CLEVELAND — Now that kids are back to school and socially catching up after a strange year, you might be getting that question: "Can we do a sleepover?"
Certain parents have a hard "No" when it comes to sleepovers, but others say it's great for development. In today's Mom Squad Pod, Maureen Kyle talks to Dr. Tori Cordiano about how to decide if it's right for your family.
The first step is explaining to your child that they can always come home, no matter what time or situation.
"If you are feeling like this is a situation you do not want to stay in, you can always call a parent to come and get you," Cordiano said. "That could be as soon as you get dropped off, that could be 11 o'clock at night.
"That should hopefully be the open communication that you want to start at a pretty young age, so that by the time kids get to adolescence and they may find themselves in a situation where there's some red flags or that their radar is kind of going up, that they're not going to hesitate to text a parent to say, 'Can you come get me?'"
Another big question: What if you know it's a sleepover situation you're not comfortable with? How do you explain that to your child?
"It's fair to ask that of the host family," Cordiano answered. "It's also fair to say 'Kiddo, we trust you, and we 100% trust you sleeping over at this friend's house at a different time, but we actually aren't ready for a big sleepover with this many kids yet.'"
To listen to the entire conversation, you can download Mom Squad Pod where ever you get your podcasts:
EDITOR'S NOTE: The video in the player above is a previous edition of the podcast: