I Regret Letting My Daughter Go to a Sleepover

What this episode is about

A parent reflects on the challenges of allowing her eighth-grade daughter to attend sleepovers after a troubling incident during one, where exposure to inappropriate content occurred. She grapples with feelings of frustration and concerns about her daughter's safety, while also appreciating her daughter's openness in discussing the event, contrasting it with her own childhood experiences of silence and shame.

Key takeaways

• In an age of connectivity, childhood innocence faces unexpected threats online—guardianship is more crucial than ever.
• A daughter's trust can shatter generational silence; open conversations about trauma can build stronger bonds.
• Sleepovers may be an adolescent rite of passage, but parental vigilance must adapt to the digital age.
• The awkward balance of parenting: protecting your child while also fostering the courage to share their fears.
• Community is vital; collective parenting rules create safer environments and empower families to confront uncomfortable truths.

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: Omegle
2. 9:00 – 12:00: West Texas

Notable quotes from "I Regret Letting My Daughter Go to a Sleepover"

• Could tell something was off. and she told me that during that sleepover, one of the girls with a phone had the app Omegle and an old perverted man had exposed themselves to the girls.

  about Omegle · at 0:34

• Right? So, call me oldfashioned, call me whatever. I'm just not a fan of there's there's an old West Texas saying that is one 14-year-old boy is half of a brain, two 14-year-old boys is no brain, right? And so it's it's like it's the.

  about West Texas · at 9:14

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

Products & tech

• Omegle — Product · Incidental mention · 1 mention · first at 0:39
  Mentioned as an app used during a sleepover where inappropriate content was shared, highlighting risks of unsupervised technology use by children.

Places & events

• West Texas — Place · Referenced location · 1 mention · first at 9:22
  Mentioned in the context of an old saying about the behavior of teenagers, adding cultural context to the discussion on parenting and supervision.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:06 Um, I have an eighth grade daughter. I also have a fifth grade daughter. And up until about a year ago, I had never allowed her to, um, go to sleepovers. She'd had like a handful of, you know, one-on-one sleepovers with some friends that are like family. But outside that, I didn't allow her to do slumber parties, but this year feels like there's one about every month. And I decided to let her go. Oh, it was a, you know, she has really good friends. She's a good girl. She went and the next day I could tell something was off. Um, and she told me that during that sleepover, one of the girls with a phone um had the app Omegle and an old perverted man had exposed themselves to the girls.

0:47 Obviously, I was pretty upset about it, but now I'm in this situation where I don't know if I should stop letting her have them or appreciate that she told me. And I just don't know how to handle it going forward. They're just constant and I'm the only one that doesn't let my daughter stay or had been. So, just trying to figure out how to navigate this.

1:11 Number one, I hate that h that happened to her. Yeah, me too. I hate all of it. I hate that I got to go to sleepovers when I was a kid and we didn't make great choices, of course, but we sure didn't deal with that, right?

1:29 Mhm. And yeah, how much guilt are you carrying right now? I mean, I wouldn't so much say guilt. Um, something similar actually did happen to me. I'm 40 and when I was in the fifth grade, I went to a sleepover and somebody had put on a porno and it was very traumatizing and I never told my parents. And so my biggest thing was I was so happy that she was able to tell me because I carried as a child a lot of uh shame and guilt over that for years cuz my

2:09 I was very like conservative Christian home and I felt like I had done something wrong. So I'm very glad that she was able to tell me and I told her it was not your fault.

2:18 Um but yeah, I was mad at myself. I said I should I just this is why I don't let her do this. But I also don't want her to now stop telling me things because if I now don't let her, then it's like, well, if I just hadn't told her, then I would be able to go.

2:33 And I would tell you that is probably how an eighth grader, a 13 or 14-year-old will process that. And that's okay. I want to tell you that you have you have done hard work to change your family tree. And what I mean by that is you've created an environment where your daughter feels safe to come tell mom big scary things.

2:53 Mhm. And kids can handle a ton. They just can't handle it by themsel like you had to do when you were a little girl.

3:01 Yeah. And so the fact that you've been able to process with her that you created a world over a decade or more I don't know how old she is but you created a world where she came to you which is amazing.

3:15 Mhm. Okay. So I want to applaud you for that. And I hear from kids, this is the way I hear that when they come back and say, "Hey, I went to this thing and this happened to me."

3:28 Especially big scary things like this. The way I interpret that is please help me.

3:35 Mhm. And so what you have to do is the next scary terrifying thing, which is risk her being mad at you. Mhm.

