Carpool conundrum - how should teen handle

[Anonymous]

I am guessing these parents are checked out. You can try communicating with them, but, you may find the kid is actually more reliable. I'd have some grace for this kid. His parents probably semi-suck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You 100 percent need to reach out and coordinate directly with the parents. The adults are the ones driving, so you need to make sure you're on the same page and clear, not rely on a kid transmitting the messages.

+1. There should be a carpool schedule for each week by Sunday night, with of course an occasional “let me get back to you about Wednesday, because X is still up in the air.”

[Anonymous]

I won’t talk to the parents. If I can’t accommodate the last minute request ( make me late, extra effort affect my schedule etc), I would just have teen reply and say sorry can’t do it, don’t really have to give a reason, you just have to set a boundary, not to say yes to everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That wouldn’t bother me at all. I feel like that’s pretty typical of the way things went with my kids. But if it bothers you, just end the carpool. They’re not going to charge just because you want them too.

Were you the one always changing? Is your schedule wide open and you can drive at anytime? Either way, most people don't have that flexibility, and if you were the one always changing then that is inconsiderate.

Nope. I’m just really laid back and stuff like this doesn’t bother me. And I’m pretty lucky that I don’t live the kind of life that causes me to need so many last minute changes. My work schedule doesn’t change. Spouse’s doesn’t either. My kids don’t have emergencies. So we can be flexible.

Good lord. You think you're this nice person because you are privileged enough to have a ton of free time and apparently not a a lot of responsibility, but you don't have the empathy to understand that someone bulldozing a carpool arrangements minutes before is inconvenient for the OP? Glad you can be flexible. You don't seem very kind.

[Anonymous]

I'd say DS should not look at this phone 10 minutes before practice or open messages from this kid.

I don't think it would be so bad if the other kid texted "Can I have a ride home from practice today? And my mom can drive you there if you need". Rather than, "we're getting you". That's obnoxious. I do A LOT of driving for my kids and their friends, and I would not put up with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd say DS should not look at this phone 10 minutes before practice or open messages from this kid.

I don't think it would be so bad if the other kid texted "Can I have a ride home from practice today? And my mom can drive you there if you need". Rather than, "we're getting you". That's obnoxious. I do A LOT of driving for my kids and their friends, and I would not put up with that.

Quoting myself to say, it's possible that the parents think that their son is being much more polite. Either way, they are disorganized but it's possible (not for sure) that they think he is conducting himself with a lot more humility. Usually the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, though.

But I also know there are instances where I have seen a kid act in kind of a rude, entitled way to get something they want out of a friend-- because the kid is kind of scared of their parents. And even though the parents may cause the confusion/disorganization, they just don't want to be bothered by their kids, and they want their kids to magically "figure it out" without prepping them for what they might need. Like, not telling the kid, actually I can't take you Monday night, but then being mad when they don't automatically "catch a ride" with someone else, because they have driven other kids places a few times and now they feel perpetually entitled.

Food for thought.

[Anonymous]

OP here, thanks for all the advice. This particular ride is just 15 minutes away so I can do both ways if needed with a little bit of planning. It is the last minute chaos that I don’t want to deal with. I texted the parents and told them the carpool won’t work for us, but we can help out in a pinch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thanks for all the advice. This particular ride is just 15 minutes away so I can do both ways if needed with a little bit of planning. It is the last minute chaos that I don’t want to deal with. I texted the parents and told them the carpool won’t work for us, but we can help out in a pinch.

I don’t get parents who have someone else’s kids that will not communicate with the parents. I would do what you did but be prepared to have the kid ask often in a pinch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thanks for all the advice. This particular ride is just 15 minutes away so I can do both ways if needed with a little bit of planning. It is the last minute chaos that I don’t want to deal with. I texted the parents and told them the carpool won’t work for us, but we can help out in a pinch.

I don’t get parents who have someone else’s kids that will not communicate with the parents. I would do what you did but be prepared to have the kid ask often in a pinch.

OP here: oh I fully anticipate that will happen often. But at least now I have the parents on notice and if these asks get to frequent, I can reach out directly to the parents. I think it was an unfair expectation for me to have my kid coordinate with this particular kid.

[Anonymous]

"Hello, Jane and Dave. I wanted to reach out and chat with you about how you'd like to handle the carpool between the boys. They coordinate on their own and it gets a bit crazy. Having them do it isn't quite working for us, so let's figure this out together. I can do drop offs and then you can do pickups, like we've done the past couple of times. How does this sound? I also created this chat for us to communicate directly"

Anonymous wrote:DS15 has a friend who always asks to carpool but he’ll text just a few minutes before we have to leave and ask ‘Bro, Can you drive me there today’ or say ‘We’ll drive. Can your mom bring us back’. This is highly disruptive and changed based on what works for his parents. I have asked DS for get around this by making plans early, which DS does but often this kid will still change things last minute.

Should I get involved and coordinate this with his parents? On one hand carpooling is convenient but being at the beck and call of this family is making me very resentful.

[Anonymous]

I have been in a million carpools, some super organized, some always having last minute change ups.

If this other family is flighty, you need either a shared google calendar with dates for every practice (this is excessive, but another parent did this in the best run carpool I ever was in and it worked so well) with assigned drop off and pick ups. It takes a lot of work at the beginning, but it works SO well.

That family moved, so our carpool now has a group text. We have one very flighty family, so every week we each agree on our shifts. Sometimes things come up (someone has to work late, car breaks down, someone is sick, etc) and people have to shift, but agreeing way ahead of time what you will do hopefully mitigates this.

Don't go through the kids. Driver to driver. Eliminate the middlemen.

[Anonymous]

They probably wouldn’t make as many changes if they had to communicate with you directly. I bet that will improve things. It’s easy to tell their kid to deal with it and your kid is flexible.