Parents, Please Stop Doing This in School Group Chats.
It’s that time of year again when we buy school supplies for a small amount of GDP, prepare our kids’ backpacks, wave at the bus stop, and breathe a sigh of relief when classes reopen at school. And then, while we work in blissful silence, we watch in horror as notifications appear in school notifications in WhatsApp chat.
However, “roll” is a generous term. Quickly pour … as if you might need the Ark to protect your belongings during a flood. While parenting WhatsApp group chats at school can be a quick and useful way to spread information, they can also be long, unproductive, off-topic chaining of irrelevance.
Whether it’s organized by grade or (dear sir) across all grades , once you join, you’re bound to be faced with tangential, dizzying questions and wild comments mixed with a splash of helpful information. To make it more enjoyable and bearable for everyone, we present these unspoken rules of school group chat etiquette.
Please don’t talk one to one
Remember, this is a group chat – for questions and information about the school, which can be useful to everyone. If you need to know what equipment little Johnny needs to play soccer, or if you want to ask Audrey’s mom what teacher she has this year, just turn it off. It is not necessary to involve the entire group in private conversations, especially those that are not related to the purpose of the chat.
Don’t use threads or cause unnecessary controversy
If one parent asks if younger students need to bring snacks, and the other parent replies: “Some teachers let them,” and then the other helpfully adds: “Well, when my son was there, he was not allowed,” to which in the original parents answer, “I’ll pack one just in case,” and then someone says, “Well, I don’t think they should let them have a snack during COVID,” and within five minutes the question of innocent snacks turned into heated debate. about whether children should be allowed to go to school unvaccinated? Yeah. Do not do this. Stick with the original theme, Betty. (You too, Bert.)
Save your personal photos to Instagram
This may have been done by mistake. Perhaps they did n’t really intend to post pictures of their children holding their two dogs on leashes without context, caption, or reason. Perhaps this was meant for another conversation? Yes. It had to be. Because there is no other plausible explanation for why the random Shih Tzu showed up in the 4th grade group chat.
Avoid chat spam
If someone reports that an individual contribution to a class gift will be $ 10, refrain from being the 18th person to answer “OK”. Likewise, before asking a question, review the chat history to see if it has already been answered (tap the group name and select the orange magnifying class icon for “Search Chat”).
Also avoid: text bombing. Keep messages short and small (Three in a row? Please no.) Subtract before sending; try to get rid of unnecessary words and make them more concise. Ask only one question at a time. If more, then the thread can get confused while the questions remain unanswered.
Limit the number of complaints and arguments
If you think your daughter’s class is too cold and want to know who to contact about the problem, there are several options, none of which involve 20-200 people. Try calling your school office, googling the District Infrastructure Department, or grab a sweater.
Likewise, claims that you need more lunch options, math classes, different sports, or that you never give your child a phone at this age do not apply in group chat. Some of us are only here to find out if the buses are late and when the Halloween party is being thrown.
Avoid posting questionable content
Look, memes and memes alone have got us through the whole of 2020. As interesting as they are, they are not meant for pseudo-professional group chats. Anything we feel compelled to send just because we think it’s funny should be redirected to a friend. The same is with the warning about unsolved letters about scammers.
Don’t Answer Too Much Questions
If a question has already been adequately answered and there is no more value to add with a different answer, no matter how much we might want to say how we did it , there is no need to. In fact, this is not the case. Transfer this seething energy to Facebook.
Don’t ask questions, you can easily google yourself
We understand that this is subjective, and the “stupid question” of one person is the question of another: “I was interested in the same thing.” But can we all agree that asking if a free lunch is worth $ 2.45 or $ 2.50 and when the first day of school is the next day is unwise? Honey, that’s what the neighborhood sites and your friends are for. Don’t send this request to a group chat with dozens, if not hundreds, of parents you don’t know. Likewise, if there is no global shortage of Amazon, Target and Staples, asking “Where can I find notebooks for composition?” in fact, it’s better not to ask – for your own sake.