After deciding to follow advice, the OP’s husband spoke to the teacher about their daughter not attending the sleepover. The teacher reacted by suggesting it would be a “great opportunity” for the daughter to overcome anxiety. Following this conversation, the OP learned several concerning details about the planned event and ultimately contacted the dance school, leading to the event’s cancellation and the OP questioning whether their cautious approach was the right one.
Thank you all for your input. A lot has happened, but I’ll try to keep this short.
I won’t waste time and try to convince anyone to like me. If you’ve already decided I’m a true crime-obsessed neurotic helicopter parent Karen with “diaper energy” and social anxiety issues, I don’t think there’s much I can say that will change your mind.
And yes, I’ve heard of lock-ins. My son had one with his swim team last year. He’s a bit older, it happened at the pool, guardians were informed before the children were and one of the other parents chaperoned.
It’s not the same thing as an unofficial sleepover at a teacher’s house.
All of that said, I never intended to risk this woman’s job, I was just worried. So I spoke to my husband, and we decided to take your advice and speak to my daughter’s teacher first.
He spoke to her while picking up our daughter last week. He said the conversation went fine, but he was bothered by her reaction when he said our daughter wouldn’t attend. He told the teacher our kid was anxious, but she replied that the sleepover would be “a great opportunity for her to come out of her shell,” and that we should try to encourage our daughter to come.
During the conversation, my husband also found out the following:
* She came up with the sleepover idea because she wanted to bond with the girls and figured it would be fun; * She didn’t ask for another parent to act as a chaperone because her husband had offered to help her (first time she ever mentioned his existence); * When asked about what she’d do in case of emergency, she just stated she lived about 10 minutes away from a hospital; * She didn’t ask for the parents’ contact information because she didn’t think of it.
After he told me all this, I decided to email the dance school. I wrote that the teacher was planning a sleepover, about which the parents had not received a lot of information.
Two days later, we all got an email from the teacher, stating she was canceling the sleepover due to a complaint from the dance school. She also apologized for not being more transparent with us.
Some of the other moms are planning another sleepover at one of their houses so that the girls won’t be upset. Not sure where or when it will happen yet, but I’m trying to keep up to date.
Ultimately, even though I still don’t know what the sleepover would have been like, I don’t regret this. When it comes to my children, I’d rather be paranoid and wrong than regretful and right.
If I complained and it turned out to be a completely innocent event, I’d feel embarrassed, even after apologizing, but it might be something I could laugh about someday. If I let my daughter go and something happened to her (or any of the other girls), I would never forgive myself.
I will reply to comments for the next day or so, but I won’t update again. Thank you all.
Conclusion
The original poster remains firm in their decision to report the teacher to the dance school, prioritizing their children’s safety over potential social awkwardness or appearing overly cautious. The central conflict rests between the OP’s deep-seated instinct to protect their children from perceived risk and the teacher’s expectation that parents should trust her organization of an informal event without standard safety protocols.
Given that the sleepover was canceled due to the intervention, the question remains whether the OP was justified in escalating the issue to the school based on the concerning details revealed, or if speaking only to the teacher about their daughter’s non-attendance would have been a sufficient and less disruptive action.
Here’s how people reacted:
While yes, there may have good intentions on her part, every part of how she handled it was wrong:
1. She didn’t ask the adults, she spoke to the CHILDREN. That is NEVER the right thing to do. If you want to take someone’s child for any period of time, you ask their parents. Period!
2. She thought it was a good idea to have a house full of children that are not hers in the house with her husband; a man these girls don’t know. Common sense alone should’ve told her that this wasn’t okay.
3. She made no attempt to obtain contact information for these girls. What the actual fuck?
4. She had no firm contingency plan on what to do if one of these kids got hurt or sick. What is someone has allergies? What if a child is insulin dependent; or requires some other type of regular medical intervention?
Every single piece of her actions were MASSIVE red flags, and this shows nothing but either naivety, irresponsibility, or malcontent on her part. She’s now cast a terrible shadow over herself in the eyes of both her students’ parents, and her employer; and she has no one to blame but herself. Earlier this year, a guy literally drugged his daughter and her friends during a sleepover; and if one of them didn’t think to follow her gut, and call her parents, I don’t want to know what would’ve happened.
