why is there so little interest for parents of older children?

[Anonymous]

It seems primarily that this board is geared toward preschoolers and younger. What happens when they start elemenatary school? There seems to be low interest and even the subgroup for older kids is not visited very frequently. Are people so busy with activities and PTA's or everyone is working full time?

[Anonymous]

Maybe by the time your children get older, you have more than one child and don't have all day to post questions and responses to DCUM. I noticed a lot of moms on here are posting about their 1 and only child. Maybe you become more confident as a mom and don't need to conduct as much polling on how to best parent from websites.

[Anonymous]

See the "older kids" forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe by the time your children get older, you have more than one child and don't have all day to post questions and responses to DCUM. I noticed a lot of moms on here are posting about their 1 and only child. Maybe you become more confident as a mom and don't need to conduct as much polling on how to best parent from websites.

Pot meet kettle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe by the time your children get older, you have more than one child and don't have all day to post questions and responses to DCUM. I noticed a lot of moms on here are posting about their 1 and only child. Maybe you become more confident as a mom and don't need to conduct as much polling on how to best parent from websites.

Pot meet kettle.

?????

[Anonymous]

Pot here, not calling the kettle black as the cliche goes, but speaking from experience.

I have 1 child that naps a total of 4 hours a day and really don't have much to do after everything else is take care of. DCUM provides great amusement. Go check out "off topic" and see the drama for yourself, especially the passionate fury over the Boy Scouts.

If I had 2+ kids and both were running around, how in the world would one have time for this website?

[Anonymous]

I have older kids and sometimes peruse the "General Parenting Discussion" site just to feel good that I'm past all the insecurities of having babies! I think parents of younger children just have more questions, and feel more of a need to establish some kind of community -- I remember feeling that way when mine were small. I do notice that there's not much discussion of school stuff past kindergarten though -- a little more middle and elementary school discussion would be nice.

[Anonymous]

Gosh, I have been coming to DCUM for about a year (child is 3yo) I mostly come for amusment but that is starting to get old. I doubt I will be visiting after my child passes the "getting in school" age (5). By then, I will have to rely on my experience and the circle of other mothers that I have met in those early years.

[Anonymous]

OP here. It's nice that this group is anonymous that is why I like it because it is more amusing that way. Having a group of mom friends is hard to come by for older children is hard because they are all so busy. Nowadays you have playdates (I hate that word) and you just drop off the kid so you don't have that much interaction. Or you see someone casually at an activity or birthday party but it's all very superficial. It does get old seeing the same old topics over and over on this board. I can't believe all your problems are solved by time they reach elementary school. I see that most mom meet ups are for moms with younger kids. And on other boards similar to this one it seems that topics are all geared toward the younger crowd. I saw some archives that mention Berkeley Parenting Network but that's all I've seen for older kids.

[Anonymous]

I guess by the time your kids reach elem. school age you figure it out and you have proven that you "survived" the formula/breast feeding, napping, vaccines, teething, traveling-with-infant, etc. schedules that seem to plague a lot of new moms