Talking on the phone....
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| Tue, 01-30-2007 - 12:15am |
Hello everybody! I'm the mom of three beautiful teens -- my oldest son is 18 and will be going off to college next fall (yikes!). My middle child is a beautiful 16 year old daughter, and my baby is another boy (13 years old). My question is regarding my 16 year old daughter who lately (within the past 5 months or so) is spending a LOT of time in her room on the phone and rarely interacts with the rest of the family. A typical day for her might include school, cheer practice, and then coming home, grabbing a bite to eat, getting on the home computer for about 20 minutes (to check her My Space of course), and then she pretty much barricades herself in her room for the rest of the night talking on the phone to her boyfriend (of 5 months). Due to everybody's hectic schedules around here, we rarely all sit down for dinner together, so she usually reappears around 7 pm to grab another bite to eat and then disaapears again into her room for more phone time. For a while, she wasn't even coming downstairs to say goodnight to me, but I told her that I really felt she should at least come and let me know that she was going to bed. My question is, considering all the other "things" teens are doing these days, is talking on the phone (albeit excessively) so bad? I've mentioned to my daughter more than a few times that I feel she is spending too much time on the phone and that if she can't moderate her phone time herself that I'd have to do it for her, but I've yet to really institute that as a rule. I've considered giving her a time limit every night but again, I don't really know how much time is "enough" time. In MY opinion, one hour should be more than adequate to "hang" on the phone but I know for sure she'll feel I'm being unreasonable, so I'm leaning more towards a two hour per night limit. I still think she'll feel I'm being "unfair" but part of me misses having her around and another part of me wishes she wanted to spend time with her family in the evenings watching TV and just hanging out. With my oldest going away next fall, I now realize how valuable family time is and am trying to squeeze every extra minute I have into spending time with him and my other two. Before I know it, they'll be going off to school so to me family time matters. I know it's not that way from a teen's perspective though.... so I'm torn. I should also mention that last summer, my daughter was having some more "challenging" behavioral issues that we have (fortunately) moved past, so I really don't want her to feel that she's being punished when in reality, her attitude (and grades) have been excellent (when we see her).
Any suggestions?

Set aside at least a few days a week when the whole family sits down and has a meal together. Make time for it. This "grabing" a bite is not good for anyone's health.
One hour is more than enough. Two hours is excessive. You are not being unreasonable. I would have set it at 30 minutes,top. If it is a land line, she is hogging the phone. What if someone else wants to use it? If it is her own cell, it is still not a good idea. How much is it costing? And besides, doesn't she have homework to do? Chores? No, stick to your guns Mom.
I don't see anything wrong with putting limits on your DD's phone time. If she is on the phone from the time she gets home from school until the time she goes to bed, well then yes, I think that is excessive. If the calls are school or homework related, that is different, but just to chit-chat? She's either tying up the phone or running up some huge cell phone charges unnecessarily.
Does she not have homework that she needs to do? My own DD, 15 and a sophomore, has several hours of homework every night and I could not imagine her spending 4-5 hours on the phone and then attempting to do her homework. Quite frankly, she wouldn't get to bed before 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning if she did that. And since she gets up at 6:00 and is out the door at 6:45, that wouldn't set well with me either!
In my opinion, if you are preparing a meal for the family, your DD should come down and eat with the family -- if for no other reason than to be courteous to you. I would be pretty annoyed if a prepared a meal large enough for the whole family and have someone decide not to eat -- just because he/she didn't want to be bothered or interrupted from a phone conversation! And then to show up in the kitchen an hour later, looking for food? No way I'd be okay with that.
I think a 1-2 hour per night limit is very reasonable -- especially during the school week. But I'd still enforce her to have dinner with the family when that's on the agenda and I'd have her wrap up her phone calls somewhere around (but preferably before) 9:00 or 9:30pm.
HTH
I guess I have to disagree a little w/ the other ladies. You have said that your DD's grades are excellent, so I assume that she is devoting enough time to her homework. I do think that if you are preparing a dinner, which I think you should try at least to get whoever is home to eat together, she should come down and eat w/ everyone else. Practically every night during the week, we have dinner together, although not everyone might be there. Sometimes my DD will have to work and now for 5 weeks (we're in the 4th week now) my DSD has been taking the classroom part of driver's ed, which is 3 nights a week from 6:30-8:30. She works after school until 6:00 on 2 of the 3 days so she really doesn't get a chance to eat those nights, but it doesn't stop everyone else from eating. I think if people are home, they should eat together instead of everyone just grabbing a snack whenever they want. I think that is sometimes the only time we actually talk to each other because we have a rule of no TV during dinner.