3:46 for her being safe and that's a parent's job. Mhm. Um what that means is um that if there's going to be a sleepover, it's going to be at y'all's house, which is inconvenient and which is a lot and it's dramatic and you've got boring rules that other girls don't have. Great.

4:03 Yeah. Yeah. Um my my wife is prepping one tonight that they're coming to our house. And just so you know, just so you're not the only weird one, I know in your little community you might be, there's zero technology allowed. Period.

4:19 Yeah. Yeah. And there was luckily after that sleepover, it did the the host's daughter also told her and there was a [clears throat] big group thing that went out and you know the a bunch of every mom was on it and there was a consensus like going forward no phones

4:34 after 9:00 p.m. or whatnot. So that at least is helpful. But it's still the, you know, there's there's always a way that technology. So it's not even so much just the phone. It's just the exhaustion, the the lack of control over who's there, you know, just the rest of it. So

4:53 totally. And and and that's why when they come to my house Yeah. Um there's I I don't want to put anybody on blast, but I I mean I don't care how old they are. I I have or my wife will call other parents and be like, "Hey, here's the regulations and the rules and the whatever right?"

5:10 Um and and again, I've talked about on the show, I'm so obnoxiously over the top careful. Um but here's the deal.

5:17 You're you know that you can't let her go again, at least for a while. Yeah. And so,

5:23 yeah, and there is one this weekend and or next weekend. And I I did say um luckily it starts at like noon and then it goes into it. And you know, I did say, "Hey, you know, we have and then I struggle with like, do I be honest about why or do I I just said, you know, the next day you have like two basketball games, you've got

5:40 we have a friend Christmas party. Like I just can't have you being exhausted or do I just say we're not doing those?"

5:46 I I think saying that having that conversation, not with one in the balance. Okay.

5:52 And so here here's what an amazing moment would be for you and your daughter. Have you told her about what happened to you in fifth grade? No.

6:01 Okay. This is an amazing moment of mom and daughter connection. She's 13. She's old enough to hear that story.

6:07 But y'all go out to breakfast and you tell her, "Hey, I've been wrestling with something since you told me what happened, and I I want to tell you,

6:15 not in graphic detail, but somebody put something on in a movie that is still stuck in my head to this day."

6:22 Mhm. And I knew better than to let you go. And I wanted you to have so much fun. And I don't want you to be the only weird kid. And here I am. I overrode myself. And then good God, it happened again. [clears throat]

6:37 I love you too much to put you in those kind of situations again. And you have full permission to tell your friends that your mom is an o old school out of touch loser.

6:50 Right. But if if there's if there's a party and you're having this conversation at 400 p.m. on a Friday and the party's that night, it's going to go awful. not the right time,

6:58 right? A random Tuesday morning at a diner is going to be the when to have this. And she'll metabolize it and you can look at her and say, "I understand that you think it's cuz you told me it's not because somebody else told their mom it would have got back to me. We'd be having this conversation whether you talked to me or not. I'm so proud of you for being honest."

7:18 Yeah. No, and that that actually is true in this case because it would have absolutely gotten back to me. So, no, that's that's a good idea. I will do that. Um, and then is there any age where while they're in your house where you would allow it or like you personally or

7:32 I will never do it based on age? I'm always going to do it based on my relationship first and foremost. This sounds nuts. My relationship with their friend's parents.

7:42 Okay. Do I trust that? Right. And um and usually it's done in little ways like, "Hey, my kids in like my kid in sixth grade, uh my son, he's in high school now, but in sixth grade, hey, we're all getting the kids together and we're going to watch a movie." All right. Well, my wife calls and says, "We're weirdos, but I I can't let him go over there if anybody has any access to the internet and if there's any phones anywhere." That particular parent took up everything.

8:10 All of it. Yeah. Shut everything off. It was amazing. And so in little bits and pieces and we went to dinner together and we did we were on the same baseball teams etc. And so they proved over time that not only did they respect our values, they began to adopt some of them in their home. It like us going first gave everybody else permission to go ah right.

8:32 Yeah. And so it had nothing to do with how old my kid was. It had way more to do with do I trust the environment here?

8:40 Okay. No, that makes sense. and and so um and then there's just being smart and safe.

8:49 Yeah. And it just kind of is what it is. And so um strangely the younger they are, the more likely an older brother and not maybe not even older brother, an older brother's friend's going to be there

9:03 or somebody's going to have a phone like what happened with your daughter. Mhm.

9:06 And then the older they get, they're just going to have they don't have wine coolers, they have kegs, right? It just the the stakes are higher. They're going to take their car out, right? So, call me oldfashioned, call me whatever. Um I'm just not a fan of of there's there's an old West Texas saying that is one um one 14-year-old boy is half of a brain, two 14-year-old boys is no brain,

9:34 right? And so it's it's like it's the square root of the more kids you put together, right? And I never am going to blame a kid for that. Why? Because they're kids. Of course they want to go experiment and see what crazy things someone has on their phone.

