Anyone who has a school-age child is aware of the minefield that is the parent group chat. If you’re a parent who is about to enter the school years, buckle up – you’re in for a ride.

On a good day, the parent WhatsApp group (or Signal, or whatever your digital medium of choice) is a place of sheer beauty. It shows the best of humanity. Crises are averted. Generosity abounds.

On a bad day? It makes you scratch your head and wonder how on earth these people are able to raise kids and hold down important jobs and just generally function in the world. No judgment – sometimes I am “these people”.

So as we head into another school year, it’s worth arming yourself with some important knowledge: the dos and don’ts of parent school chats.

I think it’s fair to say that when it comes to the goings on at any school, the comms are – to put it mildly – a lot. On many days, I’ll scroll through an exorbitantly long school newsletter, skimming the section marked ‘Important Dates to Remember’ and I’ll think: I’ll remember that. Or the similarly deluded: I’ll come back to that later when I have time to put those dates in my calendar. I will, as it turns out, do neither. I will also never learn from this. What I will rely on are the type of parents who diligently diarise those dates and send out friendly reminders as those dates approach. Those parents are the ones who say that it’s crazy hair day tomorrow and that if anyone is stuck they’ll bring a spare can of glitter spray to school drop-off in the morning. Those parents deserve a medal. A public holiday named after them. A parade in their honour.

I often grapple with the philosophical conundrum of whether it’s worse to send your kid to school in uniform on a forgotten casual clothes day, or in casual clothes when it’s actually not casual day. My kids have obviously pondered this too, because there is not a Book Week or costume/pyjama/footy colours day that they have not second-guessed me or requested proof in writing. And that’s where I can whip out the phone and say See! Gina sent a reminder last night! God bless the Ginas of this world.

The opposite to this is the person who asks all the questions but doesn’t actually read the chat. Example:

Parent 1: Don’t forget it’s early pickup tomorrow at 1pm.
Parent 2: What time is pickup tomorrow?
Parent 3: 1pm.
Parent 4: Is it early pickup tomorrow?

And so on and so forth for all eternity until the end of time.

That being said, sometimes the important messages do get lost among the chit-chat of the group. This is why (and this may be controversial) there should be no chit-chat. Parent chat should be a business transaction. Tell me only what I need to know. Get in. Get out. It’s when the chat becomes overloaded with random observations, in-jokes, non-school related queries, that it becomes impossible to actually spot the vital information. Don’t flood the chat. Respect the chat. As someone with 123 unread text messages, 84 unplayed voicemails, 14,770 unread emails and 65 unread WhatsApp messages (don’t judge), the parent chat needs to be streamlined. We need to work together to reduce the mental load or we’re all at risk of PCSD (parent chat stress disorder).

Which brings us to some rookie chat errors. If you don’t lock your phone after reading the chat, there is a high chance that you might accidentally send something to the group that you really don’t want to send to the group, if you get my drift. That little microphone icon on the bottom right of your screen? And the plus icon on the left? I swear they’ve been placed in the perfect position just so you can accidentally send recorded conversations or photos to people you’ll then have to see at pickup. You’ve been warned.

School is stressful for parents (forget the kids!), especially for those new to the school who have to learn a completely new way of navigating things. Need to find the class list? Just download the Compass app, click through to the Synergetic Portal and be taken to the Third Dimension. It doesn’t work on Wednesdays. Hold your breath until you’ve clicked on the drop-down menu or it will freeze. Blink three times. Which is to say, we need each other. We need the community and the support. When things feel overwhelming, we need the safety of the parent chat to remind us that good does exist in the world. That we are not alone. And that tomorrow is the bake sale.

• Natasha Sholl is a writer and lapsed lawyer living in Melbourne. Her first book, Found, Wanting, was published by Ultimo Press in 2022