For our daughter’s 10th birthday, all she wanted was a sleepover, a slumber party, all of her dear friends at our house to spend the night. Fabulous. I’m game. I love sleepovers…said no mom ever… Okay, so that’s a lie. I do love sleepovers, BUT I do not love drama or hurt feelings or mean girls. I asked her to make a list of friends she would like to invite. She bounded up to me with her big brown eyes and a huge glowing, proud smile. “Here it is! I’m so excited. I can’t wait to celebrate turning TEN with all of my friends,” she declared handing over a lengthy list of fifteen of her besties.
Wow! My initial suggestion was to cut the list. That’s way too many girls. Her response to me was, “I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.” Touché, my love, touché. She’s been blessed to develop close friendships each year in school; however, I didn’t realize this was going to lead us down a path of gargantuan birthday parties. I knew most of the girls on her list, yet others I never met before. I was thinking this could be a recipe for disaster. Then I suggested we change the plan and have a swimming or bowling party, so she could include everyone on her list. A sleepover was still #1. “Alright, let’s do it! I can handle 15 girls for the night!” We planned for a Friday night, which I anticipated would be PERFECT after a long day at school. They’d crash early…NOT! (I think the last of them fell asleep around 3:30 a.m.)
After sending out an evite, every. single. blessed. sweet. friend. was able to come except one. ONE! I thought for sure we would only end up with ten of the fifteen able to attend. Okay…back to what I initially said…I do not love drama or hurt feelings or mean girls… The mommas of each of these sweet girls were entrusting their precious gems into my care for the next 12+ hours. Without our daughter becoming known as the “Girl Whose Mom has Sleepover Rules”, I had to come up with a plan to prevent as much drama as possible and make sure the girls had a blast. My goal was to show them how to have a great time as a whole despite different personalities and styles and interests. In the end….we had no tears, we had no separation of groups (outside of those who were tired and wanted sleep and our night owls), and we had no pranks. Instead, we had laughter and dancing and creating and eating!
Here’s what I learned from my experience…
GAME PLAN
Avoid planning everything to the single second, however, have a general idea of games, crafts, or other activities prepared. Trust me…you will need these. We had a dance party with balloons filled with glow sticks. Using fabric markers, the girls decorated and signed each other’s t-shirts. We made sundaes in a sundae bar and created dream catchers. Between each activity that I had planned, the girls did their own planned “sleepover” activities, such as make-overs and dress-up. When they started to get loud (and this happened a lot!), I would draw them back with another activity. It worked out beautifully.
IT’S OKAY TO SHARE THE RULES
IT’S OKAY TO SHARE THE RULES (and offer reminders throughout the evening) – The girls arrived at 6:00 p.m. Pizza was first on the birthday girl’s agenda, so while they were eating (and quiet), I gave them a rundown of my rules: 1) Be you. 2) Be kind. 3) Have fun. Add no screaming to this list if you don’t like LOUD or have some earplugs on hand. You’ll need them! I didn’t belabor the “rules,” but did set expectations of kindness and including others.
During one of my check-ins, all of the girls were sitting in a large circle. They said they were telling “secrets.” The sleepover warning bells started ringing. It was the perfect opportunity to remind the girls of the general guidelines. As an alternative, I offered up tween “Would you rather…?” and “Truth or Dare.” They appeared to be games I happened to “have on hand”, but I was also able to censor the questions to make sure they were appropriate for the age group. For example, I didn’t think they needed to offer a “truth” about what they would change about themselves or what their friends would change about them. Accepting diversity and individuality is so important, and especially developing a healthy self-esteem and confidence.
BE PRESENT
Sure. Girls will easily entertain themselves for those full 12+ hours, but as the saying goes, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” Not only will your house be a disaster, but there will likely be drama. I wasn’t in the same room with the girls the whole time, but myself and the moms helping were within ear shot and frequently checked-in to see if anyone “needed” anything – that’s us…hostesses with the mostestes! Little did they know we were also keeping an eye out for tears or pouting or other red flags.
BE UPFRONT WITH PARENTS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY
This never crossed my mind when we were in the planning phases. Yes. Even nine and ten year olds have tablets and phones with internet (and camera) capabilities. Make sure your connection is password protected. Ask parents not to send tablets or phones. If these items tag-along, set up a device drop location where the girls can leave them at the party, either as soon as they get to the party or before bedtime. I was surprised when a party-goer came up to me with her tablet asking me to wave because we were “live.” Say what?!?! There are too many creepers out there for me to be remotely comfortable with a slew of tweens being live from our home.
RECRUIT HELP
I made the mistake of sending my husband off with the younger three kiddos to my in-laws without any plan for back-up. I figured I could handle it. That was until they were all running around the house screaming. I was so thankful my mother-in-law and a couple mom-friends helped most of the evening, with one even volunteering to stay. I couldn’t have done it without them. Not only were they a huge help by being an extra set of hands during activities and food prepping, but it was nice to have other adults to engage with in the midst of the chaos. We were also able to take turns being good cop and bad cop.
KEEP FOODS AND SNACKS SIMPLE
If I had to spend a ton of time in the kitchen food prepping, I never would’ve had the activities ready for the girls nor would I have been available to help them with the various crafts we had planned. The girls enjoyed pizza (a mom of one of our gluten-free girls brought a gluten-free pizza, too), gluten-free meatballs in sauce, apple slices with caramel, veggies with ranch dip, potato chips, popcorn, nachos with salsa, and a sundae bar.
Overall, we had a fun-filled, drama-free night. Good luck with planning your tween’s sleepover. Hopefully these tips will help set you up for success.