Am I being too friendly and helpful at the reception school gates .?

I used to live in an area with lots of Nepalese families, and you sound just like them and absolutely delightful 😊 I miss them!

I wouldn't volunteer to help a child in front of their parent unless for some reason you are much closer. If you're high energy you might be seen as hard work but it might not.

I wish you were my friend!! It’s tricky to say I am Irish and I find my lovely British counterparts way more reserved particularly down here in the south of England. I have trouble maintaining friendships here as they only seem to work if I keep chasing them, but that has just been my experience- yours might be completely different.I think you should ask to volunteer at the school to do reading or something and that way its official as people won’t be questioning you or join the parents club and help raise money for things for the school and then again, it’s a normal part of your role..

If the parent is there, I wouldn't help the child. Talking fine!

I think the problem with offering to help a child when the parent is present is that it could be seen as interfering and also as a judgement on the parent. They also might be working on independence with their child and want them to make their way on their own.

I would offer to help a small child that didn’t have a parent around but I would mainly direct them towards their classroom and teacher/TA.

Being talkative is totally different and just chatting to the other children is fine.

I think you sound lovely and honestly I think we need more people like you because there's so much anxiety at the moment among parents about meeting other parents. The vast majority of parents would welcome meeting someone as friendly and outgoing as you as it makes their social life easier.

I would just sound a note of caution that, as you point out, there's a lot more reserve in British culture and some people really struggle with social anxiety. So I'd tread a bit more carefully in terms of engaging with the children themselves (as opposed to the parents). I don't think you're doing anything wrong but some people might not welcome a stranger interacting with their children unless there's some knowledge there.

But I would keep on being who you are!

You sound absolutely delightful!

If their parents are there why aren’t they helping with things like sleeves? Are you talking to the adults as much as their children? Nothing wrong with being friendly and it’s great you son is settling so well. But focus on chatting to the parents I think.

You sound amazing- don’t let anyone dampen your fire!

Keep doing what you are doing

Chatting and answering questions is fine.

If a child is by themselves it’s ok to ask if they’d like help and then help them with it.

But if their parent is with them or nearby, asking their child directly if they’d like help could be seen as rude by some sensitive types.

It could be seen as implying “hey your child needs help, but you didn’t even notice! I’m helping your child because I’m soooo much better at parenting than you!”

It may be that they didn’t notice (in which case they don’t want that pointed out, unless it’s an emergency of course). It could also be that they think their child can do it and want to encourage independence, or even that they’ve decided to model for their child that if you want help you must ask for it not just wait for a grownup to leap in.

So I’d adjust a little bit, be careful of overstepping. Friendliness is good and helping if asked to is good, but just be careful not to step in when their parent is around.

You sound like a lovely person, and I'd be happy to chat, but I wouldn't appreciate someone else parenting my child if I was right there. Clearly, if I thought they needed help with something, I would help them.

I'm quite happy to talk to other people's children too, I will say hi or I like your scooter or whatever light chit chat.

I don't step in to help other people's kids unless they ask for it, or unless I am already good friends with the child and parent. I think there's a fine line and I might be a bit taken aback if another parent jumped in to help my child with something I deem him able to do himself, or something I am letting him figure out. I also am encouraging my child to ask for specific help when he needs it, so someone else jumping in to save him before he gets that far wouldn't be super helpful in my eyes.

You should be chatting to the parents not their kids . I would think you were weird if you stood there talking to and helping my child in front of me - and didn’t strike up conversation with me !

I think you sound absolutely lovely so keep being you. The only caveat I would add is that I probably wouldn’t want someone helping my child if I was stood right there (because if I thought they needed help, I would do it myself)

I would find it odd you were stepping in to help when presumably the children have an adult with them? It would probably be better for you to be talking to the adults rather than just to the children. I'm also not sure how it encourages your son to be less shy if he's not the one talking to the children.

My daughter has just started reception too and she's been a little nervous. I'm also really chatty and friendly (and I'm British!), so I've been making an effort to get to know who her friends are and saying hi to the kids and their parents in the morning. I would definitely help a child if the parent wasn't close to them. To be honest there's not normally much opportunity in the morning because we walk to the gate and hand them over directly to the teacher. It's great you volunteered in class though, you might find as the year goes on that they ask for parent volunteers to read to the kids and they always need volunteers for school trips too.

I'm not sure the school gates are the best place for this, because the parents are right there.

I want my 4yo to learn autonomy, so usually I would assess if he needs help or not, let him have a go first, etc.
I also think that you're sending a message to the parents that they're not doing the right thing, and therefore you're stepping in in their place. That might turn against you unfortunately.

I understand that's not what you mean though. Talking to the kids and their parents, being friendly, is of course absolutely fine. It's just the "helping" part I struggle with personally.

A better approach in my opinion would be to organise some play dates so he gets a better chance to know the kids 1-1.

You're no different to most mums I've met and I say that as a mother of three (now adult) DC 🤷‍♂️

If a child asks you for help, this is OK.

If you’re offering to help a child when their parent is there, this is not OK. And would make you look weird/ could create some distance from other parents… this could potentially result in less party invites when past the whole class invite stage.

Chatting to them is fine, as long as also chatty to parents. Just make sure you’re not offering them anything to eat unless you know the parent well (This caused a Latina mum some issues!).

OP, you sound wonderful, don’t ever change 😀

Absolutely carry on as you are. I am that mum too. Well I was mine are too old now.