I have seen conversations on WhatsApp that you would not believe. Fights, gossip, recriminations and even judicial threats ... Almost always a passive and incredulous spectator. In all types of groups. But if I want to escape from somewhere somewhere and I haven't dared yet, it's WhatsApp groups of mothers and fathers of the school: the worst of recent years.
Because if communication loses many senses when we are not face to face, when in the group you do not really know many of the participants there may be misunderstandings, presuppositions and, what bothers me the most, inappropriate messages, either because of the subject, or because of the hours… Because, what do the typical chains or jokes paint in a WhatsApp group of the school?
Wasn't it a school group? For other issues we already have other groups, those of friends, family, work colleagues ... people with whom you have confidence and share in a different way.
Absolute children responsible
Another question I don't like about the WhatsApp groups of the school is that parents rise up as absolute controllers of what children have or don't have to do for school. I mean "homework" or jobs, tokens, projects ... Already when they grow up and begin to have exams, all kinds of messages circulate about what comes in or does not fit for the test and, really, it is stressful.
You realize that the biggest concern is that children don't miss anything, but don't they have something to say? Are they not responsible for what they are asked at school? Has anyone asked parents to take care of that? I do not say that we do not care about what the kids have to do, but why not ask them first?
It seems that all the answers are in the WhatsApp group, but from my experience many times things get messed up even more ... It may come in handy to remember the time of the school meeting if we have lost the note, but, really You have to ask every day if there is no math homework or to what page do they have to make language?
And later, when some of the homework is a bit confusing or the answer is unknown, it is also consulted by Whastapp. We do our homework! Even when we want to help you (I'm the first one to take a look), are there really no other methods to try to find the solution?
What will our children do when they go to high school and have more complicated duties? Wait for us to solve them for WhatsApp? I am afraid that by then they will have their own WhatsApp group, but I would prefer that they have the necessary tools to solve their doubts through other sources ...
For now, I prefer that my daughters do not carry their homework one day or do not take them completely and the teachers tell them what they have to say, surely they are taking responsibilities and realizing their mistakes. We do not have to anticipate everything and, on the contrary, we do favor them being autonomous.
When they are little, in the nursery, it is another subject, but as they grow up they have to know that they have certain obligations, and we support them and help them in whatever they need, but not give it all chewed. They must understand that they have our support but also certain responsibilities, small, at their level. And they are capable of it.
Mothers of the school, and the parents?
One of the school groups in which I participate is only mothers. At first, I hinted that if the parents did not take care of their children, if they were not interested in what happened at school. Because we go, parents do go to meetings or pick up their children ... But he turned a deaf ear.
Somehow, I think these types of groups perpetuate a certain machismo, because neither the education of the children is only of the school nor, of course, only of the mothers. I think parents have everything to say in this regard, that's why this type of groups bothers me a lot, which I know abounds.
The same happens with the hangouts that are usually done. Mothers and teacher (when he can escape). And the parents? Even children are not taken into account to stay out of school, to have fun together for a while, in another environment. In that case I would sign up but, for now, I have not gone to any of those hangouts ... I will be the odd one in the group.
Of course, thanks to the profusion of messages and photos of the event, it seems that you live it live ... And if you could not at the moment, you will see the hundreds of messages later. In that sense, I claim the "subgroups" that are made so as not to bother the majority, when the issue (read hangouts, birthdays ...) does not involve everyone.
Clashes between parents
There is nothing worse than attending the confrontation between two people through instant messaging. It may be because your son has done this or that, because I am in favor of uniforms and you are not, because we think differently ... The reasons are multiple, and although we may not agree, respect is fundamental. Never write in a message what you would not say to the face. And think twice.
With this panorama, It is not surprising that some schools have requested a responsible and respectful use of this means of communication. I think there is still a long way to go in the majority ... and in regard to respect is also lost in the section that I comment below.
Clicks and criticisms everywhere
Attention, what If you have not yet been included in the WhatsApp group, you may be subject to all kinds of clicks. on the part of the rest. You or your children I, who participated in two groups, one for each class of my daughters, have been able to see how one of them has skinned certain companions who later joined the group. This topic gives me tremendous embarrassment and I think I should have done as one of the mothers at that time: leaving the group.
But you let it go and there I am. In that same group I have attended shameful confrontations for not having paid the school fee, flat answers about this or that family economic state and sad answers that do not have to be made public. Luckily, this year has been warned: the ones who have to notify the dads that are missing to pay are the ladies.
I am seeing the next step: compare exam notes, manual work ... the competitiveness that increasingly involves us more, but do we really think about the values we instill in our children?
On the other hand, with a few teachers who have gone through the lives of my daughters, I have also been able to attend an attack against them, luckily, almost never, the teachers. That if they say those things for Wathsapp, what they won't say at home in front of their children. I think we can disagree with the methods of certain teachers, but better talk directly with them, without losing respect as it seems to be done through the mobile when they do not read us.
And now, the last straw is not when you talk about the methods, but about the person himself, if he is more or less nice, if you saw one way or another ...
No wonder there are teachers who at the beginning of the course say they will not give the mobile phone to parents. The "harassment" to which they would be subjected is not little ... although surely, at least, they did not criticize them because that is much better to do when they do not know. Solved: a parallel group.
I, maybe in another life, would also deny my phone number for these things. But now it's too late ... and I've been submerged in the worst WhatsApp groups in the world: those of the fathers and mothers of the school.
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In Babies and more | Whatsapp groups of mothers and fathers of the school, a great idea