9:47 Of course they want to watch some weird war footage that someone's getting beheaded. Like not they want to watch it, just curious about it. Right.

9:54 Curious. Exactly. And when I asked her why she did stay in the room when they were on the nap, she said I was just curious. That was exactly her answer cuz some girls did leave the room.

10:03 Yeah. Um, and she said, "I was just cur I just didn't know. I was curious." And and when I think about I'm like, "That makes sense. I want to know different." And yeah.

10:12 And so, um, all that to say is it's not about age for me. It's about my relationship with their parents. And do we have mutual trust over time and even then, I'm going to call and reiterate. And I, at least to my knowledge, maybe my friends talk about me behind my back. And probably they do. And you know what? I don't care. That's fine. They're still my friends. They're like, "Oh god, Delony's kids coming over. We got to do all this crap." That's fine. That's totally cool. Um

10:38 Okay. But here's the other thing that's that's hard. I have often had to backfill that time. Meaning, hey dude, I heard there's a sleepover this weekend and I know you're going to be the only one here. You and I are going out to a movie tonight and we're going to go eat whatever restaurant you want to go to.

10:57 Yeah. And that means me and my wife might do less date nights because one of us is with one of our kids during that time.

11:03 Yeah. Or, hey son, teach me how to play this I don't this Jurassic Park game or Star Wars game. I don't know how to do this, but I'll I'll do this with you. Or hey, I'm going to take an extra hunting trip with you and you're going to come with me and we're going to go camp out or whatever the thing is. Mhm.

11:17 I've got to if I'm going to pull away social situations from my kid, I have to be responsible for backfilling that having kids in my house or which I love that actually. I want kids everywhere in my house. I love having kids over. Um or I'm going to have to backfill that with me personally or take my my daughter or my son with me wherever I'm going.

11:39 And I think most parents default to no, you can't do that. Well, now my kid's sitting there untethered. with nothing. And that's that that feels kind of cruel, right?

11:49 Mhm. No, that makes sense. But I I'm going to have a few years where my kid doesn't like me, and I'm okay with that.

11:57 Yeah. No, luckily, she's truly like the sweetest child ever, and she really I I did tell her about this next one, and she said, "Okay." So, she really And I don't think she associated it with anything to do with the last one. I think it was more just like, "We have we do truly have a crazy next day." So, I mean, I know I can't use that every time. So, I do have to have that hard conversation at some point, but she was so sweet about it and there's no hard feelings that I can tell. So, but I will definitely do that.

12:24 Yeah. Take her out and let her know, hey, this one's 100% on me. And you're right to not like me. You're right to tell your friends that I'm boring and mean or blah, whatever.

12:33 Um, and if you want to ever have girls over the house, you're all in. Like, come on over. and your older brother can't have any friends of

12:42 well and that and that that to me is the magic is when I put this boundary down

12:48 about safety I have to backfill that boundary with opportunity and that's that's I don't know sometimes on Friday nights I just want to collapse on the couch and watch something um I just want to be a kind of a bum and I took this away so I'm going to step in and do the next right thing as a dad or my wife as a mom and we're going to do the next hard thing and we'll do it together. And that challenges me. How do Am I a likable guy? Do I work on being likable so that when my son I'm like, "Hey, hang out with me tonight." He's like, "All right, that's cool. Let's go to a concert. Let's go find a movie. Let's go do something. That's cool." Instead of, "Oh god, he's just going to lecture me all night." And you know what I mean?

13:28 So, um, but man, great great call. I appreciate you thinking through this and waiting through the thing that I think is the worst for most parents is kids that don't like them because that like is short term. Um especially if that like is me sitting that not liking you is with me right next to you, not at you, but with you. I know this is a bummer and I know I'm kind of being a buzzkill here, but I'm going to keep you safe.

Questions about this episode

What is "I Regret Letting My Daughter Go to a Sleepover" about?

A parent reflects on the challenges of allowing her eighth-grade daughter to attend sleepovers after a troubling incident during one, where exposure to inappropriate content occurred. She grapples with feelings of frustration and concerns about her daughter's safety, while also appreciating her daughter's openness in discussing the event, contrasting it with her own childhood experiences of…

What is mentioned in this The Dr. John Delony Show episode?

2 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Omegle, West Texas. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "I Regret Letting My Daughter Go to a Sleepover"?

The episode runs 14 min; the transcript is about 2,802 words in 56 timestamped sections.

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