Reply to How to tell these parents I can’t help?

Forum Index » General Parenting Discussion

Reply to "How to tell these parents I can’t help?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous](Open with sympathy and how much the school sucks)

So, I actually work from home and I have a very short window of time that I'm able to run out and drop DS (if you want, insert something about having lots of meetings or a micromanaging boss). I usually barely manage to drop him off before the bell. If I had to add another child, I'm not confident I could get them there on time. I really wish I could help![/quote]

That is WAY too wordy and you don't owe anyone a reason why your answer is no. Plus, if you give one that gives people encouragement to problem solve. Just say no. [/quote]

PP. I get that, but if I wanted to maintain good social relationships with these people, I'd give some kind of reason,  even if a less wordy one. [/quote]

No, if you want to maintain a relationship then you should help your friends when they need help. You want the benefits of a friendship without the commitment/follow through.[/quote]

Yup—OP you don’t have a real reason why you can’t help other than “don’t want to.” If they are dropped off at your house, it adds no time to take extra kids. So, there’s no reason to give. Just say “no” and they will see what your relationship is.[/quote]

It’s not the taking the extra kids. It’s that because of work they need to get their kids out of the house sooner (like close to when the bus used to pick up).

Let’s say school starts at 9 and you can drop off at school beginning at 8:55. What is the point of taking your kid to a house down the street at 8:50 instead of just waiting a few min and dropping at school? No one is doing this just to save 5 min.

In reality they’re going to want to drop their kids at 8:40 (maybe earlier) so they can hang out at OP’s house until they leave to walk to school. They’re trying to carve out some extra childcare in the mornings, which not every parent wants to do indefinitely. If the bus was out of commission for a week then OP should probably do it, but who knows how long this will go on.[/quote]

This. These parents aren't looking for help with school commute -- if they can get to OP's house they can get to school.

They are looking for morning childcare that used to come in the form of kids waiting for and then sitting on the bus. Instead of imposing on OP they should talk to the school about allowing kids to arrive earlier and sit in the cafeteria or play on the playground since parents are now driving them in.

That's what would bother me about these requests. These parents are not in a bind where they can't take their kids to school. The obviously can or they wouldn't be able to get them to OP's house. They are trying to resolve a scheduling issue for themselves by creating a scheduling issue for OP. It's selfish.

I also think it's weird that the parents who rely on the bus and therefore are neighbors would not be banding together to solve this issue and instead reach out to OP who lives in another part of town. In response to the idea that OP is missing out on "creating a village" by saying no I would ask why these parents who live in the bus zone don't already have their own village among themselves and question whether they would really be on board to help out OP given that they don't live nearby.[/quote]

They should see if the school can allow earlier dropoff and pickup- supervised playground access etc. Worth a shot.

If that doesn’t work- they need to band together to work things out and there are many solutions. Neighborhood carpool- would make by far the most sense. Supervised playground time before/after school by rotating parent (if school allows access), meet up at local park or Starbucks etc with rotating parent to drive the kids to dropoff. Etc.

Even if the two who asked OP for help would band together, they could make something work- one family doing AM and the other PM.

If it were me, I’d find 1-2 other families to pool with, and meet up at local to the school Starbucks in the AM and playground PM and take turns driving the kids to/from. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics