of or stays up too late one night- eh, unlikely that there's any lasting harm done.  If your kid ends up in a house where the kids can get to the guns- that's a whole other story.  I'm not a parent and I tend to think parents are overprotective these days, but not on an issue like that.  I think it would be foolish NOT to ask.

[freakyfemme]

The weapon issue is very important to me and it is something I will be asking EVERY family the boys spend time with away from me.  I have my reasons for feeling like I do about weapons, and yes I am overprotective and I know it but that's how it is going to be.

I don't think that's overprotective.  It's just common sense.  There ARE people who have weapons around and they're not secured.  I think it's a much more important question than movies etc.  If your kid sees a movie you don't really approve of or stays up too late one night- eh, unlikely that there's any lasting harm done.  If your kid ends up in a house where the kids can get to the guns- that's a whole other story.  I'm not a parent and I tend to think parents are overprotective these days, but not on an issue like that.  I think it would be foolish NOT to ask.

Wow, yeah, if guns are likely to be an issue, it's definitely a good idea.......it's weird though, I'm Canadian, and I think the gun laws are stricter here, or something, because we don't really have the "gun culture" here.  My dad doesn't have a gun, and neither do any of my friends' dads either.  In fact, I don't think I've met anyone whose family keeps guns in the house.

[Minmom3]

Truthfully?  I'd say at 4 he's too young to stay anywhere but a loved relatives home.  Somebody's house where you don't know them, and he's just met them?  I wouldn't have let my girls do it.  I've heard and read too many stories of middle of the night rescues for a child who discovered that this wasn't all it was cracked up to be, to be up for that.  I never had to do one, but my kids only spent the night at Grandma's house at 4, not even the very next door neighbors they were close friends with.

Just my two cents there...

[pblair38]

I would agree with those that say that four is too young for a sleepover.  And I would never let my child sleep over at someone's house that I had never been invited to myself - for dinner, a playdate, coffee, or whatnot.  I'd have to be more than just casual acquaintances with someone to let my child sleep over at their house. 

OTOH, if they knew my child that well, they probably wouldn't want him over anyway.  Not at this age.  LOL!

Penny

[dawbs]

I do have to ask...when it's something that may get turned down outright at this age (since clearly lots of folks think 4 is to young), why would she mention it in front of the kiddos before asking the moms?

I konw that when my friend's parents considered doing something other parents (including my own) might not have wanted me to do at that age, they would tell their own kids they were considering it...and give my folks a call to see what the odds were this could be pulled off.  Fewer broken hearts, fewer friend's parents playing the ogre role, etc.

(I could also be way off base here, it was just the first thing that popped into my head when I read the post)

[Minmom3]

<< why would she mention it in front of the kiddos before asking the moms?>>

1)  She's a loosy goosy mom w/o much sense or rules and thinks chaos like that is fine.
2)  Her kid is so extremely meek he/she has never begged for something mentioned in front of him/her. (Hah!)
3)  This is her first effort at a sleep over, and she has NO idea how awful it can actually be.
4)  She wants to be hip, and cool, and doesn't want to deny her child anything at all.  For any reason.

Personally, I'd be leery of somebody who thought having 4 year olds on a sleepover was a good idea.  It would tell me that our notions of 'good and proper parenting' wildly differ.

[Cupcake Fiend]

DH didn't tell me exactly how the conversation went down, but I got the impression that Thing 1's classmate invited him.  My guess would be something along the lines of he asked for a sleepover, she said okay if it was okay with his friends' parents, then he came to school and invited his friends, my son and another little boy.  I could see the conversation going in that direction with a small child.  Kind of along the lines of "Hey, Mom, can we do X?"  Mom replies maybe or we'll see, the child hears "yes" and later it becomes "But you PROMISED!"  KWIM?

Classmate probably got the sleepover idea from TV or an older sibling, asked about it, then did some inviting before Mom knew what she was in for.  Then how do you uninvite?

I don't know for sure, but I could definitely see it going down that way.

This is the last week of school before Christmas vacation.  Hopefully it will all be forgotten by January.  (yea right...Thing 1 has an AMAZING memory...when he wants to)  Last year, he was 3, and I had told him at the beginning of December that he could stay at school for lunch one day if he had two good weeks in a row.  I didn't realize that there was no lunch at school the last week before vacation. He had his two good weeks, but didn't get to stay for lunch because there wasn't any that day.  Nothing was said about it over vacation, but his first week back in January he reminded me that he got to stay for lunch because he had two good weeks!!