Our 2 teens are very diff. My 16 yo DSD spends most of her time in her room, of course which is a haven because she has everything she wants in there--computer, TV, DVD player, etc. It really aggravates her father sometimes that she spends too much time alone in there, but I say to him, what do you want her to be doing anyway? (Of course, then he will complain if the kids are watching a program on the TV downstairs and it's not what he wants to watch.) We have had a problem w/ her being on the phone very late at night after she is supposed to be asleep, and if your DD's talking interferes w/ when she is going to sleep, then I would stop it. I have never gone along w/ wanting a computer in my kids' rooms but I have one in my downstairs office. My 17 (almost 18) yo DD is usually in there doing her HW and chatting/ IMing at the same time. This hasn't seemed to interfere w/ her HW or grades at all since she's in the top 10% of her class.
Now I understand that you miss those days when your DD wanted to spend more time w/ the family, but what teen does? unless of course, you are doing something interesting that they want to do? I can see the big diff. in my 11 yo son who is still at that age that he wants a lot of attn. from me. He always wants me to play board games, hangman, etc. w/ him. Last night he made up a scavenger hunt for me to do. Now if my DH asks his DD if she wants to play Scrabble or something, she looks at him like he has 2 heads. Lately they have taken to watching CSI together, so if there is a show that your DD particularly likes, maybe you can convince her to watch it w/ you. Last night my son & I were watching Jeopardy together and he was keeping score (then he calls his dad/my ex to see who won). He got my DD to play too. We also used to watch American Idol all together last year (except my DD, who was just not interested in that show).
But if you aren't doing anything interesting and you're all just watching mindless TV anyway, what's the big diff. if she is talking on the phone compared to watching TV? If she's not on the phone, would she just be on the computer IMing, or would she be doing something useful? If the phone time is cutting into things she should be doing, then I would limit it, but if otherwise, she's just going to be killing time, what diff. does it make? Do you think that if you say you can only stay on the phone for x hours, that she's suddenly going to want to spend more time w/ the family, or will she just stay in her room looking at a magazine? I can't answer that question, but I always tell my DH that if he has to force his DD to spend time w/ him, he's already lost that battle.
I personally have never been a fan of arbritary limits (limits set "just because"). From just what you posted, I really don't see a need to set a certain time limit to her phone calls, per se. However, if you have gone to the trouble to fix a nice meal, then I think she should join with the family to eat, although this could be a rare event. :) I understand. When there were just the 3 of us at my house, seldom we were all at home at the same time to eat. But, there were those rare occasions where we were all there and we would all eat together.
And I think the idea of "family night" is a great idea. You have something kind of planned that everyone can enjoy, whether it's a special TV program, board games, a night out bowling, whatever...that's a great way to spend enjoyable time together. I'd rather have one night a week that we enjoy each other, than 5 nights a week with a sullen teenager! :)
Now, if there are other reasons such as higher phone bills, someone else expecting a call, drop in grades, etc. etc. etc., then I could see imposing phone limits.
I'm not a huge fan of imposing limits "just because" either. Heck, I crochet or scrapbook for 3-4 hours some evenings, it's something I enjoy doing, and I would resent anyone who arbitrarily said I could only do it for an hour because they thought 3 hours was excessive. I see DD's phone time as much the same pastime as my crocheting and scrapbooking.
We rarely sit at the table for dinner, probably have done it a total of 3 or 4 times in the last year. However, we all sit around the tv for dinner as a family, there's no exceptions - if you're home, you're in the family room at dinner time. We have the BEST conversations that way, either talking about the teen related issues on the shows the kids like to watch, played Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune along with the tv, or watched and discussed the news. One night a short news story about a father's right to block an abortion turned into a 2 hour discussion of just about every issue related to abortion. Some people talk about how the TV during dinner has ruined the American family, but for us, it's been just the opposite.
For our OP, if DD is keeping her grades up, getting enough sleep, and doing her chores around the house, I wouldn't limit her phone time, except to insist that she spends dinner time with the family at least a few nights a week. Without that family bonding time, the family can very easily become a group of strangers under the same roof - and I have a feeling that is what is at the root of OP's comments.
Rose