Speaker 1: High Heart podcasts, he more Kiss podcast playlist and listen
Speaker 1: live on the free iHeart app. Now, Britt, you might
Speaker 1: remember a few weeks back we were speaking about there's
Speaker 1: kind of been this real change and shift in perceptions
Speaker 1: around letting your kids sleep over at people's houses. And
Speaker 1: there's a debate that's been happening online as to whether, firstly,
Speaker 1: what is the right age, and as to whether it's
Speaker 1: the right thing for your kids' safety to let them
Speaker 1: sleep over at friends' houses. And it's an interesting one
Speaker 1: because we talked about it, it blew up on socials.
Speaker 1: I don't know how I feel about it as a
Speaker 1: mum to two little girls, because I have seen some
Speaker 1: truly harrowing stories that have been shared on social media
Speaker 1: about horrible things that have happened on sleepovers. But I
Speaker 1: also know that it's kind of like a rite of
Speaker 1: passage for kids, and we all did it as kids,
Speaker 1: and it's some of the best memories, even though you
Speaker 1: come back tired and no one slept, and like you know,
Speaker 1: also has its downside.
Speaker 2: You know what, I the only thing I'll quickly had
Speaker 2: to this before because I know it's serious. But my
Speaker 2: best friend reminded me on the weekend. We've been best
Speaker 2: friends for thirty years and we used to say each
Speaker 2: other's house all the time. She's like, remember how every
Speaker 2: time we'd have a sleepover, you'd only come if you
Speaker 2: liked what we had for dinner.
Speaker 1: Like I used to say what I'm eating?
Speaker 2: She's like, want to save tonight? And I was like,
Speaker 2: what's for dinner? I was like eight? She told me,
Speaker 2: if I did like it, I wouldn't go.
Speaker 1: I like that you had strong boundaries even as an
Speaker 1: eight year old, Did I knew what I wanted?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: Look, it really did blow up on socials. So many
Speaker 1: people were discussing the fore and against it. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of families who are kind of taking the route
Speaker 1: now of not letting their kids go to sleepovers. But
Speaker 1: then there's also people who think that maybe we're wrapping
Speaker 1: our kids too much in cotton wool. Someone who did
Speaker 1: slide into our DMS is Genevieve Mua now jen Is.
Speaker 1: She's an Obstretix social worker and she also has the
Speaker 1: business connected parenting, and it was really nice to chat
Speaker 1: to someone who actually has insight into this. Not only
Speaker 1: does she have four boys herself, but she's helped a
Speaker 1: lot of parents across the country manage. What is a
Speaker 1: great way of finding a middle ground in this, Jen,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me go.
Speaker 2: Jen, I'm assuming the middle ground isn't asking what they've
Speaker 2: got for dinner.
Speaker 3: I love that though. That is brilliant. I'm asking that next,
Speaker 3: so I get asked on the sleepover for sure?
Speaker 1: Do you think that it's not something that parents should
Speaker 1: be particularly concerned about or do you feel as though
Speaker 1: that maybe there has been I guess a bit of
Speaker 1: fear mungering happening online and on social media at the
Speaker 1: moment around this whole sleepover debate.
Speaker 3: I think it's hard to be a parent in general.
Speaker 3: These days. We have so much information about what's good
Speaker 3: for kids and what is a risk for kids. Yeah,
Speaker 3: from everything from how we should be feeding them, how
Speaker 3: we keep them safe, how we educate them. There's so
Speaker 3: much pressure. One of the things that I think is
Speaker 3: a good thing, right is there's been a massive social
Speaker 3: change in our understanding of what the risk to kids
Speaker 3: are and we now know that when it comes to
Speaker 3: those risks or when things happen to kids that we
Speaker 3: would like to protect them from ninety percent of the
Speaker 3: time that happens at the hands of someone we know
Speaker 3: and trust. Now that's why the sleepover thing has become
Speaker 3: an issue. Now think that to the old days where
Speaker 3: we thought the risk was strangers totally and that's what
Speaker 3: we want kids about, and we now know how we
Speaker 3: had that wrong. So I love that parents have access
Speaker 3: to the right information now about how to protect their kids.
