Mind Yr Manners, Plz!

I know I am dating myself, but when I was a kid, we had an avocado green push button phone with a really long curly cord. You could go all the way from the kitchen to the dining room with it. When we left the house, we were unreachable unless we made a call from the phone at the place we were or used a pay phone.

Now, everyone, kids included, is tethered to their mobile phone. In one way, it gives us tremendous freedom, powerful computing abilities and multiple ways to stay in touch. On the other hand, we are now expected to be accessible to everyone, all the time.

This technology has also brought with it challenges in etiquette. Children, in particular, do not seem to know where to draw the line between staying connected to their friends and participating in real life with flesh and blood people in the same room.

Just today, my husband called our son Danny in to hang out with us for a few minutes before he went to his friend's house for a sleepover. The entire time, he sat on the couch texting. When I mentioned that he had to take the garbage out, he uncharacteristically jumped up to do it right away. Why? So when he was outside, he could continue his texting conversation without parental interference.

I found the same type of phenomenon when we went over to Tarpon Springs near Tampa to visit my brother- and sister-in-law and their children. The two teens were constantly looking down at their phones during almost all of our family dinner.

Here are my rules for phone manners, which I find myself needing to reinforce more often as my son gets older:
1. People physically present with you, even in the car, trump anyone on a phone or text.
2. Always try to engage the real people you're with in conversation. If they are otherwise occupied, it is OK to use the phone.
3. If I call or text you, respond first to me, and secondarily to any friends.
4. I don't mind some common abbreviations, but try not to sound like a total illiterate, even while texting.

This last one really irks me, because as a writer and editor, it bugs me when one of my children uses poor grammar or spelling. Last year, I read all of Jane Austen's novels. One of the things that really struck me was how beautifully the educated class wrote their letters. Back then, letters were the only way to communicate other than face to face, so how a person expressed herself in words was critical to how the world saw her. Now, I'm afraid that we have not only lost the art of lovely prose, but are in danger of losing even the fundamentals of spelling, grammar and sentence structure.

Let's try to preserve some semblance of civilization in our kids or at least common courtesy. I'll try if you will, and I think we'll all be better off for it.

Vampire Children

Once kids reach adolescence, a strange phenomenon occurs: they start to resemble vampires. No, I don’t mean that they become fanged bloodsuckers (although the success of the Twilight series confirms their affinity with them). I mean that their schedules shift to staying up late and then having a tough time waking up in the morning. On the weekends, teens will often sleep until noon or later to make up for the sleep they are missing during the school week.

There are a bunch of physiological and developmental reasons why this is so, but the important thing is that it is fairly universal. As frustrating it can be to get your teen going in the morning, we can use this schedule shift to our advantage.

Parents of teenagers are familiar with the monosyllabic answers to the standard questions like, “How was your day?” or “What’s going on?” But miraculously, in the wee hours, teens tend to open up like night blooming flowers.

If you make yourself available sometime between 11:30 and 1:00 AM, you have a good chance of connecting with your teenager without the distraction of siblings, friends, or homework. Night is when your teen’s defenses are down and he or she will be more willing to talk.

Try a low-key approach with an open ended question and leave it to your child to talk, uninterrupted. Then just listen and make encouraging sounds interspersed with non-judgmental questions or comments. Restrain yourself from lecturing or giving advice because this will immediately stop the flow and shut your kid down like a hedgehog curling up into a ball at the approach of a predator.

My daughter Mia, although only nine and a half, has this sort of vampire schedule already. She falls asleep between 10:30 and midnight and then is in a deep sleep in the morning when it's time to get up. It is at this time that she is most vulnerable. When I'm not too tired, I sometimes talk with her about her day, and she is more reflective and communicative than usual.

You may miss out on some shut-eye, but it’s better than lying awake wondering what is going on with your child or being blindsided by moodiness caused by a problem that he or she had to navigate alone, and that you were unaware of.

The Teen Project

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that I have five kids, ages 11 and under. So why am I writing about teenagers? One of my readers with teen boys asked me if I had any tips on dealing with teenage boys. No, I realized, I have no clue how to deal with teenage boys even though I will have one of my own in two years. In some ways, I feel that I have one now, since my son acts with the same moodiness, anger and lack of communication that I associate with the teen years, even though he’s still 11. So I have decided to do a little research to prepare both myself and my readers for the dreaded teen stage.

