<p>I LOVE texting with my ds, simple short things like:</p>
<p>Planz?
Lunch</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>Ready when?
4ish</p>
<p>My Ds like text messeging with me because I tend to talk to long on the phone, or they might be with friends, or they can’t hear due to noise, so a simple text accomplishes alot</p>
<p>I have about 34 pretyped messages-</p>
<p>Where you at?
When home?
XOXO
Rock On</p>
<p>We do it all I guess. And IM is nice because it has its own courtesy rules-</p>
<p>My kids both seem to hate talking on the phone from college, they almost never call and act slightly annoyed when I call them. (But I have a code word and if I use that word when they answer, that means it REALLY is important we talk, and they are to call me back ASAP if they’re in the middle of something where they might find it embarrassing to talk with Mom.)</p>
<p>IM, however, is welcomed by both of them. They have encouraged me to interact with them using IM, so we use it frequently. As long as I have <em>one</em> means of contacting them if need be, I’m fine.</p>
<p>You guys are so cute… reading your posts makes me want to call my mom :)</p>
<p>We use text and IM’ing all the time w/ D…she loves it and it’s much easier to find a time to “talk” that way.</p>
<p>btw…by the way, Kell…call your mother. She worries. :)</p>
<p>quick text that I preprogrammed in my phone:
“call when you can”</p>
<p>let’s him know that I have something to tell/ask him, but there is no urgency. He calls right away if he’s free, later in the day if that works better. </p>
<p>Yes, Kell, call your mom!</p>
<p>Hehe I severely doubt my mum knows how to text. Dad has finally managed to work it out after about 8 years, but hilariously tries to use text lingo - something I never do so methinks he’s just trying to look cool.</p>
<p>Mum and I IM a bit - often when she’s on her lunch break at work. I’ve seen us have many an extended conversation completely in French for no apparent reason. She’s even starting to get the hang of using smilies now!</p>
<p>My parents text me, and I’m cool with that - it’s just another (often easier) method of communication. IM programs, Facebook and so forth, though, become more of a window on my life - which I strictly control, and my parents aren’t in the group that get to see it. :P</p>
<p>None of my kids use IM. My husband will on occasion though like Mythmom’s H he is slow.
I do text with two of my kids but admit I am not that fast. My husband is the text king. He gets along well with teenagers and they have taught him the lingo.
With my son who never calls or answers his phone we have found he will respond to a text.
My oldest prefers to call and actually talk.</p>
<p>My daughter graduated from college last spring. The entire time she was in college, I communicated best with her through IM, and I followed her activities through her away message. Phone conversations were often initiated while she was walking to class - down time, and somewhat stifled. IM was more immediate and relaxed. Freshman year I would panic if the same away message was posted Sunday morning as was Saturday night - did she make it home OK? Gradually I grew to trust her and her choices, and stopped checking. I think about when I was in college - one phone on the dorm hall, maybe you talked to your parents once a month. Do we perhaps have access to too much information?
PS -I have a very different situation with my son who is a freshman. No IMs, some text messages, more phone calls. Maybe it is just the kid and his preferred method of communication. We all know we have too many!</p>
<p>D2’s away message tonight (this could be taken so many ways):</p>
<p>and i said, “johnny,
whatcha doin’ tonight?”
and he looked at me with a face full of fright
and i said “how 'bout a revolution?”
