Four groups for one class
I'm Moshe, a father of two, and each of my kids' classes runs on four WhatsApp groups. One is the teacher writing to the parents. One is the teacher writing to the kids, and I still have to read that one, because some messages appear only there. One is parents only. And one is the kids' own group, which is where a birthday invitation sometimes shows up and nowhere else.
More than fifty in each group
On a normal day, each of those groups has more than 50 messages. Most of them are conversation, and that is fine. The problem is the dates buried inside them.
Exam season is the worst of it. The tests do not arrive one at a time. They come in a stretch, one every two or three days, and each one comes with something the child has to prepare. Miss the message and you miss the preparation.
Copying dates into our own calendar still failed
For a while my wife and I copied everything into a calendar we share. It helped, until it didn't. Not every message made it across. Something always stayed in a chat, and that was exactly the thing we forgot.
If it has a date, it becomes an event
The rule I keep now is simple. If it has a date, it becomes an event: a birthday, a school trip, work the kids need to prepare for a certain day, an exam. Everything else I read and leave in the chat.
Once it is on the shared calendar, my kids get the same reminder I do, and they know when to start preparing. I stopped being the person who has to remember it for them.