Speaker 3: You know, we could say that's no sleepovers ever, but
Speaker 3: we let our kids go online where so many similar
Speaker 3: tricky things can happen online. Right, So what we really
Speaker 3: want to do is start to have a sense of, well,
Speaker 3: who is my kid, where are they going? So how
Speaker 3: well do I know that family? In terms of my kids,
Speaker 3: I'm looking for certain levels of skill. Is my child
Speaker 3: at an age where they absolutely know they could come
Speaker 3: to me if they felt uncomfortable, they got asked to
Speaker 3: go home, could they communicate that if they needed to?
Speaker 3: If my child has those skills, if I have someone
Speaker 3: in my life where I really trust and I've known
Speaker 3: them for a while, then that's a really different thing
Speaker 3: than if they don't have those skills.
Speaker 1: But I guess it's not particularly an age thing then
Speaker 1: is it? Because kids all develop a different ages and phases,
Speaker 1: you know. I would say that some kids had those
Speaker 1: communication skills earlier than others.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And with my four boys, there was one that
Speaker 3: I was a lot later in letting him go for
Speaker 3: his first sleepover, simply because he actually had a delay
Speaker 3: with his speech. He was not a kid that would
Speaker 3: speak up. He was really kind of quiet by nature,
Speaker 3: really struggled to put his hand up in class and
Speaker 3: say what he needed. I wasn't going to send him
Speaker 3: off because he'd never be able to speak up. So
Speaker 3: it's kind of about looking at who we've got, but
Speaker 3: also who we've got in our lives, and I want
Speaker 3: to kind of acknowledge they'd be single parents that do
Speaker 3: not have an option if they're doing shipwork, then to
Speaker 3: have sometimes the village step in and support them. We
Speaker 3: might have great relatives and grandparents. We might have really
Speaker 3: close family friends that we've known and we intimately know
Speaker 3: really well. So I think it's also about every situation
Speaker 3: is different, but it's sort of knowing who we've got.
Speaker 3: But the final thing that we can all do from
Speaker 3: a really young age, and that is really talk openly
Speaker 3: and honestly to your kids about a couple of key things.
Speaker 3: One is you know the normal names of body parts,
Speaker 3: and kind of making sure we have open and honest
Speaker 3: conversations about those things, Teaching our kids things like you
Speaker 3: don't have to hug your uncle if you don't want to,
Speaker 3: you can give them a high five. So that's body
Speaker 3: autonomy and having a sense of that stuff from a
Speaker 3: really young age. And the final thing, and I think
Speaker 3: this matters more than anything else, there is nothing you
Speaker 3: could ever do or say that would make me love
Speaker 3: you less. There's nothing you can't tell me I will
Speaker 3: always believe you. And that one you have to keep
Speaker 3: saying from the beginning all the way through. You know,
Speaker 3: at sixteen, we're still saying the same thing. You're going
Speaker 3: out tonight. There is nothing that could happen or that
Speaker 3: you could do where you can't call me and I
Speaker 3: wouldn't be there on your side to help you.
Speaker 1: Jen out of curiosity, how old were your kids when
Speaker 1: you let them sleep over at people's houses?
Speaker 3: So look really different ages depending on the child. But
Speaker 3: like I think if we were to say like a
Speaker 3: good age in general, I think it's probably somewhere upwards
Speaker 3: of maybe eight ish, Like it's somewhere around there that
Speaker 3: I think depending on the child, and again, kids are
Speaker 3: going to be so different. For one of my kids,
Speaker 3: he was that little bit older. He just wasn't ready.
Speaker 3: And for some kids that might be younger, it might
Speaker 3: be from six that you have a good friend and
Speaker 3: there's a really great thing going on. I know there's
Speaker 3: been some guidelines put out by the government where they're
Speaker 3: saying from about eleven. I think that's quite old myself,
Speaker 3: because most kids will go on their first school camp
Speaker 3: at around eleven, and I kind of think some experience
Speaker 3: in a way that is safe is probably good for kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you don't think about that too. I
Speaker 1: remember going on the school camp Lucky. My mum never
Speaker 1: really let us stay at people's houses, but they always
Speaker 1: say to ours, so I was kind of used to
Speaker 1: the sleepover environment everywhere I sh out, I didn't know
Speaker 1: your mum also had four kids, and she was like,
Speaker 1: just get one of them out of the house.
Speaker 3: That we kids were.
Speaker 2: All working, they were like, find a friend today, just
Speaker 2: sank someone else.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Jen, thanks for joining the show.
Speaker 3: Absolute pleasure. Guys,