chap_42

Phone

We signed up to try out an inexpensive family cell phone plan and have now become a wireless family. Everyone, including our teens, has a cell phone. My initial thought was, Now we have another great consequence to leverage if we need to.

This thinking had its flaws. We quickly found out that the cell phone greatly helps us keep track of the kids, wherever they are. And we became dependent on that assistance, to the point that the cell phone is not the first thing our kids lose if they disobey. And we are not alone.

One of my sons recently had his cell phone taken away because he was using it in class. The school requires that a parent pick up a confiscated cell phone, so my wife called to find out how and when to do that. When Barbi told the school secretary, “Next time he gets the phone taken away, we will suspend it for a long time,” the secretary laughed and said, “Yeah, that’s what all the parents say at first. But you need it more than the kid does.”

Defining the Problem

When kids hit the teen years, they are inseparable from their phones. Preteens play together and do some talking. Teens talk, then talk about whom they talked with, and then they talk about when they will talk to someone else. Their internal push to connect with people outside the family, as well as their increasing conceptual and verbal abilities, finds expression in phone time. But phone usage can get out of control, so your job is to help your teen learn how to master the phone, so that the phone doesn’t master your teen.

Phone problems revolve around excess. Teens tend to talk on the phone too much. If it’s a cell phone, the time they talk means money. And no matter what kind of phone it is, if your teen is using it too much, she isn’t attending to other things in life, such as homework, chores, and family relationships. Teens also tend to talk on the phone at the wrong times, such as during study time or when they should be sleeping.

Though it’s easy to assume that phone excess is due to your teen’s love affair with his social world, it may be due to other reasons. For instance, he may lack the ability to establish balance and self-control in how he spends his time. Or he may be avoiding some problem at home by connecting outside the home. Or it could be that he is simply self-absorbed; his world and experience may be the only ones that matter to him.

Whatever the reason your teen’s phone usage is problematic, he needs your help to turn the situation around.

Handling the Problem

Here are some guidelines that can help.

Establish and enforce some ground rules. Talk with your teen and let her know what is appropriate and what is not. Your ground rules might include:

Life comes first. Teens by instinct want to answer the phone. When any of the phones rings in our house, the kids often feel compelled to answer. We have to remind them, “Use the phone as an answering machine. That’s what voice mail is for.” Teens need to get into the habit of not interrupting what they are doing simply because someone else wants to talk to them.

Some simple rules may be in order. For example:

 
1. Don’t use the phone until homework and chores are done.
2. Don’t pick up the phone if it is interrupting you while you are doing homework, doing chores, eating a meal, or doing something else with the family.
 

If your teen answers the phone every time it rings, she may have difficulty staying on task in work and in relationships. People get their feelings hurt when the person they are talking with abruptly answers the phone and gets into another conversation (this is a common adult problem).

The phone has a curfew too. Establish a time after which your teen can no longer make phone calls, especially during school nights. If he doesn’t follow this, remove phone privileges as a consequence. It’s a good idea to check in on your teen after lights-out, as it is easy for him to talk until very late. If necessary, take away your teen’s phone at the cutoff time, and return it to him the next day.

When I call, I expect you to answer. When teens don’t want their parent to know what they are doing, they sometimes don’t answer the phone when the parent calls. Your teen needs to know that this is a form of deceit, and it’s not okay with you. Let her know that if you find that she has been deceitful in this area, you will take it to mean she is not responsible enough to have a phone, and you will take away her phone privileges.

Limit the number of monthly cell phone minutes used. Many parents have become vigilant about monitoring their teen’s cell phone minutes, and this is a good idea. Simply establish with your teen how many minutes a month he can have. Let him know that if he goes over those minutes, there will be a consequence, such as paying for the excess or being docked that many minutes in the next month. (If you depend on the phone to stay in touch with your teen, you may want to establish some consequences that aren’t related to the phone.) In doing this, you are helping your teen see that there are built-in realities and limits to the phone and that they affect him.

I recently talked to one of my son’s friends. He had just checked his minutes at the end of the monthly period and was elated that he had not gone over. But I don’t think he would have cared about it if his mom hadn’t cut off his phone after the months that he ran over. His mom’s consequence helped him create a sense of ownership and control over his phone usage. Now he cares, and the amount of time he spends on the phone matters to him.

Require phone etiquette. Your teen needs to know the basic rules of phone politeness, such as identifying yourself when you call someone. For example, she shouldn’t call and simply say, “Is Pam there?” but rather, “Hi, this is Julie. Can I speak to Pam?” Nor should she say, “Bye,” and then hang up abruptly without the other person being ready for the conversation to end.

Teens have different rules for each other, and that’s fine. But make sure your teen knows phone etiquette, especially when she is talking on the phone to adults.

You Can Do It!

To a teen, the phone is a lifeline to his world. Hold your teen accountable for staying in touch with others in ways that demonstrate restraint and self-control. You may one day hear him say to a friend he’s talking on the phone with, “I have to go study; see you later.” That’s the goal — internal control, rather than parental control.