Teen’s Sleepovers in The Digital Age

Sleepovers over the years are often in the news for so many reasons. There are plenty of stories been published in various news outlets regarding sleepover of kids and teens and something terrible happens. Obviously, sending your kid or teens into someone’s house without knowing who will be there and what kind of people are they and what sort of an environment would be for the child. However, sleepovers are too risky for the youngsters and it can bring out the worst in other kids and teens. They may become the victim of high-risk behavior in terms of engaging themselves in bullying, sexually abused, drug abuse and plenty of other things alike. On the other hand, teen’s sleepovers in the digital age may differ with the post time incidents due to the advancement of the technology where children can inform their parents time to time with the use of cell phones and gadgets connected to the cyberspace.

A Nephi teacher and Wrestling coach has been accused and later on charged with the sexual abuse after the sleepover at his home. The Coach name was Hadley Christian who has been charged with aggravated sexual abuse of a child, a first-degree felony, news published in Daily Herald. The incident reportedly happens when 11-year-old accuser had a sleepover with the Christensen’s daughter.

“The Victim child said that his teacher has given her a pill before the bed because she has had a headache and his teacher was helping her out, she said in an interview with Utah Division of child and family services. She said, her headache remains the same but her head starts spinning and when she woke her teacher was abusing her.

There was a time when young tweens and teens think sleepover as a milestone of the childhood. However, in recent years, parents have banned their children spending the night outside of the family house. You can say that it is another case where helicopter parents gone wild or they really scared of the dangers and potentials harms of sleepovers. Yes, indeed sleepovers could be dangerous for teens, tweens and even for the children and here a few of the examples given below.

It’s been reportedly stated that in one of the reports of the Guardian “There are 30000 incidents have been reported of children sexually abused other young peers, 2625 alleged attacks on the school and as well as in sleepovers over the last four years. The Data has been released by 38 of the 43 forces in England and Wales, in the result to freedom of information request, where peer on peer reported have been shown, “Abuse rose from 4603 in 2013 to 7866 last year -71% increases. The Minors that have committed sexual abuse, one thing was common among all, they have experienced early encounters to pornography and the pocket porn is the latest example of it. Moreover, according to the 2012 publications in the Journal of Natural Science, Biology and Medicine, the experts say when young kids get their eyes on the pornographic content, later on, likely to have strong desire to execute the activities. Therefore, most of the kids and teens got sexually abused during sleepovers at friend’s house.

Since the cell phone technology has prevailed to the young generation, they seem glued with the cell phone screen. So, screen time is on the rise and young kids and teens and it causes digital dementia among tweens. Moreover, Parents that don’t want their children to spend all the time on the internet and social media apps sleepovers would be very effective for them by pretending to have it for school exams and plenty of others ideas like that. Moreover, Young kids and teens who really want to have fun in terms of sexual activities and drug abuse; they usually do these sorts of unhealthy things under the carpet of sleepovers for due to some odd reasons.

Social media apps and dating apps are very popular these days young kids and teens when got spare time having sleepovers to get involved with the strangers and plan for the real-life sexual encounters. In addition sleepover over the years is a fun night for teens and tweens or to execute such activities which they are not allowed at the house. So, peers make plans to dodge their parents for spending the night at a friend’s house on the name of exams. So, digital doorways everywhere enable teens to perform activities which they cannot execute openly in the presence of the parents.

Today teens don’t wait for enough to know on Monday about someone’s sleepover. Within the presence of digital devices and internet, they used to broadcast whole sleepover activities in terms of photos and videos, messages and streaming nonstop. So, in this situation teen’s exposure towards the online predators become imminent in terms of bullies online, stalkers and sexual predators.

Sleepovers of teens and tweens are full of excitement and fun. Dramatically, how to having fun has been changed over the years. However, young kids and teens still like to do things crazy likewise play, jokes and little bit goof around. No matter what if they don’t glued with the cell phones, but still they can do things that can put teens into real trouble. Incidents have been happened where teens take consent from parents to sleepover at peer house and on the other hand the particular peer plays same music with their parents.

Furthermore, they get involved in something to sleep with their random boyfriends for uncommitted sexual activities, drug abuse and others things alike.  At the end of the day, cases have been reported that where teens got rapped and even got killed on the name of sleepovers. On the other hand, within the presence of the digital age in terms of cell phones and gadgets connected to the internet, parents can stay updated what teens are doing and what location they are present at the moment. Let’s discuss how parents can protect teens from the fake sleepovers on the name of studies.

Banning teens for sleepovers is the good idea. Parents should do some homework and should make some ground roles. There is couple of things that every parent should know about before permitting teens to have sleepover at peer’s house.

• Parents should know about the peer
• Parents should know about the house location
• Parents should consult with the parents of your child peers
• Ask the reason what makes your kids and teens to have sleepover
• Guide your teens about the activities that can really put them in trouble

Parents can stay updated even before the teens and kids are planning for the sleepover with the use of a cell phone spy app to use it digital parenting. Parents can record and listen to teens live calls using secret call recorder. Moreover, teens read text messages sent/received and get to know what they are planning about. However, parents can track the GPS location, location history of teens when they are at peer’s house 24/7 to make sure teens are at their friend’s house. You can use parental monitoring software to listen to the surround and get to know what they really do at the moment. Moreover, parents can get the logs of social messaging apps in terms of text messages, text conversations, and audio and video calls logs and shared media to the fullest. This is how it would be zero chance for teens to dodge their parents with so-called sleepover.