To wonder how volunteers cope with parents' stupidity?

[MeghanThyStallion]

My DC are involved in various clubs so I'm on a few WhatsApp groups used by the volunteer leaders to coordinate with parents. My goodness, but I roll my eyes so often. Some examples since Christmas:

• Trainer: "Happy New Year everyone! Don't forget we're back on Wednesday, 5pm at local leisure centre." The next few messages, all from parents: "When are we back?" "Is it usual time?" "Are we still at local school?"

• Coach: "Home game this Saturday vs Man U, meet at 10 for a 10.30 kick-off." Parents: "Is there a match this weekend?" "What time?" and my personal favourite, the parent who text in at 10.45 on match day to say their DC couldn't play because they were injured

And so on and so forth, every siglngle week. FML but I would have lost it by now. "Well, numb-nuts, if you bloody read the message I JUST sent you, you'd know the answer to that question!"

How do they do it?!

Not making excuses for them but I think we are all in communication overload at the moment. There used to only be a few ways to get information (through the post, word of mouth, letter in a book bag or landline) and now there are SO many streams of communication coming in.

I used to pride myself on being on top of all of the info coming in but I just can’t keep on top of it all anymore. My DD is only a baby but I’m struggling with all the different log in systems for baby classes (each one different with different username and passwords and overly complicated websites to navigate), WhatsApp groups for parents, nursery communications.

It is so quick and easy to fire off messages now that people just don’t think anymore! It’s like a google mentality of thinking it and wanting the answer immediately.

I work in a school office. Can guarantee that within minutes of sending out an email we will get phone calls asking for the exact info that was in said email. If there is a way to misinterpret the info, someone will find it.

It's not limited to volunteers. I'm school we can send out a message on parent app (which we can see is read), a hard copy letter, a reminder message (also 'read'), an email, a second letter, a verbal request on the playground, a voicemail a third personalized letter and we will still have kids land in on day of trip with no permission form and parent complaining they heard absolutely nothing about a trip, assembly or club.

Then there are the others who will ask question after question, all of which were plainly stated in the original letter. Or the people who swear they had a letter that said a different date or time from the one every other parent got. It's exhausting.

By taking a deep breath & then WhatsApp my 2nd to say, fml!

Our school is notorious for poor comms, but I think that much of it is the parents not reading things properly or reading too much into simple instructions. Or there will be questions about something fundamental like the return to school date, which is asked with no humility. And the things that don’t really matter - I’m amazed how an instruction like bringing in a spare T-shirt can cause so much angst. So I would say it’s 90% emails not being read, 9% eventualities that no one would have thought about but don’t matter and 1% genuine poor comms.

Well indeed! But then imagine the communication overload for parents who also run youth groups! Not only dealing with all the various communications from all the activities their children do, and everything else that comes with being an adult, but also fielding the inane enquiries from all the parents of the kids in their youth group.

I have done this before and I'm not thick or lazy.. I genuinely sometimes just type before I think... if it has been a stressful or busy day.

oh this annoys me so much with banks-you can find the answer online or through your app!

no i bloody cant thats why im ringing

On my daughter's primary school parents' FB page there was one woman who posted at the end of the holidays 'Does anyone no [sic] if the kids are back tmrw?' Every time, without fail.

The school website had the dates.
They were also on the newsletter - sent out and also available on website.
The school also had an app with calendar.
It may not have been perfect in every way - but the one thing they had nailed was communicating!

The response was always a screen shot of the app / link to letter etc but she never got the hint!

Slightly different but I get annoyed at parents (usually the same ones) constantly “running late’ for pick up at my DDs activities. The club is run by staff and volunteers 2 sessions of 3 hours with a 1 hour gap for staff and volunteers to have a break, clean up and prep for the next group. It’s always the same crap, traffics busy, well of course it is, it’s a Saturday in the city centre, it’s busy every fucking week, so leave early!

Agree with so many of these and it's why I thought long and hard before volunteering for my son's team.

Will add:

Tone. I am always gobsmacked when parents are rude or aggressive. I am a volunteer, please have the courtesy to accept that I have a family and full time job of my own. So sometimes I don't respond in 5 minutes or, shock, I ONCE made a mistake on the fixture time.... which I corrected almost immediately. While I am here, a please or thank you goes a long way. I also appreciate being greeted or a goodbye at the end of a match. Ditto, would it kill you to help.collect the balls or do a but of tidying up so I am not the last person every time?!

