Chat group for parents; curse or blessing?

So I joined a group chat that was specifically created for Sonshine's and his classmates parents. Like most, the purpose is so that we can quickly disseminate and share information to each other. I even went further & network with the other moms, building friendships with them. But after a year, I decided to exit the group chat and have less interaction with the other parents. 

I realised the group chat isn't helping me much. The questions and information exchanged aren't very useful, if anything, it made me very confused. Simple things like should the kids wear uniform or PE attire is made complicated. Most of the questions raised can be quite absurd and irrelevant. It annoys me much. This also became a source of gossip for my inner group of moms. Unhealthy!

The other reason is, this year I want to keep it simple and have all information about school to come from Sonshine and him alone. Last year, I had a lot of sources who would feed me with daily updates about his school day. Some of the kids reporting to their parents were so detailed to the point where I literally felt like I had sat in the classroom myself. Like most parents, I thought this was a fantastic thing. I get to know exactly what is going on in the class. However by end of the year, I felt that I was overloaded with TOO much information. 

I realized i started to use all that information to compare other kids with Sonshine. And when he seemingly fell short, I would scold him & demanded him to measure up. Or I would wonder why Sonshine didn't tell me the things other kids told their parents. That of course made me very annoyed. With all the additional information, my decisions about his school is marred. The whole process became very unnatural. 

This year, I want to keep things simple and pure. I want to hear about school from Sonshine and not from others. If he doesn't tell me stuff that others tell their parents then I should trust that he deems those information unimportant. He has shown me that he is able to tell me about the necessary stuff like school work very well. He updates me about his school work to the T but leaves out all the other frivolous stuff like who brought what bag or who did and say what in class. 

In addition, I'm also going for less play dates with the other parents. For one, I want to know less! Such play dates meant even more gossip and information being rendered to me. It always leaves me feeling depressed or wondering if something is wrong with my kid. 

More so, I realised there's no fit between this group of classmates and Sonshine. I'll be first to admit, Sonshine doesn't have those attractive personalities and can come across as annoying. It's just how he is. He's the sort who loved slapstick comedy. Not everyone finds it funny and some may get really annoyed (like yours truly). All the more, he needs friends who is tolerant and can accept his nonsense. His friends in this group are rather high strung and can get angry or easily irritated over small things that Sonshine does. So many times during play dates, I often hear these kids yelling at Sonshine over some small things or see them go to their moms to whine. I get very stress each time and would take it out on Sonshine. Sonshine on the other hand, has a super easy going character. Even if his classmates shoved him, grabbed his toys, say mean things to him, he lets it slide all the time. Rarely or never would we hear him yell at his friends to stop annoying him nor would he ever come to me and complained about being mistreated. He would just deal with it by himself. I reckon that because he's like that, he expects others to be as easy going as him. 

I did think that perhaps it's Sonshine who's plain annoying making his friends irritated. But I've seen him interact and play with other friends. These friends are more tolerant and accepting. When Sonshine annoys them, they either ignore or tolerate. They wouldn't whine or complain. But most of the time, they find him funny & they play well together. There are times when Sonshine annoys them but they get over it in a second.

That made me realised that there's a misfit between this group of classmates and Sonshine. It's not that the fault of anyone, more like all of them have faults that cause them to be incompatible. And that's really ok. We just have to seek elsewhere. 

Some may say I'm intervening too much. But I think I was emotionally drained from all this (although Sonshine is totally unaffected, I should really learn from him) and I need time to recover. So for now, I'll just detox for awhile, rest and recover! 

My aim this year is to keep things simple! 

Sometimes being exposed with too much knowledge is not a good thing. For someone like me who puts her emotions in everything she sees and hears, it can be quite unhealthy. I can't take things factually, I will let those things affect me emotionally. So for my sake and Sonshine, I'm so staying away from social networking for a while!