and he said “right”</p>
<p>My soph son & I IM and email all the time. I work at a computer all day, so its convenient. He calls me when he’s walking to and from places. He’s actually really great about keeping in touch. He wasn’t at the very beginning of freshman year, but when he realized that I was giving him space to initiate our contact, he got really good about it. I only email him when I need to give or get specific info. I rarely call him. His phone has email, and he checks it every 1/2 hour, so this way I’m not interrupting him with phone calls. My HS Junior son is the king of texts. Thank God we have unlimited messages for $10/month. He AVERAGES 3500/month! Instead of calling to tell me he’ll be late, or he arrived somewhere, he texts me. They bought me a phone with a keyboard last year, so I’m better than I was, but I’m still very, very slow.</p>
<p>We also IM throughout the house. There are computers in each bedroom, the kitchen & my husband’s office in the basement. It so much more effective than shouting “dinner’s ready”, or, “I’ll be back soon”, or, “walk your dog”! As for my college son’s away message, he is a very amusing guy – they are generally quotes from one of his favorite tv show: West Wing. He’s has about 20 that he cycles through, and since he & I watched every episode for 7 years together, its a running joke between us, but I can tell his mood by the quote. We call it “channeling his inner Toby”… the character he most identifies with, although he’d like to be more Josh.</p>
<p>nymom - my sister and I both have unlimited text’s on our phones - also 10/month. My sister doesn’t seem to grasp that my mom and dad don’t have it because every day my mom “complains” about the amount of text’s she getting from my sister. I’m sure she’s secretly glad my sister is communicating with her, but isn’t showing it. My dad has told my mom repeatedly to add unlimited texting to her phone too. She only sends my dad two-three per week, and he responds, so he’s only using like 20 a month on his phone, at 15 cents each, but my mom has been around 10 dollars the past month or so… and seems to be sending more with her each day… she really should do the unlimited text’s, haha.</p>
<p>The three of them are on a family plan together with verizon and I am on my own verizon plan. I switched to my own plan because I was sick of my mom gasping at the number of text messages I use per month (even though they were unlimited and I always paid my part of the bill). Now I don’t have to hear it, but I get to hear her gasp at the number of text messages she uses per month. It’s pretty funny how the tables have turned.</p>
<p>Plus, I get a corporate employee discount on my plan through my employer, so it makes it less expensive for myself :)</p>
<p>Fendergirl… I’m not all that good with texts from my phone, I can do very short ones. But I use verizonwireless.com all the time to send them to my HS son. We have the $10/month on all the phones, its just easier. We have 5 phones on a family share plan. My H’s cell is his primary business phone, so we have 4500 shared minutes. He uses well over 3000 of them by himself. We really only need 4 phones… but the ONE TIME my husband went to the verizon store (I usually go), they offered him a 5th line for ONLY $9.99/month. So he jumped at it. MEN! We’ve used the phone for exactly one week – when my son’s friend was visiting from overseas, I gave it to him to use. But I guess it might come in handy one day.</p>
<p>That initial link was so funny! Completely identified w/it, too (technologically clueless parent; teen son patiently explaining things)!</p>
<p>We also got a verizon plan w/unlimited calls to other verizon customers–it’s great (for me, maybe not for son) because I can call son as many times as necessary during the day since w/both have verizon. We’ve done the: “please come up for dinner” calls too, lol.</p>
<p>He prefers text though (limits extent of convos). So funny – such a guy–I’ll type a four line text (painstakingly) and he’ll generally respond w/ “nope” “yep” or “cool.”</p>
<p>my favorite responses, NOT, are:
sure
w/e
k
are these the same kids that could not stop talking for 5 seconds when you picked them up from school, and spoke in run-on sentences?</p>
<p>ny - did you see they have new family plans with text messaging built in? if you have so many people on the plan it might actually work out cheaper for you… just an idea. the 4000 minute plan for 5 phones is listed at 229 and the 4000 minute plan with texting built in is listed at 259. so 30 gets texting for all 5 phones. </p>
<p>maybe that’s not the plan you have anyway, but I’ve been eyeing those new plans up. I have the individual 35.00/plan and i get about 20 percent off my plan through work then I add on texting for 10.00 (no discount on the texting). at some point when my boyfriend and I are on the same plan I think we’ll do the family plan for the two of us that is 99.00 with unlimited texting and then take my 20 percent off of the whole price and it should work out cheaper for us then having two individual plans with an extra 10 for each persons texting. Right now he’s on with his family so it works out better for him that way.</p>
<p>Five years ago, my kids made me quit using IM with them. They called it “instant nagger.”</p>
<p>One of the first communications from D when we dropped her off at school was, “I need unlimited texting—that’s how we communicate plans here.” We also added the unlimited texting to our Verizon Family Share package, and use it all the time. (It’s fun while we’re watching a football or bb game that she’s at to “talk” to her during the game!)</p>
<p>btw, when I get the “w/e” response on IM or texting, I can picture her rolling her eyes and being frustrated, just like old times!!!</p>
<p>Yup all of the above LOL
IMing in the house, checking away messages
My son likes to use IM when talking to me from school cause then his conversation can’t be overheard
Away messages can be informative or cryptic depending on his mood
crazy song lyrics are pretty common</p>