Parenting has become so challenging the US Surgeon General has issued an urgent health advisory.
Nearly half of parents say they feel completely overwhelmed by stress on a daily basis.This has a profound impact on the health of our children.
But we can fix this!
A major cause of parental stress: parenting in isolation.
We’ve lost our place-based, local parent communities and the vital shared parenting that came with it, from time-saving drop-off playdates and carpools, to critical resource and knowledge-sharing. (Not to mention the increased health and longevity that comes from community.)
Schools are our last universal source of parent community. The Surgeon General has directly asked schools to do more to connect parents, yet 60% don’t even offer a simple parent directory.
How are parents expected to create meaningful community when we’ve lost the basic right to get in touch with one another?
Honeycomb’s mission is to give every family a supportive community that reduces parenting intensity and increases parenting joy. Rebuilding our place-based parent communities will take a movement, and we’re here to help drive it.
We’ve built a simple, common-sense playbook on how to get the parent community you need to thrive, with steps parents, PTAs, and schools can take to get there.
☎️ Bring back the right to connect: 65% of schools don’t provide a basic parent directory. Our parents had this in the 80’s, and the Surgeon General is now asking schools to connect parents. It starts with a directory.
📆 Provide parent-centered programming: The Surgeon General calls on schools to address parental stressors. Schools can create community-building opportunities and proactively provide support. (Social-emotional learning for kids while their parents’ needs are ignored is like pouring water in a leaky bucket!)
🐥 Provide childcare at school events during work-friendly times: Ensure there is care available at all school events so that both parents and single parents can attend. Schools should know their parent community’s most common work schedules and program school events accordingly.
🫶🏽 Center on parents: It’s time to make sure parents have their oxygen masks on, first. Re-center parents as one of the core audiences the PTA supports, alongside our kids and teachers.
📈 Pull up dads’ seat at the table: Increase the representation of dads by committing to get to 50/50 representation between dads and moms in PTA roles and volunteer hours.
📣 Prioritize whole-family communication: Use tech that promotes healthy, supportive community building and that prioritizes family-to-family (not mom-to-mom) communication. We recommend Honeycomb (no bias, of course! 😉).
🏡 Open your doors: Get comfortable welcoming kids and families for meals and playdates. Normalize hosting as you live: embrace the mess and be proud of frozen pizza (leave the charcuterie boards for the influencers).
⚖️ Don’t expect balance: If you can, be that family that sets up the carpool or has others over 10x more often than you get invited back. Building community takes investment and has never been balanced –– but the long term benefits to all are worth it.
😡 Take it offline: Commit to bringing complex topics to your teacher, administration or other parents via in-person conversation. (AKA: put an end to that online intensity that triggered schools to pull parents’ ability to connect in the first place.)