I know it’s cliché, but it is certainly true that kids grow up much faster these days than when we were kids. Blame it on the hormones in soy products, or on video games or the Internet, but I have seen it in my children and their friends. My daughters started playing with Barbie dolls long before they had the fine motor skills to actually dress her in her tiny clothes. They grew out of Barbie and most other toys by the age of 7. Now they’re into makeup.

Danny, it seems, was a little boy for such a short time. Even though I did my best to shelter him, he has grown up even faster than the girls. The girls have each other to be silly with, but my son hangs out with friends who have been exposed to technology and grown up entertainment with few limits. By 3rd grade, most of his friends had cell phones. Most of them had Playstations and Xboxes and got to watch R rated movies, and this influenced his expectations. My husband tells me that this is what boys do now. I still fight it tooth and nail, but I also don’t want my son to be a social outcast.

There are still pockets in American where kids act more like we did at that age. Like in small towns in the North Carolina mountains, or kids who have gone to orthodox Jewish school practically their whole lives. My teacher at the Kabbalah Centre, whose 15-year old son has gone to orthodox school and has been brought up living the halacha (rules and commandments in the Torah, Talmud and other holy books), suggested that Danny could amuse himself during Shabbat with Pokemon cards like her son. Danny grew out of Pokemon cards at age 7. I didn’t know how to explain this to her, since it is clear that although they live only a couple of miles away, our sons live in different worlds.

In cities, even small ones like where we live, childhood has shrunk. It remains to be seen if this means that the struggle of dealing with teenagers will last that much longer, or if it will remain the same length, just end earlier.

So in preparation, I have been reading up about teenagers and also talking to friends who have survived the teen years with their kids. I will be passing along what I learn to you, in hopes that it will help you with your own teens or pre-teens. If you have any experience or words of wisdom to pass along, please feel free to comment on this or subsequent posts.

Here’s the first thing I have learned about teens: they have a split personality. It’s sort of a Dr. Jekyl, Mr. Hyde thing. On one hand, they are the sullen, angry child chafing at your attempts to communicate with, teach and direct them. This is the person that you experience on a day-to-day basis. But, often, when they leave your sight, they transform into a mini-adult who is capable of being responsible, kind and respectful. Seem impossible? Think about this.

Have you ever had your pre-teen or teenager go to someone’s house without you and then gotten a report back about how wonderful he is she is? I have. Many times, as I am thanking that person for her kind words about my son, I wonder to myself if she has mixed him up with another kid. Is this the same kid who, just the day before, needed to be told ten times to do his chore, and then did it half-way? Is this the same boy who got annoyed at his sister for the smallest thing, screamed at her and then took her prize possession and threw it behind the bushes where she’ll never find it? Unbelievably, it is.

In other people’s houses, my son is an angel. He is helpful, respectful and friendly. I regularly have parents begging me to let my son come over to play with their boys, or to stay a little longer if he is already there. I have mothers who are literally planning to marry their daughters to my son. There is an older man at the Kabbalah Centre who tells me that my son is the only kid he knows who consistently goes out of his way to greet him and treats him respectfully.

Here’s my theory about why this happens. It is just like when my daughter, Miriam, was two and she went to preschool for the first time. When I dropped her off, and sometimes when I picked her up, she would have a temper tantrum, screaming and crying. Of course, I was concerned. So I talked to the teacher and the headmaster of the school. During the entire school day, Miriam was not only calm, but was laughing and having fun, participating in the activities with the other children. It was only with me that she acted out.

Apparently, it is common that kids misbehave with their parents even when they are fine with other caregivers because they feel they can let loose a little and show their real emotions in a safe place. I think this is the same idea at work with teenagers. Plus, when they look at us, their parents, we look like a big bundle of limitations, rules, micro-management and babying. That’s why they act that way with us, and it's no wonder.

Bottom line, the experts advise, is just to know that you are probably doing a better job at raising your teen than is immediately apparent. Teens, in some buried part of their brains, actually listen to you and then act on the guidance, values and advice you have given over the years. Just not in front of you.