To be anxious about a Y7 mums' meetup

[TheLasrStraw]

It's in a bar and my hearing is rubbish. My daughter wants me to attend so she gets invited to stuff.

What are your tips for a successful evening?

They don't need to be my BFF, and I'm working on being less easily slighted.

I just want to come away with them thinking I was alright.

@AvaCallanach

I find it useful to have the numbers of a couple of other parents in the same form/ year just to check deadlines, homework confusion etc occasionally. We don't do meetups though.

Secondary school means your child needs to learn to deal with these things independently. They normally have a planner where they note down homework and deadlines and your job is it to help them organising it.

DD has several WhatsApp groups depending on subject and she puts her phone on silent in the eveing as she got fed up with classmates asking for homework advise in the last minute on the day before it's due.

Depending on the school obviously but DD's school has an intranet where the parent can have their own access to see homework and deadlines.

To the PP who think that not knowing the parents mean I am not interest in my child and their friends:
I think it all depends on how much they meet outside school. DD has a circle of friends who are very tight and here we know where they live and who the parents are as we collect and drop her off or they are in our house.

Other friends are only met at school or at a cafe, going to the cinema despite DD knowing they are welcome in our house.

A sleepover is a totally different cattle of fish and then I do expect more knowledge but I found that this is more with really good friends and then point above applies. Sleepovers are also vastly reduced I found since DD started secondary.

We also screen her WhatsApp group, especially in the beginning of Y7 and had various talks about friendship and boundaries and the need to say No.

Yeah I am aware of what is my child's responsibility and what isn't.

I repeat, I find it useful to have a couple of numbers to check ambiguities occasionally. This is usually where the homework instructions are unclear. I don't bail my kids out routinely and can't remember the last time I did this for son going into year 10, but I certainly did check a couple of things in year 7.

The only other point to these things is to try and screen friendships to some degree. I am not in the least superior but I would not want to try and impress other women in order to get my dd invites!

what an odd comment.

Did you feel the need to impress other women when your kids were in Primary school? How bizarre.

As usual, it's people complaining about drama that are part of it.

@HullIsWorseThanHell

I bet this is private school.

NAPSALT

@AlexaShutUp

My daughter wants me to attend so she gets invited to stuff.

That isn't really how things work at secondary school. I didn't socialise with other mums but my dd still gets plenty of invitations. They choose their own friends at that age.

Yes, this is what strikes me — that both daughter and mother sound very socially anxious.

Go to the meet-up for yourself if you want to make friends, but your daughter needs to know that this won’t have any bearing on her friendships.

At secondary school they are too old to be invited around to somebody’s house because their mothers are friends, and you might have most in common with somebody whose child she doesn’t like.

If you do go, understand that everyone else will have the same fear (I hope everyone likes me), but try to be more interested in them than worried about yourself. Also, tell them about your hearing difficulties. If it’s too noisy, just politely leave.

Our new school invited us to a picnic at a local park. It's a huge school. I am critically shy and DH hates most people so we didn't go. DD is going into Y10 now and has made lots of friends on her own. If she goes to someone's house she tells us the address.

Just be positive and try and have fun.

Hoppinggreen, what does NAPSALT mean? Assume you're being rude...

Be positive. Eye contact. Throw in a few genuine compliments. Be engaged in what other people are saying if you can't be engaging yourself. Most importantly try not to be anxious. Keep being positive, "I'll like these women, it will be a fun evening, I am an interesting person" over and over. Positive thinking breeds more positively in your life. Have a few easy things to chat about - ask them about themselves- how did you find home schooling? What are your summer plans? How is your son/ daughter finding secondary school? Etc.

Surely it would be a parents meet up and not just mums?

@HullIsWorseThanHell

Hoppinggreen, what does NAPSALT mean? Assume you're being rude...

Not all private schools are like that No, wasn’t being rude

What do you mean you are working on being less easily slighted??

As po said be friendly, listen don't talk too much, have a drink.

I would agree if parents are friendly then kids are generally friendly.