QUESTION--
My 17-year-old has girl friend that i have never met. He talks on the phone to her anything from 3 - 6 hours a day at any one time. He will call her around 10 pm - 11 pm and they will talk until 5.00 am in the morning. We have told him that is not acceptable. He will sleep most of the day. He is so disrespectful when we confront him about this and defiant. He does not see that there is a problem. How can i tackle this phone issue?
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RESPONSE 1--
This is an eternal problem in all families, it seems. I have tried limiting calls to certain hours -- say between 8 and 9 PM (wouldn't *that* be great?) Nothing has been particularly successful in my household; all curbing of this problem seems to involve monitoring on the parents' part.
I have chosen not to provide my daughter with her own phone because (aside from the extra expense, which I can do without) that just gives her unlimited telephoning freedom and I don't see that as a solution to the problem. She does use the cordless phone in her room and when that gets out of hand, I disconnect it by taking the handset to the office for a while. This works quite well since under those circumstances her privacy is reduced.
Placing a "phone restriction" is sometimes helpful but again implies that I monitor it. During phone restriction she is not allowed to talk on the phone at all. If this rule is violated, I take away a privilege, like TV watching or getting together with her friends.
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RESPONSE 2--
My daughter is alone three hours after school. After her 1 chore (one for each day of the week-listed on calendar) and homework is done she can talk on the phone until bedtime. I am not a phone person nor do I get calls. This didn't work. Grades went down, etc. I now take the phone with me to work. If there is a problem she can go to 3 neighbors. Callers have complained that I must have "daughters" because the phone is always busy. My daughter's solution is to pay for call waiting. Not! She needs to spend more time studying. I have also limited her calls to 30 min. with 1-hour wait between calls. I let the answer machine pick up the call. We need more family time together and I am working hard at it. The phone is a barrier.
Online Parent Support
My 17-year-old has girl friend that i have never met. He talks on the phone to her anything from 3 - 6 hours a day at any one time. He will call her around 10 pm - 11 pm and they will talk until 5.00 am in the morning. We have told him that is not acceptable. He will sleep most of the day. He is so disrespectful when we confront him about this and defiant. He does not see that there is a problem. How can i tackle this phone issue?
````````````
RESPONSE 1--
This is an eternal problem in all families, it seems. I have tried limiting calls to certain hours -- say between 8 and 9 PM (wouldn't *that* be great?) Nothing has been particularly successful in my household; all curbing of this problem seems to involve monitoring on the parents' part.
I have chosen not to provide my daughter with her own phone because (aside from the extra expense, which I can do without) that just gives her unlimited telephoning freedom and I don't see that as a solution to the problem. She does use the cordless phone in her room and when that gets out of hand, I disconnect it by taking the handset to the office for a while. This works quite well since under those circumstances her privacy is reduced.
Placing a "phone restriction" is sometimes helpful but again implies that I monitor it. During phone restriction she is not allowed to talk on the phone at all. If this rule is violated, I take away a privilege, like TV watching or getting together with her friends.
`````````````
RESPONSE 2--
My daughter is alone three hours after school. After her 1 chore (one for each day of the week-listed on calendar) and homework is done she can talk on the phone until bedtime. I am not a phone person nor do I get calls. This didn't work. Grades went down, etc. I now take the phone with me to work. If there is a problem she can go to 3 neighbors. Callers have complained that I must have "daughters" because the phone is always busy. My daughter's solution is to pay for call waiting. Not! She needs to spend more time studying. I have also limited her calls to 30 min. with 1-hour wait between calls. I let the answer machine pick up the call. We need more family time together and I am working hard at it. The phone is a barrier.
Online Parent Support
