Why parent chats in Viber are worse than bitter radish

Parents chat rooms are often crazy. Parents have to read. 100,500 text messages a day, most of which are off-topic.

In these conversations you can find everything: spam, clarifying relationships, congratulations on all kinds of holidays in the form of unnecessary postcards from unknown people. In such chaos and confusion, it is difficult to notice important information, if any.

The most unpleasant, perhaps, in parent chats is the topic of collecting money. Especially when it turns from voluntary to forced and more like extortion. At such moments, you want to delete the parent chat altogether or turn it into a hidden one. This is how Anna Ershova, a mother of four, came out of this situation.





Hidden chat in Viber "The fourth child in our family is in first grade." And, of course, I no longer have the fuse that I see in the parents of other first-graders. They are full of energy, ready to participate in all school initiatives, make intricate crafts for the competition “Spring Red”, accompany children to holidays during working hours, prepare their children for participation in all school concerts, endlessly discount gifts “dear teachers” and so on, etc.





I don’t have the emotional strength or time to do that. And I'm slightly annoyed to open a parent chat in my phone in the morning and see 30 new messages. About the same irritation, restrained, I hear from friends, especially many children. And I read in social networks from friends - much less restrained, sometimes obscene. Often, moms and dads are forced to withdraw from social networks and instant messengers in order not to see such a dense information flow.

And no wonder: each of the children has a chatik class, a chatik circle, a chatik of another circle, and if there are two or three or four children? Therefore, when I see a message like “Alena Smirnova left the conversation”, I, firstly, as if I hear the sound of a sharply slammed door, and, secondly, it is not at all surprising.





What to do with excessive parental activity? “And let’s all the class participate in the school concert!”, “Girls, let’s push, last time the waste paper collected the least!”, “Parents, do you mind if we give an amplifier for the 15th anniversary of the studio?” This is an additional 700 rubles in total”, “Moms, we have such closets dirty in the classroom, let’s wash extra to the windows!”

“Let’s give the kids beautiful pens with notebooks?” (The next 150 posts are followed by a discussion of notebooks, punctuated by calls: “Parents, connect! Not everyone has expressed their opinion yet!”)

Some men I know ironize over such activity in the spirit of “go to work, there is nothing to do at all.” Out of gender solidarity, I keep silent, although the idea of an excess of free time for some parents inevitably haunts me. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't have time to wash my closet in class. I can't clean my own for six months.

It is even easier for me to pay for cleaning – I already considered that it is only 100 rubles a month. But the amplifier does not want to skip: we already hand over “by the box office” in this studio for a thousand a month “for the needs of the team.”





Also, I can’t force myself to discuss notepads, pens and other gifts to anyone. I don't care, I'm sorry. The children will still “eat” pens and notebooks in a week. It's not a gift for a teacher. Let it be just a sign of attention. Yes, and the most terrible thing for me is crafts “Golden Autumn”, “Winter-Winter”, “Spring is red” and so on. For some reason, they moved from the traditions of kindergarten to junior school.

And no matter what I do with my children (they do themselves, of course, but they are small, and we need to invent, sit next to them), we will still be ashamed next to the creations of other mothers, worthy of an exhibition of the Artists Union. Honestly, I don't know how they do that. I shouldn’t even try to compete with them.

Let’s go back to parenting within a whole class. Since, I repeat, the fourth child, all the stages of this natural disaster within the framework of a separate chat I have already passed: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and now I try to position myself in the stage of “acceptance”. Based on this, I want to share some life hacks for those who are in one of the previous four stages.





Discarding emotions, one should still try to fill oneself with a sense of gratitude to those who can and want to engage in class affairs. They have time for school, which is great because no one forces me to be like that. Moms can buy notebooks for a children's holiday - say thank you and do not engage in a long discussion, which ones.

I write in the chat room, “Thank you, I completely trust your choice,” and then I don’t follow the comments. If someone asks who can go with a class to a museum, I also calmly answer: “Sorry, I have a job, thank you very much to those who can.”

However, real immoderation must be approached sensibly. For example, it is worth distinguishing what to give money for and what is not necessary. For gifts to children, excursions, yes. But before you skip for class repair, it is better to first ask the school’s governing board if it is necessary at all.

I don’t always participate in gifts to teachers/supervisors/teachers either: a couple of times at the end of the year, I felt strongly negative feelings towards certain employees of the studio, and there was no desire to give them a gift, which I honestly reported to the parent committee.





The conclusion is simple: if the active activities of other parents you can not and do not like, just do not participate in it. When you disagree with something, calmly express your opinion, offer your solutions. Ignore those discussions that are unprincipled or not directly related to the school process (turn off chat notifications, I think everyone knows how). And for useful initiatives, do not be stingy to say thank you.”

It happens that parents create cell-chat From other parents, in which the same discussion takes place, but as if behind the back. If that happens, you should think about it. How to remove chat in Viber And not to engage in dirty talk.

How do you deal with the amount of information that appears in chat rooms for parents? Write it in the comments.