Perhaps there are a few parents that are extreme text-ers, but this is just inaccurate for most kids. I see the cell phone bills, my kids are sending hundreds and sometimes thousands of texts in a month.</p>
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“Rigorous” means, what, 15 or 16 hours in class a week when they are in class and shouldn’t be using their phone?</p>
<p>The “I’m too busy” excuse just doesn’t cut it IMO. I don’t think anyone expects instantaneous response 100% of the time - sometimes you are in the middle of something, sometimes you don’t hear the phone or see the message for a few hours, whatever. But if your kid has a habit of ignoring you and never responding, this is just immature and rude. I don’t think making excuses for the kid is helpful.</p>
<p>We teach people how to treat us. I think too many parents are afraid for some reason to call their kids out on poor behavior.</p>
<p>Sometimes kids just need some space, like we adults do. To hold “rules” about how soon or how often they must respond over their heads is plain ridiculous. My middle kid is grown and out of the house, but her dad keeps her on his phone plan because it’s $10 a month-she couldn’t possibly get such a deal herself. </p>
<p>In the last month, this D has been very spotty in her responses to me, to her little sister, her older brother and her father. She works odd hours so we all know that it might take until the next day to even get a response (no phone on te job). But even that wasn’t happening. Did her father shut off her phone? Did I threaten her with some other draconian punishment? NO! I sent a text asking if everything was ok.</p>
<p>D works for a restaurant on the night shift, in an assistant management position, at a busy time of year. She’s basically been working long hours and sleeping when she’s off, feeling the lack of sunlight hours in a seasonal bit of depression as well. She’s taking some steps to cope with the seasonal change and work is letting up a bit and voila! She’s coming for dinner tonight. Much better than her dad shutting off her phone to prove a point.</p>
<p>One great thing about going to college before the ubiquity of cellphones and texting is my parents/extended family didn’t have the tools to bombard me with texts multiple times a week or worse, daily. </p>
<p>This would have served as an added form of distraction on top of other distractions, especially if said parents/extended family expected immediate responses. </p>
<p>IMO, college should be a time when students are given space to determine and define their own lives independently of parents. This includes discretionary communication and its frequency. More importantly, some individual students handle added distractions such as multiple texts per week/daily better than others. </p>
<p>And from what I’ve observed on the street and from Profs who sometimes have to deal with students who cannot seem to stop texting in class, it can be a MAJOR DISTRACTION not only for the students who text…but also everyone else in a given class, group study session, preparation for performance activities, or even social activities like dates*. Heck, it has been a serious distraction during professional meetings in the workplace. </p>
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<li>I’ve lost count of how many friends even from the millennial generation who ranted about being seriously incensed at how their date/SO cannot seem to put that texting device down even in the midst of what was supposed to be their date…and then the offenders wonders why said friends end up infuriated with/dumping them.<br></li>
</ul>
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<p>If I’m in the midst of working on research papers, preparing for weekly exams which count for 50%+ of my final grade, working on group projects, spending time in the library doing research for those papers, spending time completing a lab and/or its report for a STEM course, fulfilling my EC commitments, and working up to 20 hours/week while maxing out my credit load…expecting a response to a text in a few hours would be IMO, an expectation of an instantaneous response for a discretionary text unless we’re talking a serious emergency. </p>
<p>If a student responds within a few days to 2 weeks…latter is IMO reasonable if the initial text was sent during midterms/finals period or in periods when student is engaged in major preparation for performance activity/sport. </p>
<p>These kids who can’t bother returning a text from their parent for two weeks (two weeks?!?) because they are so “busy” somehow manage to find time to endlessly text all their friends, even at inappropriate times like in class.</p>
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I’ve watched my kids and their friends and how they study and do schoolwork. They’ve got the computer open, they’re chatting on-line with three people, they are texting on their phone, watching youtube videos, and doing work all at the same time.</p>
<p>But this being CC, I’m sure that when all of our snowflakes are studying or working on a paper it’s 100% pure solid concentration for hours on end with no distractions, interruptions or breaks.</p>
<p>I’m not saying some parents don’t bring it on themselves - if you are texting your kids 10 times a day then you probably shouldn’t be surprised the kid ignores you (although I still maintain that silence is the wrong way to handle undesired communication).</p>
<p>“If I’m in the midst of working on research papers, preparing for weekly exams which count for 50%+ of my final grade, working on group projects, spending time in the library doing research for those papers, spending time completing a lab and/or its report for a STEM course, fulfilling my EC commitments, and working up to 20 hours/week while maxing out my credit load”</p>
