With the new school year starting next week, parents’ WhatsApp groups are pinging back into action. Here are the rules you must follow to avoid disaster
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ecoming a parent can be one of the richest, most rewarding things you can ever experience. That said, it’s a qualified reward, because to be a parent is often to be forced into joining the school WhatsApp group. In theory, it’s a community of like-minded peers who understand that it takes a village to raise a child. In reality, the school WhatsApp group is a vortex of petty drama, pointless competition and outright hostility.
Navigating a mess like this can often leave a parent feeling bruised and overwhelmed. It is a task that requires diplomacy, patience and – sometimes, because everyone’s human – locking your phone away in a drawer until your blood pressure recovers. With that in mind, using real-life stories collected from friends and acquaintances, here are the top 10 rules of school WhatsApp group engagement.
If there’s a gap in your understanding when it comes to the machinations of your child’s school – maybe you want to know when the next non-uniform day or bake sale is – always check your email first. Answer not there? Have a look on the school website. Once you’ve done that, then (and only then) ask the group. Because to ask the group anything is to receive an answer from everyone. Do you really want to receive 28 messages reading “Next Friday x”, and another two saying “Don’t know hun”? More importantly, do you want to be the person responsible for ensuring that everyone else in the group suddenly receives 30 unsolicited messages? No, you do not, because you are not a psychopath. The only thing worse than treating the group like Google, from my research, is passive-aggressively responding to these messages with screenshots from the school website. If you do that, I can guarantee that there’s a breakout group devoted to slagging you off. But we’ll come to that.