New families: at best, I get an email asking if they can do a trial. Great, no problem. But the number of times they then barely slow down enough to toss the kid out the car. They don't know me or the coach. We have no way of contacting them except via email. But we must now care for this child?!

Amd once we have confirmed you can join our team, please have the courtesy to pay ans sign up. Don't just keep turning up.

I work in a school and it’s always the same kids that turn up in uniform on non- uniform days.
We’ve now got a small amount of old Xmas jumpers for when the parents forget/get the wrong day/can’t be bothered so the child won’t feel left out.

Dh just sent me this 😂

It's the same when something is right Infront of people's faces. I run a community group and we lay out the the coffee/tea/sugar etc for people to help themselves. Guaranteed every week you will have some glassy eyed person wander up and stare blankly at the offerings before saying "is this the sugar?" Or "is this the milk?" While it is clearly obvious that it is. Honestly - some folks just like the sound of their own voices 🤦

@Alloftheboys I know it won’t be the same for every family, but my son refuses to wear non-uniform sometimes and gets very upset about it. Trying to get an ASD diagnosis. So sometimes he goes in wearing uniform on those days, but not because I forgot about it. The change in routine can be very upsetting for some kids.

I have a bit of sympathy with the parents. I've personally seen some really poor comms sent out by group leader which conflicts with info that's on the website so I'm never surprised when people in the groups I'm in ask for clarification.

My DC's school is awful. Each term they send out an enormous 5 page long newsletter via email which you have to read really carefully for notifications about inset days which have been added in. Quite often they forget to update the school website to reflect the info in the letter. You never know which to rely on. Each time the parents Facebook page goes into overdrive with queries and the number of kids who turn up on inset days is insane. The worst ones are where individual children are awarded a non uniform day and told verbally by the teacher. Parents go into a frenzy on the fb page trying to work out whether their child is telling the truth / got confused or missed an email from the school

Schools are definitely as bad. We send out a reminder text after sending a letter and an email with the information set out clearly e.g. club starts on Monday 16th at 3:30pm, collect at 4:30. It costs £1 per session. There are 12 sessions. A parent on the class Whats App group or Facebook page then decides otherwise so we have parents ringing to check the date and time, the cost......you name it. They also get shirty because we haven't made it clear in the original letter what time it starts and ends, how much it is etc YES WE DID! Read the letter and not the nonsense on social media!

Also companies/banks that don't have the option to do a very simple thing on their websites and tell you you have to call them instead. Then, whilst you're on hold for hours, waiting for somebody to answer, you get a message every minute patronisingly telling you how you could have saved yourself so much time by doing it online

Oh goodness yes. And most of the time you are only calling in the first place because they've messed something up!

I notice other parents doing this on the school app too. They will spell absolutely everything out and you still get one dumb twat asking if it’s non uniform on, you know, non uniform day.

Yes this!

We run a little informal sweepstake in the office sometimes i.e. email sent to parents at 12:45pm, how long before we get a phone call/reply to the email either asking a daft question or having a whinge about whatever was contained in the email?

Our record is 54 seconds.

He likes his team to win. Taking part is important but we are here to win or we are at least trying to win. This is made clear from the offset so that any “it’s the taking part that counts” parents know it’s not going to be the environment for their child

How can this be a non-negotiable though? No kid shows up to football hoping to lose, trying their best to lost as badly as possible. Of course every kid will be trying to win, and of course it’s normal for the parents to comfort them appropriately by telling them giving it your best shot and participating is the best you can do. How can they make it a non-negotiable to win?

My son is actually autistic, diagnosed, and cannot participate in non uniform days. He is verbal and does understand in theory, but to him if I put plain clothes on him it means we’re going somewhere together. If I put his school uniform on it means he’s going to school. It’s too stressful and confusing for him to switch that up.

I hate non uniform days anyway though. It’s awful if you’re the child who is never in the right stuff. I think it’s better just to wear the uniform every day.

I’d wonder how these parents hold down jobs but then I work with them and they’re exactly the same there. They’re always saying I’m such a whiz at finding/remembering info - no, I just do my job and don’t expect everyone else to carry me!

I was that parent whose children often missed non-uniform day and other things. For several years, my brain and my inboxes were just overloaded. When they started school, letters were sent out on paper and I found that much easier.

Now I’m in the menopause and can forget to do something someone told me to do two minutes earlier. And sometimes, on here, I wander off the topic of what the OP asked and forget what they actually said.

Life is properly chaotic some days. I’m not remotely thick, just supremely challenged in the memory department. I don’t think I’ve been the silly question parent though, so at least that’s one positive!