‘These are not strict rules’: Dad allows 17-year-old daughter to have a sleepover with friends on the condition that they leave her 14-year-old stepbrother alone, daughter fails miserably and Dad sends her friends home

Author image for Lana DeGaetano
Lana DeGaetano • "Show me to me please."
Jun 17, 2025 6:00 PM EDT

Parenting isn't always easy. You have to make big decisions regarding your kids at times, and sometimes, it will make one child happy while the other is kicking and whining about how life isn't fair. The trade-off? You did the right thing and taught the misbehaving tot that not everything can go their way 100 percent of the time.

Teaching your children right from wrong might be difficult when they're constantly trying to make you feel like the bad guy for parenting as a parent. But, what else can you do? This is not an anarchal society (yet) and you've got moral lessons to teach!

In this next story, a dad to one biological daughter and one stepson, manages to get on his daughter's bad side after he sends her friends home in the middle of a sleepover. Why? Well, she didn't listen to his two rules: 1) Leave her brother alone, and 2) Be quiet after hours. His stepson has had a rough few years since his mother passed away, so he prefers to be left alone in his safe space. The only way to effectively parent your kids is by being the "bad guy" sometimes, but it's safe to say that we're siding with Dad on this one. Scroll below to read the entire story.

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  • "Noah was clearly upset, he didn't say anything/move, but there were tears in his eyes and he didn't respond when I tried to talk to him."
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • "AITA for enforcing basic boundaries on my daughter's sleepover?"

    | 42M, have two kids living with me, my daughter Anya (17F) and my stepson Noah (14M). Noah's mom passed a few years ago, and I've had full custody since.
    via Mountain-Dot824
  • He's had a rough go of it, but he's a good kid, with his quirks. He's not antisocial or shy, but he does not appreciate having his space invaded and when very upset, he can kinda 'shut down'.
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  • Anya is much more outgoing and has a lot of friends- she asked to have a sleepover this weekend with four of them. I said yes, of
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  • course, but given that the friends who were coming were pretty loud and have a tendency to crowd Noah, I told her to make
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  • sure they don't go into her brother's room. Also to keep things down after 11, so that the house can sleep.
    via Mountain-Dot824
  • In my opinion, these are not strict rules. To my surprise, I came upstairs to check on them at about 10- they are 17, I didn't think I needed to
    via Mountain-Dot824
  • check on them every hour or something- and they were in Noah's room. And they looked like they'd been there a while,
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  • two were literally sitting on his bed, with him there, one of them was flipping through his sketchbook, another was messing with his other stuff, and they were all kind of giggling in this weird way.
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  • Noah was clearly upset, he didn't say anything/move, but there were tears in his eyes and he didn't respond when I tried to talk to him. I told the girls to get out
    via Mountain-Dot824
  • Cheezburger Image 10517861888
    via Annie Spratt For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • right then, and that I was calling every single one of their parents. Anya was pretty upset with me, but I told her that I gave them TWO rules and they failed spectacularly.
    via Mountain-Dot824
  • I did actually call all of their parents, and sent them home as soon as possible. Anya blew up, saying I embarrassed her. I told
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  • her to go to her room, and that we would speak on this in the morning. I spent about 20 minutes with Noah, before he
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  • decided he wanted to cool down on his own, and I went back to my daughter- who chose not to speak to me.
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  • Its late, both of my kids are (hopefully) asleep, and I'm left not knowing if i handled things right. AITA?
    via Mountain-Dot824
  • Melodic-Dark6545 You handled things perfectly OK! You set very reasonable rules and your daughter decided to not care and upset Noah
    via Melodic-Dark6545
  • I'll ground her. She doesn't care to have embarrassed Noah, but she sure cares that she couldn't get her way. What was she expecting after she broke the rules????
    via Melodic-Dark6545
  • naviismyhomegirl Holy h I, NTA. And it's honestly strange that four 17yo girls decided to spend their evening harassing a 14yo boy.
    via naviismyhomegirl
  • LighthouseonSaturn NTA. You daughter needs to be punished. I have several older brothers. I NEVER went into their rooms and they never went into mine. It seems like common decency and common sense not to enrouch om other peoples privacy.
    via LighthouseonSaturn
  • They 100% went into his room to tease him. And that's disgusting. Your daughter would probably be absolutely furious if the roles were reversed and him and his friends went through her room. There needs to be consequences for her actions, she is too old to be acting like this.
    via LighthouseonSaturn

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family dynamics family drama entitlement kids reddit story family feud parenting sleepover entitled family reddit thread daughter parent Reddit parents stepson children entitled people
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