how to be friendly with other childrens parents on school run!

[chumble]

DS is at school and has been for two years. I am on talking/chatting terms with all of the mums except a couple who for some reason or other don't want to talk/chat or exchange the time of day at drop off or pick up.

Ds is starting to play with the children of these mums and I would like to be on talking terms with their parents at least! How can I achieve this?

I know it may sound strange but I have tried smiling and general chat during the first year and this did not seem to work so now I have given up. However I realise that our children will share the same class for several years to come it would be nice to at least acknowledge each other! Or should I just accept it how it is and let things develop 'naturally'! I just find it all very uncomfortable.....

Thanks in advance

I'm counting my blessings after reading this. My dc's are at a small school, and everyone is friendly. I do try to smile or say hi to everyone in passing, even if I don't have time to chat. It just makes it all less of a chore if you can have a quick chat before and after school. We have a park next door, so most people end up there after school on sunny days.

Is this an area thing maybe? Even the large schools where we live are really friendly - one even has a mum's spa weekend away every year (and we're out in the sticks, certainly nowhere posh!)

I would agree with the others who say this behaviour is just rude. I would try and make eye contact and then smile. If you get nowhere, at least you know it isn't you.

Some are just like that Thisis , its probably nothing personal , they tend to get into these cliques and if your not in it you dont exist !

My dd was invited to play by a mum i didnt know very well . When we rang the bell she opened the door an inch and peered out cautiously , she was deeply involved in conversation on her mobile . She didnt acknowledge us beyond the cautious peep and continued to talk whilst holding the door an inch open .

I waited , assuming it was important and that she was going to either end the call or gesture for my dd to come in. She did neither , and simply continued to talk loudly about a million pound she was aparently owed . Me and dd were like this and i wasnt sure what to actually do. Every now and then she would peep round the door with one eye at us whilst still talking .

After ten minuites i gave up and went home , she never mentioned it and neither did i .

Blimey Dignified....that is weird!

Although taking my ds to his friends house was rather similar, in that she barely opened the door, and didn't speak. It rather reminded me of the Munsters or somesuch....Bates motel?

I would have invited whoever in and offered a brew or glass of something, so to me, being so guarded is very odd. Makes you wonder what they're hiding....maybe an s&m dungeon?

There is a huge discrepancy in the levels of wealth here.....rural Cheshire, so multi-millionaires to farm hands. And I think a lot of judgements made on the basis of that. I really don't care about that stuff, and I think the women who do care, think I'm weird. I speak to the bankers wife and the the care assistant from the dementia centre.These strange ones would NEVER speak to the latter, and their lives are poorer for it.

in reply to the op - have you invited the new friend/s over for tea or to the cinema? that keeps it about the children.

sort of related. my dd (8) has two best friends at school. lovely kids and they all get on so well. one mum is shy and has decided to keep herself to herself. I am always friendly and polite. We have been out for coffee etc over the years but she never invited me so I respect that she prefers not to socialise too much. the girls go for tea at each others houses maybe once a term. But it is painful trying to organise things. I always have to take a deep breath but will do so for my dd sake.

the other one has a very outgoing mum. However, she is personal best friends with another mum so she always arranges for their kids to do things together, even though they are no longer close mates. Its quite strange as to an outsider the two girls are not remotely similar, but the mums have been friends since baby group.

i guess my point is that parent's behaviour can affect the kids. It is worth taking a deep breath and being friendly for their sake.

I wonder if million pound mum had been harassed by parents in the past and was afraid of it happening again ? Its happened to me a couple of times .

A parent once arrived to collect their offspring and i offered the usual brew . She accepted but stayed till ten thirty. By this time mine were in bed , and her offspring was busy running up and down the stairs shouting and yelling , she just would not go and i had to literally be very forcefull in making her go. She then turned up the next day , and the day after , and the day after that . She was clearly loneley and depressed but it was really difficult to deal with , she had no concept of boundarys whatsoever .

