<p>Marite, the strange thing is that I thought that I had discussed with my son that if the police ever were questioning him about something, that he is to first request that he contacts us! I guess it had been a few years since that conversation and my son forgot. I should have rehersed this situation with him more recently. He also probably felt comfortable enough answering the police’s questions. Afterall, he was just a witness to a crime, but he had not done anything unlawful. He also said that he did not want to worry me (I was already worried, LOL, when he was not where he said that he would be). It all ended well, but my son had to listen to couple of more lectures from his parents!</p>
<ol>
<li><p>When your plans change and go somewhere other than where you tell me you are going, you let me or your father know.</p></li>
<li><p>If you are not home at the agreed upon time because of something beyond your control (ie: police wanted to ask him some questions about the incident he saw), you let the police know that your parents might worried and that you would like to let them know where you are and what is going on. Also, that if the police want to ask you questions, you tell them that you need to call your parents.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I deplore the growing expectation that we will all be communicado by cell phone 24/7, and that if someone can’t be reached RIGHT THIS MINUTE it’s cause for panic. </p>
<p>It’s one thing to need to know where your minor children are and who they’re with–that’s just good parenting. But a 19-year-old is an adult, and expecting them to instantly answer every phone call and account for every movement feels a bit obsessive.</p>
<p>For a 19-year-old who’s temporarily back under your roof, how about just setting some kind of reasonable ground rules? Such as, “Will you please give us a general idea when you’re going to be home so we don’t worry? And call us if your plans change so we don’t wait up?”</p>
<p>I agree with NEmom. The S should have called because he knew he was expected back at a certain time and could not make it. A simple matter of courtesy as well as reassurance.</p>
<p>I agree, too, with lunitari. I do expect my S to tell me when he is going out, as a matter of courtesy and to give me a general sense of when he will be back (will he be back for dinner or not, for instance). I usually do not entertain worst case scenario nightmares.</p>
<p>I love the ability to stay in touch easily with cell phones, and it is hard to imagine life before them. But we all survived not being attached at the hip, and probably were more resilient and independent as a result. As an example: a friend and I got on a plane with backpacks at age 24, and were gone for 10 weeks in Europe without any specific itinerary (we were just going to travel with our whims) and never had one single bit of contact, aside from a few ‘air letters’ (remember those?) the entire time we were gone. We met other people along the way, spent the night at friend’s or friend’s of friend’s, slept on trains or in train stations, went to nine countries, and had a wonderful experience.</p>
<p>As a mother, I cannot imagine not knowing where my child was for ten weeks, and having no easy communication. What if something had happened at home? They would have had no way to reach me. But so many kids traveled like that, and there wasn’t the need to connect with parents or family three times a day, as some kids do on foreign travel nowadays. I have a friends with kids in their mid 20’s, and moms are still checking in when they drive or fly somewhere far. </p>
<p>I am also a worrier by nature, but I try to remember that we lived before cell phones, and that constant “checking” and texting and communication really can infantalize kids. We want them to grow up and become independent, so I find myself analyzing my own anxiety all the time. Sometimes, it is enough just to let our over age 18 kids go out without checking on them by phone or text. Perhaps they don’t need to go on extended travel for months without communication, but they can go out for the evening without being in constant contact with mom and dad.</p>
<p>A long time ago, BC (before cellphones), I worked one summer as a summer cop in a well-known, but mostly pretty rural resort area – there may have been four or five pay phones in the whole area. Although most of the summer cops directed traffic during the day, I wound up working midnight shift all summer, driving around in a squad car after the bars closed.</p>
<p>That meant that I responded to all the calls from panicked parents whose daughters had missed their curfews, and something terrible must have happened to them because that nice boy from Williams would never be so inconsiderate as to keep her out late without calling, and nothing like this had ever happened before, etc. . . . With 5-6 of these a week, often multiples per night, I developed an iron law of parent-child relationships: If your daughter is out late and hasn’t called, you know exactly when she’s coming home: forty-five minutes after you call the police. It didn’t matter whether curfew was midnight or 2 am, or whether the parents waited 15 minutes or two hours before pushing the panic button. The same set of circumstances that led the parents to despair and call the police were causing the daughter, at practically the same moment, to say “Oh sh[oo]t! It’s really late; my parents are going to have a cow! You’ve got to get me home now!” It was hilarious – every family, internally, was on exactly the same wavelength, just responding a little bit differently.</p>
