When my daughter started kindergarten two years ago, I did not know what to expect as a mom of a grade school kid. All I knew was my daughter was starting her educational career. What I did not realize was that I would become a part of a community of “moms” or “parents.” This especially being true as a stay-at-home mom who dropped off and picked up my child from school every day.
All the parents and caregivers would stand on the grass in front of the school — waiting to say goodbye to our kids in the morning or waiting for them to come running out to us at the end of the day. We all had a common goal. Be successful at getting our children to succeed, learn, make friendships, and ultimately start their lives away from us–as independent people.
When you see the same individuals day in and day out twice a day, at school events, and at friend’s birthday parties, you start to build a bond. You go from saying, “hello” to commiserating over your children, to gossiping about the school, to discussing your kid’s education… Only those other parents can uniquely understand your same experience.
At the end of the school year, you say “goodbye” to much of this community — not communicating or seeing many of these people for the summer months. The day that the new school year begins, you take off where you ended that year before. The same community — maybe a year older, a year different, but all much the same.
The parent communities I have been a part of have many times, gone beyond the front of the school drop off/pick up. Here are some ways to build a parent community or to expand a parent community at your local school:
- Create a What’s App group chat with the parents of the child’s classmates.
- Create a private Facebook group for your child’s class or school.
- Develop a shared Google Sheet to build a spread sheet of parent and classmate contact information.
Laurel Everitt 
3 responses to “INFO200 Post #1 – Personal Community: Community of Parents”
Hi Laurel,
Thank you for sharing, it was very insightful especially since I am on the other side as a preschool educator. It’s so fun to hear that the families meet each other, talk to one another or build community with each other outside of the schoool. Perhaps, it’s because I only see the parents drop off and pick up; it’s such a routine that I dont think about what the parents are thinking the rest of the day or whether they communicate with other families. I definitely know that groups exists because sometimes the families tell me about it and one part of me thinks it’s so lovely, the other part me worries that they’ll band together overthrow me like a coup, which is definitely a case of my overactive imagination.
Thanks for sharing about what the families do to stay connected with another. I enjoyed reading about it.
Ingrid Ho
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Hello Laurel! I wanted to say you offered an interesting read for our first week. I don’t have a child, but I can understand your experience very well from how you describe it. I also think it’d be a good idea to start a group for parents to bond, that way their kids could remain friends over Summer. Out of the options I’d recommend a Facebook group since that’d feel less formal, having something more focused on just talking might seem too ridged to form closer bonds. The Facebook group would permit the group to participate together more than just as individuals sharing personal contact information. Since an Information Community seeks to have the same goals, in your case raising happy children, so the more you are able to share information and bonds I think the easier it’d be to facilitate that as you all offer advice to each other. As I don’t have a child I can’t be certain, that’s all just my opinion.
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Laurel, Isn’t it interesting how we end up in infomation communities because of hapenstance? For example, here we are in this class together. Sometimes commuities come together because of common interest like my post about photographers, and other times they come togehter just because of the street one lives on, or in your case, the school your child goes to brings parents togther who may have never meet otherwise. I guess it’s what makes the world go round!
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