She obviously got annoyed with me and interpretated my refusal to have her in my house for a ten hour stint as a snub and proceeded to go into school stating that she didnt want her kids playing with mine , and could they sit somewhere else . School said they couldnt ban kids from playing together and she then turned her attention onto the school , making various complaints to the governers about the fact our kids were playing together .
It was really upsetting at the time .

Imo, anyone who consistently ignores you after having spent the duration of a party/half an hour/a few minutes' chat in the playground is weird and really not worth dwelling on - certainly not worth anyone's tears.

I don't include in that people who are just going through a bad patch or in a hurry - that happens to us all from time to time and I'd hope people wouldn't think the worse of me if I didn't paint on a smile for everyone on those occasions.

It's miserable to feel left out, and I've been the recipient of many a cold shoulder over the years. Don't know whether it's an age/experience thing, but I now find I can be quite sanguine about it all - some people are weird, and yes, it is off not to acknowledge people you've previously had a conversation with. I learned a long time ago that popularity isn't necessarily a sign of being a nice person.

I'm a naturally friendly person and when my dc were at school I expected to make friends with the other mums just because our children would be in the same class for x number of years. Some of the mums were stand offish and others were clearly far to busy to chat but most were also keen to make friends with other mums. Even now that our dc have left school and are no longer in touch with each other, a hard core of us mums (and dads) still meet every now and again for a catch up, and always for a meal at Christmas. I think it's lovely that we have all known each others dc since they were small and are still interested in finding out how they are doing.

It seems as if my post has hit a note with some people on Mumsnet and it is reassuring that it does not just happen at my school.

I feel sorry for the kids involved in these situations as I am trying to keep things civil and adult. However I have noted that it is not a 'personal slight' as these people ignore a whole range of folk and it has been mentioned on occasion and they are not talked about in positive terms.

It just seems a strange way to carry on especially when I have noted my DC and DC of the people in question always acknowledge each other when they see each other. We could learn a lot from our kids!!!

Theres people like that everywhere , more noticeable at school because you see them every day . My dd has a freind who lives round the corner , theyve been freinds for about 3 years , they also attend the same school so i see the mum a lot .

The mum has NEVER ever acknowledged me , not once , ever. The times ive had to get dd from her house she,ll simply say " your mum is here " whilst shes walking away from the door . I mentioned it in conversation to a neighbour who said " oh i know , shes my sister , shes always been like that , shes never been to my house and has only spoke to my H on the rare occasion !".

DD , by the way , says shes a loveley person and is very chatty and freindly with her .

I can't get to grips with school yard politics either. I too cannot understand unnecessary frostiness from people whom you see every day - it does not harm to be civil at least, if only for the sake of the dcs. One woman I know took her Dcs out of school because she (and her DDs) were ignored for four years. I would be ignored myself if I didn't make a huge effort. Just bear in mind that you are unlikely to have a great deal in common, and try to rise above any snubs. It's nice if you do make some real friends though. Good luck.

I thought it was me, at least it makes me feel as though its not me, the way I look , my job etc. I HATE IT at the school gates. I have been going now to the school gates with the same lot of mums for the past nearly 5 years and I have 3 friends from there. How crap is that. Do you all on the thread live in towns or villages. I live in a village not many are local local people all outsiders who shun anyone new coming into the village , they are from all over the place up north, midlands, london. I have given up saying hello to people as one day say hi the next day look straight through you and I am from a city where no one says hello to each other. Thought they would be friendly in a small countryside village how wrong was I!!!!!

Can't stand the school run!! I have declined, politely, offers to go on a school-mum night out too. I have no interest in going out with people just to talk about the children/reading/the school a swe'd have nothing else in common.

Only there 2 days/5 and it's very clear to me it's mainly the sahm's who spend most time chatting to each other as they are there everyday and probably place more importance on making friends at school as they don't have the adult company of the workplace.?

One of my best friends (SAHM) seems to pride herself on being last out of the yard and virtually stopping and talking to everyone, like hey look at me I am so popular. I find it quite funny watching her.

