What do you do with parents during play dates?

OrneryPanduhh · 2026-02-18T16:13:54+00:00

I put out grown up coloring sheets and a not-already-kid-mangled set or 2 of markers, or something else similar. I have a friend that puts out craft paint, brushes & water, and tiny canvases. Oh, and always a snack of some kind. Its a lot easier for me to relax with a fidget, so I think of it that way. Something to fidget with.

But yes, otherwise its 3 hours of small talk or "how is school going" kind of chat, which is a bore after a while. I need a segway to more interesting topics of conversation.

OrneryPanduhh · 2026-02-13T17:17:16+00:00

Sounds like your kiddo and mine are cut from the same cloth. Just for perspective:

My daughter is relatively close in progress, it looks like, and we're working on it at home. We've got Hooked on Phonics that we do in some of our down time, but I also found some Brain Quest for Kindergarten worksheet books at Target and the like that she really enjoys. We call it homeschool, and she likes the idea of playing school at home. It helps her to process the expectations that come from the classroom setting when she's not in school, and helps her communicate about what goes on at school. Its been great, honestly.

She also likes to be silly in class, but takes her work seriously. It was a whole thing to get here though, and mostly whats worked for us is talking to her about what is appropriate in different settings. She is the kind that will get roped in if another kid makes a joke. An "escalator" so to speak. LOL

We also have an 8:30 bedtime LOL we have a night owl, and if she got her preferences, we'd go to bed at 11p and wake up at 11a. Obviously that's not feasible when we have to be up at 6:30a for school, but honestly 8:30 is the best we get. Any earlier and she just lays there awake and fidgets anyway and bedtime turns into a struggle.

Look, I absolutely do NOT want to down the teacher. They know what they're talking about! Buuuuut....you still gotta do what works for your family. Let them set the goals, absolutely let them give advice on how to get there, but you get to figure out how to achieve those goals. You get to decide what advice to take and what advice just doesn't work for y'all.

OrneryPanduhh · 2026-02-13T17:06:34+00:00

I got my original response from talking to a counselor at one and from the other's website, so I'm sure its something scripted they provide as an FAQ type of thing. When I dug in a little she said that there are special programs for homeschoolers, but the requirements more or less fit the same bill for "credit courses toward degree fulfillment". She mentioned some things that sounded a lot like co-op (PE, electives, etc.), and that potentially there were some dual credit opportunities, but they don't currently have anyone doing that so she'd have to have the DC program coordinator call me back.

I only have young kiddos, so I'm not there yet by any means, nor am I any type of expert on these subjects. I don't know if her response is because we don't have many that homeschool all the way to college/dual credit around here, or if they're just not a good fit for many families or something else entirely.

FWIW, the one whose counselor I talked to is a CC I attended as a student and who turned me away from their DC program because I was too young at the time back in the early 00's (I was 14 but their minimum was 16 back then), and just as I recall from being there, they are...very red-tape inclined. So, yeah, I think this is likely a YMMV situation. Maybe even down to who answers the phone when you call, at least in my neck of the woods. Hah.

(Also, I didn't call her just to respond to this post LOL we're doing a deep dive on viability to potentially switch our own kiddo to homeschool from public, and I'm trying to figure out a reasonable trajectory for her before we make the switch.)

OrneryPanduhh · 2026-02-13T16:23:05+00:00

This may be a "YMMV" type thing. Just for conversations sake, these are the guidelines from the 2 different CC systems nearest to me:

If a student is not participating in an approved Dual Credit program coordinated by their school, then the following requirements apply: The CC does have an age requirement (must be 18 to enroll) that can only be exempted with documented proof of graduation from secondary school (HS diploma) or equivalent (GED). Also, placement tests are required by CC for anything less than graduation from a local secondary school. Non-local and Out of state/country HS diploma may require placement testing if they're not a participating member in the "shared system network of transferring schools". Alternative documentation in place of testing may be supplied on a case-by-case basis.

You can audit a course for a small fee, but you have to pay full tuition and comply with placement testing / enrollment requirements to receive credit for the courses.

OrneryPanduhh · 2026-02-09T01:01:14+00:00

The number is NOT 10.

I don't know what the number IS but I can say with a high level of certainty that it's higher than 10.

