An overwhelming majority of mums and dads recognise the benefits of building relationships with other school parents (92%), but nearly half (46%) say they find it hard to break into parenting networks.
This modern dilemma is explored in the inaugural Schoolparents Report, a new poll of over 1,000 Australian parents of children (aged 3-17 years) uncovering the hot button parenting issues they face and where they look to for support.
Forming relationships with fellow parents is seen as valuable when it comes to tackling child-rearing woes, with parent friends the most popular source of advice and support (67%); more so than teachers (31%) and professional experts (24%). Yet, finding the time and opportunity to connect with other parents can be a challenge in the chaos of modern life – with many parents looking online for the solutions.
Parents of new school starters (aged 3-6 years) are twice as likely as parents with older children (12-17 years) to use social media and online searches when in need of parenting advice and support.
Nurturing friendships is top priority
86% of parents worry about their child forming friendships when they start a new school, and cite helping their child to develop friendships with classmates (59%) as a key benefit of getting to know other parents.
Parents also yearn to foster their own friendships, with 66% saying that a benefit of meeting fellow school parents is the opportunity to form bonds with other mums and dads.
Play dates and sleepovers
Nine in ten parents (89%) worry when their child goes to a friend’s house without them, with key concerns being safety (54%) and not knowing the parents (42%), further cementing the value of parent connections within the school community. Another frequent concern is that older siblings might be a bad influence (28%).
Most parents would allow their child to have their first sleepover by the age of 8, but almost 1 in 10 parents (8%) don’t allow their children to have sleepovers at all.
Parenting expert Dr Justin Coulson agrees that forming relationships with fellow parents, especially in early years, yields invaluable benefits. “Our children’s positive social and emotional development – and their relationships at school – depend to some extent on their ability to spend time with friends outside of school. But if our children’s friends are strangers to us, trust is low and relationships suffer. Getting to know our children’s friends and their parents builds trust, relationships, and a sense of community.”
Keeping tabs through the parent network
The research also found that getting to know other mums and dads within the school community helps parents to keep better tabs on what their child and peers are up to (50%), and to raise any issues with other parents (47%).
Children can be unreliable when it comes to relaying information from school with a majority (89%) of parents saying they’ve experienced communication issues with their children.
Most commonly this is because parents believe their child only tells them what they want them to know (69%). A large proportion of parents (57%) have also had occasions when their child forgot to pass on a note handed out by the teacher.
Almost a third of parents think that their child would be unlikely to tell them if they were unhappy at school (31%), and 49% of parents claim their child doesn’t say much about what happens in the classroom.
Justin Coulson continues, “One of the key benefits of connecting with other parents is peace of mind – whether it’s to make sure that a pre-schooler is building friendships in the classroom or to be assured that a sleepover environment is suitable for a tween.
“It’s harder now than ever for parents to connect with work commitments at unprecedented levels, and traditional meeting places like the school gate and canteen duty volunteering are eroding. But, as with other parts of our lives like romance and professional connections, there are new online solutions for parents to help them make real world parenting connections.”
Schoolparents.com.au – the only website that connects parents based on the school their child attends – was created by Australian mums, Kirsty Dahdah and Kate Sanchez, to help make it easy for mums and dads to meet and communicate with other parents at their child’s school.
Kate Sanchez says, “The research highlights the concerns facing parents that prompted us to launch the schoolparents networking site. As busy mums, our schedules meant that school gate conversations were few and far between and we both struggled to meet other parents at our children’s schools.
“We saw a need to create a secure space for time-poor parents to connect to one another, to not only ease anxiety about their children attending school, but also to help their children foster friendships with their peers. Schoolparents is an easy solution for parents seeking friendship and advice from fellow mums and dads, especially in the early years of schooling.”
About the schoolparents report
The research was conducted by Galaxy Research in October 2015 and surveyed a representative sample of parents of children aged 3-17 years.
About schoolparents
Schoolparents is a secure, parent-only social networking platform that makes it easy for mums and dads with children in childcare, primary and high school to meet and communicate with one another. It is the first and only secure portal in Australia to focus on connecting families based on the school their child attends. Visit www.schoolparents.com.au for more information.
About Dr Justin Coulson
Dr Justin Coulson is one of Australia's leading parenting experts and is a highly sought-after international speaker and author. Justin not only knows a lot about parenting and positive psychology, but he lives it with his wife Kylie as the parents of six daughters. After a highly successful radio career, Justin returned to school in his late 20's where he earned his psychology degree from the University of QLD, and his PhD in psychology from the University of Wollongong. He has written multiple peer-reviewed journal articles and scholarly book chapters, as well as several books and ebooks about parenting, including the forthcoming 21 Days to a Happier Family (Harper Collins, 2016).
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