...I just want to get in and out.

I had years of being 'on the periphery' on the school run. Then I started chatting to the grandparents who were collecting their grandkids and guess what - they were all lovely. Is it the younger generation who are so self-absorbed and obsessed with their little cliques?
Thankfully my kids are now in high school so I dont have to bother.
Just grit your teeth and get on with it politely!

What on earth is wrong with making friends with other parents? Or finding that the main thing we have in common is being parents to our children and their school? What is mumsnet for? I am a working parent but I've never looked down on sahms as a race apart, with nothing to talk about but their children.

I've been - and am - this terrible clique-ist with one of the mums in my ds' year group. She stands a distance away from us (i.e. my clique!) in the morning, and we get the same bus into town after the bell has rung, so I often have to invent reasons I haven't really seen her. It sounds ridiculous but it's gone on for so long now there's no real way to feign surprise and go "oh hello! You get my bus!" - and what's worse is her dd is a day younger than my ds and I probably need to co-ordinate birthday parties with her this year after last year, no-one could come to my ds' party because I planned it after she'd arranged her dd's for the same day. In social embarrassment terms it's a bit akin to the rather large number of people who say "oh hi trib" at work to me and I think "I really haven't the faintest idea who you are, so I will play along".

I hope our clique is fairly inclusive, most of the mums feel they can come and say hello (and conversely, my dh who does the end-of-school-run didn't even know the clique existed as he basically does a pick-up-and-run except for the one mum who helps us out every now and then with a pick up or drop off). But equally I'm not sure what I would think if I hadn't have been through nursery and reception first - in fact I only know my main friend because the snow these last two winters meant we met up virtually every morning slogging it out to school in the bad weather because my dh couldn't make it out of the house (he is a wheelchair user).

Weird playground politics, I didn't intend for it to be like this and I know I have to sort the situation out at some point!

Good luck with the school run this morning everyone. I don't think it is a gerneration thing its a female thing, the alpha female thing, it all goes back to our playgrounds when we were at school this time they don't have to be friends with the fat one, the weird one, the smelly one. lol. Don't worry about it, it is the country and world over.

Just smile looking like a complete mad woman and say hello to everyone.

XXXXXX

lol Stevie! aint us women funny buggers?! give me male friends anyday. xx

I know, at least you know where you stand with them and they either fancy you or they don't, thats it plain and simple. xxxx

My problem is a lot of people look the same!

Almost all the parents at my son's school are white (as am I), middleish class, they wear the same type of clothes, have the same type of hair etc.. Unless they've got a kid in tow I honestly can't often tell one from the other.. So I'm friends with 'the man', the black mum', and an older white mum.. but only because I can distinguish them from the others..

So perhaps you could start dressing strangely? Avant garde hair cut?

How strange!. do you need to visit an optician?

I took an online test for some kind of right-side of-the-brain disorder where you don't recognise faces.. but it seems I do..

It was kind of the same in school actually.. Unless there was something 'different' about someone I didn't really notice them.. pretty horrible really..

My son is very happy at school BUT I am probably one of those parents you would all accuse of having "selective vision" but this honestly isn't the case. I get very nervous on the school run - am & pm - and to keep it together I just focus and look ahead and not at people. Somedays I really just don't see faces. Other days I feel a bit more confident and say hello to people. People would probably class me as rude or ignorant which really upsets me.

In the nursery things were fine but in reception several of the parents were quite mean about my son which really knocked my confidence and I began to keep myself to myself , now I am virtually ignored by everyone. The more this happens the more "selective" my vision - it just seems a vicious cycle I want to break.

I really want to turn things around but don't know how . Please can I have some advice ?

You could maybe start a new thread asking that very question as yours is slightly different from the Op. Hope you get some advice .

Wow so many replies.

It is interesting how many people have experienced the same thing at their schools too.

I just want to be civil not best buddies with everyone for DCs sake.

I am hopeful that an opportunity will come up at some point to start a conversation until then I guess I am invisible to a couple of folk in DS class!!!