Anyone else p**d off doing the school run?

[dingledangle]

Perhaps I am just having a bad day but DD started school back in September and I am now beginning to realise the monotony of the school run. Anyone else experiencing the same feeling?

It is stretching out ahead of me come rain and shine years of driving to and from school. She also has younger siblings so I have depressed myself further by adding their school years to the calculations!!!!!

How do you cheer up the school run?

It is awful, I have been doing it for 6 yrs now and have at least another 4, goin gup and down the same road.
I find loud music helps.
I also sit in the car for as long as I can so I only have to dah and grab, not make small talk!

I totally KWYM - the worst was when ds1 was in Y1 and ds2 in Nursery half-day so I had to do the trip three times a day.

Oh, me too. dd1 is only in yr1, factoring in dd2 I'll be doing it for the next 9 years and I'm a governor, feel like I live in the fecking place. And it's still 3 weeks til the end of term.

do you drive or walk?
I walk & bump into people along the way and chat which makes it more pleasant

I only do it three times a week and it still annoys me. The only saving grace is that i live slightly further from the school than others, so i don't bump into parents during the weekend or school holidays, but it is really depressing.

i was going to say - how far do you have to go? walking would make it less boring.

Oh yes, I am well and truly pissed off with it. It's the relentlessness that wears me down. DC4 left Infant School last summer - oldest DC started there in 1992. So with assorted gaps along the way, I'd been walking to the same place for 17 years.

We have a five minute drive and it is usually fun chatting or singing with DCs. I can finally relax after making sure we all got out of the house on time with the right bags.

I hate the school run, schools only a small walk away for me but when its chucking it down with rain i drive up, then i stand in the cold, rain and wind and she's always last out and then the struggle to load the dd's into the car complete with lunch box and book bags for the short drive home.

When she started school i looked forward to the school run, now i envy the parents of the children who go on the bus .

By the time all mine have left Primary school I will have done the school run for 11 years.

I've been doing it for five years so far

when the last finishes primary I will have been doing it for 14 years

but then I'll still need to do it for secoundary until an age where I reckon they can walk 3 miles on their own down windy single track roads

I hate it already.

I like the smalltalk, catching up with all the other parents etc, and I like seeing all the kids and DS mucking about with his mates.

But every morning I wake up and feel 3.30 counting own towards me. I can never time it right - I'm either 15 minutes early, waiting for them to open the gates, or dashing in gushing apologies and praying they haven't called social services yet.

DS is in reception, I have a 2 year old DD an another on the way, so I've got at least another 11 years of groundhog day.

I make DH do it!

Ds is 30 yearsold, DGD is 14, and I am a CM, I have been doing school runs for about 25 years, true, not to the same school, some by foot some by car, love the walk in the Spring/Autumn sunshine, hate it any other time.

Go by scooter instead of car

FFS OSOTC, you get in your car to drive FIVE MINUTES!!!

do us all (and your kids) a favor and walk (assuming you can, if you are disabled - apologies! as that would be the only excuse)

I have been lucky- I made dd1 walk on her own from age 8, and dd2 gets picked up and dropped off at the door by the bus for her special school. I think I got away with maybe just four years?

We were talking about this on the way home today and one woman I sometimes walk home with has been doing the school run for 22 years

She has 7 daughters between 26 and 9.

You need to arrange a carpool!

Like you, I am a school run fresher. We have a fairly long school run so I have been busying myself with ways of making them fun!

So far I have found...

1. Getting home/to school is too long away to use as an excuse for not laying in the road/running the wrong way/hiding in EVERY hedge. So you need to have relatively close things to do on the way home. We have to say hello to the lady who looks after the toilets as we exit the park, see whether it is a man or a lady driving the train, bid good evening to the local tramp, wave at the lady in the Antiques shop and check who is waiting tonight at the restaurant rather than "getting home".

2. Before your child exits the house choose one toy to play with on route (as we take a train to get dd to school she also has a book).

3. So you don't get into a rut if you have a grrrr time getting to/ from school the next day walk infront of your child and blow bubbles the whole way. It is sure to stop any huffy about the school run habbit from developing.

4. Tell stories and sing songs on route and make funny observations. Discuss any letters or numbers you see.

5. When you do have time let them indulge in going up and down up and down up and down those three steps they love or let them embark on poking ants on the wall - it is a good opportunity to catch up on a page or two of the novel you are reading.

6. Have a spare bag for collecting leaves/conkers/helicopters and smile and say "How lovely" when they introduce you to a snail that they have decided they are bringing home tonight.

7. If possible vary the route you take, friends you walk with and places you stop to play. We love to stop in a paricularly funky café for a coffee and hot chocolate Mmmm!

P.S - Currently my dd only goes to school in the afternoon. I really have no idea how I am going to do this when she starts going in the morning too you see... I really am NOT a morning person !

Thank God for the Australian school bus system is all I can say I've had at least one child in primary for the past 13 years and DD has 6 more years ahead of her. They've all been getting the bus most days since April and it's changed my life!

Its not just me then!!!

Next year DC2 starts preschool so I will be up and back to the school in the middle of the day too so it is only getting worse!

The location of the school means we drive. There is a short cut (across a field and along a very busy road without pavements). I will tackle this in the Summer but at the moment this is not an option. why oh why does the government not make school buses complusory as it would save so much money and congestion and so forth.

At least it is Saturday!

I've only been doing it two years so far but do have a feeling of groundhog day, especially when we see the same people at the same places in the route at the same time.

At the moment I have ds in year 1 and Dd at preschool which is on the way back home but have to wait at preschool as school starts at 8:50 and preschool at 9:15. However much we spin it out, the walk takes at most 10 minutes.

In January DD will start nursery in DS's school so at least I will be able to drop them off at the same time. Then back at 11:30 for DD and then 3:20 for DS.

Salbysea, I wish we could have found a house within walking distance of school. It is my biggest regret about our house.

We drive to the bus stop which is over 2km away but it only takes 5 minutes because there is no traffic. Country roads, no footpaths.

DD is 4 and we usually walk the same distance at the weekend and it takes her 45 minutes. If we were to walk to the bus stop, she would be leaving the house at 7.45am every morning and returning at 5.45 every evening.

As it is she is overtired leaving at 8.25am and returning at 5pm.