Homework, absent teacher, school trips… Parent-teacher groups are as annoying as they are useful on a daily basis. Testimonials from those who are fans of it or, on the contrary, allergic.
Appearing almost a decade ago in our lives as connected parents, parents’ WhatsApp groups have the advantage of creating a direct link between parents and teachers to communicate more easily about school organization. “It’s very practical for reminding us of essential things like school trips, parent-teacher meetings, orientation meetings, homework dates on the table… especially when we don’t constantly consult ÉcoleDirecte or our email inbox“, confides Sophie, mother of two teenagers.
Some messages also “save” mothers like Anna, who could have forgotten the swimming pool bag if one of the mothers in the group had not made a reminder the same morning. The same goes for the book exchange, the color of the clothes to wear for the choir the next day… Because yes, let’s remember, few fathers show up on these parents’ WhatsApp groups: mothers generally take care of this umpteenth mental load alone. So, these little reminders are sometimes welcome! “Sometimes, too, I’m really happy when someone can send me a photo of homework to do because my son wasn’t there or he was distracted in class.“, Anna tells us. An opinion that Cécile shares with us: “This is great for homework your child forgot to write down.” Among the fathers active in these groups, Jonathan also finds it a good way “to ease tensions”. “As soon as there is a problem with another student, we immediately contact the parents to understand what happened and quickly find a solution“, he testifies.
However, not everyone sees the practical side of these WhatsApp groups. “All essential information is shared by the school as it arises”confides to us Amélie who has also left the group of parents, just like Esther, who only trusts the messages communicated on Pronote. “Overall, there was never any interesting information, it’s a lot of chatter, and too many parents talk about their child’s particular situation which doesn’t interest other parents.“, adds Esther. Besides, the anxiety-provoking message which announces an epidemic of lice or gastro…”This marks the end of my weekend!” comments Anna.
For this mother of two children, the worst are the parents who ask for homework every evening, those who answer “I don’t know” or “not me” to a question rather than saying nothing or reacting with an emoji to the message, result: “My WhatsApp suddenly displays 36 unread notifications, each more useless than the last.”
And then there’s “the parent (always the same) who cries injustice against the maths teacher who graded his son poorly on the last test”“the one who complains at 10:45 p.m. about the canteen menu (never “healthy” enough), the parent who demands that we denounce the child who was the first to take out his phone in class to film, because there is collective unrest (and of course his child has nothing to do with it) or the parents who argue about the program considered too busy or not busy enough… In the end, it often becomes a space where everyone unpacks what’s on their heart, at any time of the day or night, which can quickly become overwhelming.”explains Sophie who finally chose to mute the WhatsApp group.
Not to mention the many questions that have already been answered earlier in the thread, the unnecessary comments and reactions… “It’s more of a waste of time and energy to scroll to re-read what I possibly missed, and realize that in the end, I didn’t miss anything at all. There are also a lot (too many) unhappy people and complainers“, notes the mother of the family. “We do a lot of prevention on the use of discussion groups with children, but we should also do it with parents” she concludes. And you, are you more of a fan of parent-teacher groups or do you consider them useless?
*First names have been changed