<p>People also have to eat and go to the bathroom. And they take breaks from their studies, even just to stretch and walk around. A simple text of “yo, I’m still alive” doesn’t take time away from these commitments. </p>
<p>I agree with whoever said the students might just want some space.</p>
<p>My parents used to have a rule about contacting me once a day to know I was alive. Used to drive me crazy - the principle of it is what really bothered me - I did not like someone checking in on me all the time (I am a very independent-spirited person - prefer self-reliance, living on my own, lots of solo trips to distant lands, etc.). Needless to say, I graduated and put a stop to that rule, even though I moved out a to a big city on my own.</p>
<p>Now, I actually call my mom quite often, just to chat (usually several times a week), and we have a much better relationship - I like talking to her a lot! I think rules about checking in, especially frequently, create resentment and/or discomfort. But again, I am someone who values her independence.</p>
<p>And I am sure people will come and say - well, I am paying, so my rules. And yes, you can use money as something to hold over someone’s head, but it’s not going to make for a good relationship.</p>
<p>Not only that. Mandating communication at regimented frequent intervals is rarely effective in building and sustaining good non-work relationships in the long-run with most people*. Best relationships tend to follow from allowing the other person the space to correspond naturally at his/her own comfortable pace. </p>
<p>A different tact is to make the communication request filled with positive incentives…like pet photos rather than “COMMUNICATE WITH ME AT THE INTERVALS I DEMAND OR ELSE!”</p>
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<li>I’ve lost count of how many friends in college and in dating relationships ended up further avoiding corresponding with family, friends, or dates who do insist on mandating communication at regimented frequent intervals. In the last two, it also factored into why the party feeling excessively controlled on this issue eventually ended the relationship.<br></li>
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<p>I honestly don’t get this response. As I explicitly said in my original post, my parents can call me every day and talk to me for as long as they want/as time allows. Why is it rude that I would talk to them and not text them? I actually do talk to my mother on the phone more than 5 days a week, and we usually talk for at least 30 minutes, sometimes much longer. I don’t understand why I am required to communicate with them through each and every medium. Why is it rude to not send a parent some 160 character text that probably communicates nothing? Why is it rude to prefer to have an actual conversation with them?</p>
<p>It has nothing to do with the importance of a friend vs a parent. Obviously, parents are among the most important people in a person’s life while they may see little of many college friends after graduation. But you try avoiding communication with your peers via text at 22. I prefer phone calls over texts from everyone and I tell my friends how happy I am when they call me. Most of my friends, in fact, tend to have positive opinions of our friends who frequently call rather than text. People like having conversations. I don’t get what’s weird about that.</p>
<p>In any case, I have graduated. My employer pays for my phone. Even before I graduated, I don’t think I’d spent more than a week at a time in my parents’ homes since going to college, so getting together a grocery list was rare. Grocery lists have never been about getting things “for me”; they’re about getting what the household needs. Also, if it’s not already implied, I communicated my preference for phone calls to my parents years ago. They almost never text me because they know I’d rather that they call. </p>
<p>ETA: This would also be my response to pizzagirl’s comment above. The comment “People CARE about you; you can’t acknowledge it?” actually sort of gives me the giggles, since in quoting my post Pizzagirl must have seen my original text where I said my parents could call me every day and, time allowing, I would answer, but she chose to ignore the fact that I prefer having conversations with my parents to sending them one liners. I suppose the parents in this forum have tons of conversations with their children through text messages and can’t imagine that my parents essentially don’t text me. I told them I like calls, they call. If they’re really serious about something, they write me letters, but that’s a whole 'nother story…</p>
Sorry but you don’t understand. We’re talking weeks and weeks! I tried the leave him alone - for THREE months, and after that STILL no response, to text OR email OR telephone call!
In high school the rule was the kids had to respond within 15 minutes of receiving a text, or the phone went in the drawer for week. In college, we ask for a response in 48 hours, although honestly it never takes that long. The response can be a text or a call (usually with the college kid it is a text setting up a time to face time now a days). FWIW, we don’t initiate conversations very frequently, especially with the college kid, believing it is best to give the kid his space and let him reach out when he wants.
I get college kids wanting to be independent, and not feeling like they need to be answerable to anyone. But as long as a kid is taking his or her parent’s money, either for college or even just the phone bill, good manners requires some response, IMHO.