<p>That memory has given me a great deal of comfort as a parent.</p>
<p>I have found cellphones to be a great convenience, especially with kids who can’t drive. They can call you when the movie is over, tell you where to meet, etc. They can provide comfort when we are worried about them (as long as they answer, and when they don’t, you get into situations like the OP described). I think cellphones are great in a lot of ways, but I also feel that they are a detriment to young adults trying very hard to gain their independence. </p>
<p>I’ve read on this site comments by parents that they are in contact with their college age young adult children 5-10 times per day by phone. Some seem proud of how dependent their children are on their advice and wisdom. I can’t fathom this. Kids learn to be strong and independent by handling situations on their own and feeling the sense of mastery each time they get through a difficult situation by using their own judgment. They also have to make mistakes along the way, and this can’t happen if we are constantly guiding them through even the most simple of dilemmas. In the old days, I couldn’t stop to call my parents long distance to find out why my meal plan payment wasn’t posted or to ask them how to handle a professor with an unfair policy. I had to go down there myself and work it out. It seems that cell phones have made it all too easy for our kids to call us to rescue them, even if rescuing them is only telling them how to handle a minor situation. Seems harmless to just tell them what they need to do, but in so doing, we are robbing them of the chance to learn all of the coping skills they are going to need as adults.</p>
<p>I loved my parents dearly, but if there had been an expectation of constant communication and notification of my whereabouts at all times, I would have gone nuts and would have been pretty resentful.</p>
<p>I wonder whether this is part of an overall paradigm shift in communication. If you have teenagers with cellphones, especially if they text, have you noticed how many times a day they can be in touch with their friends? It can be WAY more than 5 to 10 times. Plus, they don’t think of it as having a cost (and there often is no marginal cost to a single call or text, except for the value of time). So if your college kid calls you and says, “Who was the star of that movie about horses we saw last Christmas,” he may not be showing dependence, but may just be making normal conversation.</p>
<p>JHS, that’s a fascinating insight, and reassuring too, although I don’t know if it applies across the board. My D is just like that but my S? no way.</p>
<p>“I wonder whether this is part of an overall paradigm shift in communication. If you have teenagers with cellphones, especially if they text, have you noticed how many times a day they can be in touch with their friends? It can be WAY more than 5 to 10 times. Plus, they don’t think of it as having a cost (and there often is no marginal cost to a single call or text, except for the value of time). So if your college kid calls you and says, “Who was the star of that movie about horses we saw last Christmas,” he may not be showing dependence, but may just be making normal conversation.”</p>
<p>True, but I’m referring more to things like I’ve read here on the boards, where they are calling their parents about how to handle small problems related to dorm life, to what to do about their roommate, to asking Mom or Dad to call the prof to protest their grade, and on and on and on. Or it can go the other way, with Mom calling the kid several times a day to make sure they are doing their laundry, know how to sort colors from whites, see if they need help handling that problem with the class that’s closed out, etc.</p>
<p>Yes, it’s so easy to do because the phone is right there, it’s probably not a long distance charge, etc. I’m just saying that just because we can doesn’t mean we should.
And I’m certainly not speaking from a high horse, because I know I have let fear get the best of me before when my daughter doesn’t answer the phone when I’m worried about her.</p>
<p>You’re absolutely right about how many times per day young people talk to each other via text. My husband and I were absolutely blown away with how many texts my younger daughter sent last month. That constant talking/texting cannot be good. It’s distracting when she’s doing schoolwork, it creates constant “buzz” in her head, and leaves virtually no time for quiet introspection. We have begun to limit her access to her phone with this in mind. She protested vigorously when we took it from her entirely when we spent Thanksgiving at our lake house with family. She ended up thanking us, saying it was nice to have some peace and quiet and a break from some of the “girl drama.”</p>
<p>But it’s a new age and there’s no escaping that reality entirely.</p>
<p>It occurs to me that we may be returning–through technology–to something like the old situation of the extended family living together. If you lived in the same house with people from several generations, it wouldn’t seem strange to discuss even minor problems with them. If your extended family is virtually available, it may be the same.</p>