AIBU to challenge OUT OF CONTROL parents group chat?

Lock chat is the way! Better than archive as you dont get notified in the same way

But we all have individual settings we can use to control when we receive messages.

It makes no sense to police the sending time when we can all manage to control the receiving time.

The school won't get involved. Nothing to do with them

Just mute it & check messages when you want to. It's your choice when to check what's app & social media.

That's a really bizarre request to only allow people to post at restricted times to suit you.

It's different if someone is repeatedly directly messaging or calling you but Whatsapp groups you are the one that needs to set controls for yourself or just leave the group if you really can't manage

I can guarantee if you try enforcing posting hours for a WhatsApp group you will go through your entire school mum years being 'that parent's

Messages are sent at the convenience of thw sender and read at the convenience of the receiver. No one expects a response at midnight or 6am. You need to manage your settings if you don't want to be disturbed. My phone hasn't been off silent since about 2013.

You're a grown up and in control of your phone.

My phone is on silent from 10pm until 7am.

Any annoying parent groups I put on mute then read the messages when I have time. If its important someone would message me directly.

Hi. It's nothing to do with the school so they won't/can't get involved.

Remove yourself from the group.

Keep a really close eye on the school newsletter for dates for your diary and take responsibility for yourself for not missing anything non school uniform day or assembly etc.

If you are in any doubt about events just contact the school office direct for clarification.

X

You could set up a sleep mode or ‘do not
disturb’ for your phone so that you are only notified about messages and calls from certain contacts during certain times. If you’re having a baby in a few weeks it will be invaluable to prevent your phone from pinging loudly just as your newborn has finally fallen asleep.

Once you have that, the more prolific and generally mental the parents WhatsApp group, the better. Over time you’ll just find it hilarious.

I’m due to have a baby next week so have decided to remove myself from both chats for the time being for my own sanity

funny thing is that you will probably end up being one of these new mums who sometimes do admin and reply the middle of the night, because they are awake and doing night feeds!

but other parents have long muted the groups and it bothers no one at all, it's literally what the whatsapp group are for, convenience for parents!

Demanding a "7 to 9" is just silly.

A parent once posted ‘people don’t have to put reminders up when there’s swimming on, we all know it’s on a Wednesday and about five minutes later the school texted reminding swimming was on a Thursday next week. Some brilliantly en pointe parents reposted it, some saying ‘just because I always forget when swimming is on so I like the odd reminder’. I laughed so much!! Op in one of my sons class there’s a close group of friends and family and the rest of us might miss eg a bake sale being on and then we hear afterwards they had a big conversation about it. A WhatsApp reminder dies the job it’s supposed to

We have a very active class whatsapp, I have it on silent and only have a look when I get time, dont let it worry you.

I’ll never understand why people don’t have all of their WhatsApp groups on mute!

I must admit though I do message people when it suits
me, even if that’s at midnight or 6am. It’s when I catch up on my correspondence 🤷‍♀️ I don’t expect them to read/respond at that time. It’s not difficult to silence your notifications. I only don’t message in the small hours because people would think I was odd.

I feel your pain. I get really annoyed by the people who constantly post asking questions or looking for information that everyone else has managed to read in the email or SeeSaw message from the school. I know we all miss something from time to time but there is a core group who never seem to read anything ever and just rely on the group to tell them what they need to know. Like, this group is not your personal secretary go and read your emails like everyone else. Lazy scatty bastards.

However, I’d never dream of making this the school’s problem. I largely just ignore it and don’t engage.

When a group so big is inundated with spam it usually dies.
You don’t need to do anything. It happens all in its own simply because peole can’t be bothered reading 100 messages in the day.

Just do the same than, I suspect, most people and ignore.
Put it on mute.
Put your phone on silent at night (check your settings. I’ve got mine set from 8.00pm to 8.00am). No ping disturbing me. It doesn’t appear as ‘30 messages from….’ And it’s automatic so I never forget.

Amd remember that someone putting a message on, posting at 6.00am is not a summon to read and acknowledge.

For me, the biggest issue would be the amount of messages that means important information might get lost. But if you’re still gettimg them on paper/email,from the school, then 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ just ignore

we have a whatsapp group for classes but also the year groups. There are more than 250 people on it 😂

The last thing we need is someone spamming the group demanding they follow a specific schedule convenient to them, ignoring completely that others have a life and other priorities, and they know how to mute groups.

The OP is ridiculous.

Create your own group if you want members to follow YOUR rules
or adjust your settings. If you are an adult, it's on you to mute if you don't want to be disturbed.

it’s mainly expecting people to show some basic courtesy and respect. I wouldn’t message family members or a neighbour at gone midnight or 5:50am in tbe morning.
then don't? But who are you to decide others can't? There's nothing rude or inconsiderate about it?

Some parents deal with their admin late in the evening, some parents first thing in the morning before heading out for the day.
Your 9 to 5 messages will be as disruptive and unwelcome during others office hours and when they are with clients/ in meetings/ teaching a class...

It's social media, not a phone call. The whole point is that you send when convenient, and people read or reply when convenient to them. Works beautifully.

As others have said, people are free to message as and when it suits them. It’s on YOU to manage how and when you receive those messages. Take responsibility for your own use of the Chat.

I agree with the muting and archiving of the chat. But also why don't you post a "nice" message in the group explaining that multiple posts about the same thing are irritating and causing overload. I'm sure you're not the only person in the chat who's annoyed with this. If this doesn't get the group to agree to self-regulate the messages, is there an admin of the group you could message yourself to ask for perhaps a supportive message to be periodically made about respecting others (or whatever)?

As a rep I don’t want questions directed to me either at a weekend or odd times. I really don’t want someone to tell the class chat to contact me only, that’s unfair too. Just remove yourself from the group, either you want it or you don’t. Unfortunately you don’t get to dictate what other people can or can’t do. Good luck with the new arrival.

We managed to do something like this in a charity I was a trustee of. We had a meeting in which everyone agreed when and how we would post things to avoid repetition and overloading the chat. It worked, but only because everyone was behind it. If you make rules, someone has to police the group and issue reminders and sanctions when they are broken, whereupon some group members object and fight back. Terrible hassle and unworkable for a big group.

You can’t police an adult chat. Just because someone posts something at 6am doesn’t mean you need to read it at 6am - you read it when it’s convenient. I have recently archived our street group chat because it was getting out of control and it has calmed a lot of noise.

It sounds terrible, but you cannot expect the school to police a parents’ WhatsApp group!!! It’s nothing to do with them. If you find the group stressful, leave it.

Volunteers may not always be able to do things at times that suit you

i tend to turn off group notifications

Just remove yourself from the groups and stop being a melt! You choose what you see, you don’t get to police other people.