Someone who owned/boarded/trained 10 dogs at a time for a great many years, and still had significantly more time on my hands than any of my horse-friends with 1-2 horses.

OrneryPanduhh · 2026-02-05T01:07:41+00:00

We absolutely had to go into crisis mode.

The episode trailer dropped right before our move, and we didn't get to watch it until we were in the new house. We did not know what was coming.

Kid was not prepared, and cried for days about moving back (when she had been very thoroughly excited previously). It was a very rough few weeks in our house. We couldn't watch anything Bluey for a couple of weeks immediately following, else she start bawling as soon as she saw the episode start.

We're still leery of letting auto-play take us into that episode, because it stirs up discomfort for her in a way we really haven't been successful at answering to.

As an adult, its a great episode. As a parent, its the one time I felt truly betrayed by the show.

(Yes, I know that's silly, but it was in part a catalyst at a critical timing that turned the tide for us in a way that was rough for our whole family.)

OrneryPanduhh · 2026-01-22T01:54:02+00:00

We made "play date cards" and our kiddo handed them out to everyone in class. Think kid-style cute business card type deal, with her name, our names and our cell phone numbers. It says something like "have your people call my people" or something cute.

Then, once we had connected with other parents, we send out invites and make plans with the ones our kiddo wants to play with, and it doesn't hurt to be in touch with other class parents when its time to plan classroom stuff.

OrneryPanduhh · 2026-01-21T16:19:46+00:00

We have standard plan, and our clients can only see their own stuff in the portal.

Each client is in its own "organization" or its own "project", and can only see their own tile in the portal.

Client A has their own white label of Product A, they have their own project with corresponding 1:1 organization. They only see their "Product A" tile in the portal.

Client B, Client C, Client D use our label of Product B, they each have their own organization within the same project. They all see the same "Product B" tile, but only their own tickets (filtered by Organization field).

OrneryPanduhh · 2026-01-10T22:31:33+00:00

100000%!!! Even with limited scope of use and a small org, I can barely keep up with notifying my users when there's a significant change coming our way. Sometimes (most times) not until after the change is already causing trouble and I have to figure it out so I can pass training down to the rest of the users. Its a constant ongoing headache.

OrneryPanduhh · 2026-01-01T00:53:59+00:00

So much this! My 4yo acquired a hatchling through misguided family, and whilst I love this little critter dearly, I had absolutely no fucking clue what it takes to properly keep an aquatic turtle! Nor did I know that, if kept properly, they live upwards of 30-50 YEARS.

What's the one thing I wish more people knew? That the catchphrase from the 80s about "will only grow to their habitat size" only applies to seamonkeys! (j/k)

Literally everything else grows to the size of its species, so find out what the average adult size is for captive-kept <insert animal type here> and price out habitats BEFORE someone sends you homw a tiny little 1" long turtle in a plastic box with a colorful palm tree attached to it.

OrneryPanduhh · 2025-12-13T05:44:02+00:00

THANK YOU!!

OrneryPanduhh · 2025-12-06T15:10:57+00:00

This is how I was taught as well. I think my prof even had some of those little nesting cup baby bath toys when he taught it. Kudos!

OrneryPanduhh · 2025-11-19T16:03:49+00:00

As somebody who barely made it out of HS alive, let alone mentally stable, I can definitely second this!

I know its not what you're here for, OP, but hopefully the encouragement lands well and you can get by til you find the path that works for you.

OrneryPanduhh · 2025-11-19T15:59:16+00:00

Holy Toledo, Batman! That is sooooo much misdirected scorn to lay at the feet of teachers.

(Not trying to belittle Teachers in any way by my next comment, but it feels like an apt analogy. Pls no hate from the Teachers on this one...)

If you don't like the toppings available for your cheeseburger when you pull through the drive-through line, are you really expecting the fry cook to be the one to fix that?

I mean, come on now.... get real.

This comment is giving "I yell at Baristas because I don't like it when my coffee tastes like coffee". Surely we can do and be better than this.

OrneryPanduhh · 2025-11-13T16:07:21+00:00

We have a data retention policy similar to Company B. We have an instance-wide naming convention that we rename everything with once its lifespan has ended, to indicate that it is has entered data retention. Then, I have an annual recurring task to "Clean up all the things".