You protected your child, and please feel good about that.
I don’t understand why people leap to the worst possible interpretation of something. I went to things like this (sleepovers) when I was child/teen all the time. It was no big deal. You’d be told about a sleepover and you’d tell your parents, the parents would get back to the adult host to confirm. Yet in the other post people made a big deal about “Why didn’t the teacher contact the parents first?!?” like it was a sign of something awful about to happen.
I felt incredibly sorry for the daughter as well. If she’s seven and scared to be away from her parents for a night, to me suggests someone who’s deeply deeply inhibited and frightened. I guess I’m just remember how excited I was when I was invited on my first sleepover.
And I don’t get why you would ask someone “what they would do in an emergency.” Did you ask her that when you signed up for the dancing class? Emergencies can happen there too you know. And most homes these days have a telephone.
The thing is, as much as I wanted my daughter to be involved in all the cool stuff, I realized that it’s okay to protect your kids when something doesn’t sit right with you. A lot of the time, as parents, we have that instinct for a reason. Looking back, I’m glad I trusted my gut even though it was a tough call. Honestly, it’s a delicate balance trying to figure out when to let them grow and when to pull back. You’re not alone in these thoughts, a lot of parents are in the same boat.
Having said that my daughters have done dance for 20 years and their dance studio does an annual sleepover every year. I think it’s perfectly OK and I think it’s normal. I don’t think the teachers answers were cause for concern or inappropriate and I actually don’t think you should’ve have complained to the studio. Just because someone does something that is different than my way does not make it wrong nor does make it a reason to complain. You can’t simply decline the invitation.I would also suggest that the concerns you have about the dance teacher sleepover are no different than parents hosting a sleepover. In fact, I would be more concerned about a sleepover at a parent home because I know the dance teacher has undergone a background check prior to being allowed to work with children, Odds are that parrot has not and you really don’t know about that person‘s past
There is no way a school would sanction a sleepover organized by a teacher without the presence of at least one parent. That’s insane. I mean, a sleepover is insane enough. It’s difficult to justify as a “school” activity. But let’s say you organize a “camping trip”, that would involve spending the night. Then you’d have to have a lot of shit covered before you get greenlit: Transport, facilities, insurance, medical info, chaperones, etc.
So if this sleepover was to take place, it would most certainly be not school sanctioned, and that’s basically sending your kid to another adult’s place. Where there would be an adult male you didn’t know about until you started asking questions.
Even if you were a helicopter psycho karen mom, in this case you’d be right. Even a broken clock gets the time right twice a day.
Back then a lot of people were more trusting. Helicopter parenting is its own thing and this and not it. There should also be a huge bit of awareness to the dance teacher that it has become entirely too taboo to invite children who are not yours or even your daughters friends over for a sleepover. You 100% did the right thing. I would have done the same (I’m no parent but I have a muuuuuch younger sibling) and it would have been a hard no from me too.
Ignorance and naivety aren’t excuses either, teacher could easily have asked any coworkers or staff members at the dance studio for their input/feedback on a group sleepover, to which they should have shut it down immediately unless strict safeguarding measures were followed. She acted completely alone likely because she knew her workplace wouldn’t let that sleepover happen.
You did nothing wrong as you spoke to the teacher before you contacted the school. I think the end result, her canceling and being warned not to plan any events like this again, was the correct result. The children still get their sleepover, too.
NTA
It’s also creepy to jump straight to sleepover, why not just have a casual brunch or team dinner? Why does it need to be a sleepover.
So much sexual assault happens at sleepovers (child-to-child as well).
You made the right call.
NTA you did the right thing. Especially since the chaperone was…her HUSBAND??? Nah. No way. That is sue I’m sorry. There are rifht ways to do things and wrong ways to do them. This was wrong every step of the way.
And a random husband no one knows? Oh hell no. You did the right thing.
Formally complain. Talk to the other parents. Pull your kid out.
Also the convo your husband had with the teacher not only didn’t reassure at all but if anything reaffirmed the red flags and weirdness of this situation. You are good parents, thanks for sharing your experience.
There are a billion ways to bond, this shouldn’t have to be one of them.
I don’t understand why she has been allowed to keep her job. This was so weird.