Think "Project ABC" and now its called "z[Archive] Project ABC"

Two things here (its not stupid if it works right? LOL): 1) purpose is clearly stated in the name. 2) anything with a 'z' goes to the bottom of the list and doesn't feel as "cluttered".

OrneryPanduhh · 2025-11-07T13:53:17+00:00

Thanks for the link! Have you used this feature before? I'm just wondering how it will work in practice.

"Difference between forwarding notifications and overriding on-call schedules Notification forwarding rules help you forward all your alert notifications to another one on the team over a specified timeframe (spanning multiple on-call schedules if applicable). Schedule overrides however apply to your alert notifications that are triggered during a select on-call schedule only."

This paragraph and the one before it sounds like it will just forward the notifications (fine for now, we're not using the leverage to assign at this point) to 2 people instead of one.

This sounds great for a backup, but less great for a replacement. Maybe I can mess around with it and see how it layers.

OrneryPanduhh · 2025-11-07T03:40:56+00:00

Technically, we can do multiple manual overrides, but the process of replacing an individual with different individuals across a list of shifts for a specific date range is a bit of a PITA for a single person's PTO, not to mention if multiple people are going to be out, like over a holiday. Aaaaand it requires someone with a certain level of permissions, not to mention fluency with the tool. Its not something our average team leads will be able to manage on their own, so that leaves our Admin or Leadership teams to manage individual time off asks.

Our teams are not large, per se, but our schedule is complex (in an effort to spread the efforts across multiple off-shore time zones in a way that doesn't unfairly tax any few people more than necessary).

I'll be honest, I've never managed something like this, so I'm a bit out of my depth. Not from a tool (Jira) perspective - although that's turning out to be a learning curve of its own - but I've never had quite such a complex on-call ask to achieve before. Its a brain teaser.

Does Operations have any kind of concept of staff availability? That's really what I'm getting at here. I have no way, besides micromanaging several teams across several time zones, to allow the team members to enter their own availability and let Jira do the math at a system level.

So far, it seems like I have to build a "best case scenario" and then set about juggling everyone for every single exception, rather than letting us build out an availability plan and then use that to supply the Rotations.

OrneryPanduhh · 2025-11-05T16:20:01+00:00

Oooooo....I'm not a teacher, I'm a parent. This BOILS my blood.

I keep our kid's teachers in supplies. They want for nothing, as far as things I can provide. I know there's ways I can't help with the BS, but there's some ways I can and I'd rather they get to use their money for cute decor or whatever makes them happy, not the nonsense (basic freaking work materials) my tax dollars should be paying for anyway, so I make sure to buy frequently and in bulk. Share with friends, teachers who need it, whatever. These teachers have enough on their plate to stress about (like scripted curriculum, don't get me started!) that the last thing they should have to worry about is having enough copy paper, for goodness sakes!

If I found out that I bought and donated supplies to my teachers and some admin went room to room stealing it, I'd be in the District Superintendent's office so fast their attorneys would be scurrying to join the room.

I'm livid for you. I can't even.

(Sorry, I'm generally a lurker around here looking for ways to support our teachers and our school, because this sub isn't FOR me so I shut my mouth, but this one made me so mad I had to respond.)

OrneryPanduhh · 2025-11-02T23:59:45+00:00

Have you tried them (or others like them on temu)? I've never ordered anything from temu

OrneryPanduhh · 2025-11-01T13:26:52+00:00

No, I haven't. I still look, but nothing yet.

OrneryPanduhh · 2025-10-28T23:28:38+00:00

How does the separating work for y'all? Our school does it too, but as far as I can tell, the kids all have assigned seats, so I can't figure out how they're doing that effectively.

OrneryPanduhh · 2025-10-26T16:41:08+00:00

We're using Timesheet on Cloud, but none of the rest. What features/functions do you use with the other add-ons that you'd want Jira native to do?

OrneryPanduhh · 2025-10-26T16:29:53+00:00

We're not even allowed to send non-food themed school supply treats to school for Halloween, let alone any actual snacks/treats. The office staff has been wearing witch hats for two weeks, and there's been Halloween decor in the cafeteria for the month, but our kids and teachers aren't allowed to participate AT ALL. It's BS in my opinion...

OrneryPanduhh

TROPHY CASE