<p>I am trying to help my 16 yo manage her texting. Is there an auto respond text app where she could acknowledge her texts during school without actually having to take the time to read and respond to every text? I’ve searched around but haven’t seen one.</p>
<p>Apparently it’s a great breach of teen etiquette to not respond to a text. If anyone has any other ideas, I’d love to hear them. I’d like to avoid draconian measures and would like to help her figure out how to manage the issue on her own.</p>
<p>Yes there is. Not sure how to get it. We have AT&T and my husband uses it because he is also under the mistaken idea that people demand an instant response to a text. Problem is, that’s the only response they ever get :)</p>
<p>Have her tell all her friends that her overly strict parents do not allow her to have her phone at her side because it is docked in the kitchen while she is doing homework and studying.
Then she is able to use it for a half hour before she goes to bed when again she has to dock it in the kitchen before she turns in.
Let her make you the bad guy.
She can blame you for her not responding immediately to endless texts.</p>
<p><<Apparently it’s a great breach of teen etiquette to not respond to a text.<< No it’s not. Somehow we (children and adults alike) have gotten to a place where everyone has to be constantly accessible and constantly responsive every moment of the day. If it’s a draconian measure to tell my 16 year old (I have one of my own) that there is an appropriate time and place to text her friends, and from 8-3 on school days is not that time, then call me Draco. :)</p>
<p>We have our HS daughter’s phone turned off except for “approved” people during school hours. The approved people are her family members and she’s supposed to use her phone only for something important even for those people except for lunchtime. We set the parameters through parental controls we pay an extra $5 per month for. The phone doesn’t go back on until later afternoon when homework allegedly should be done. D is so used to it by now that she doesn’t even take her phone out when she gets home.</p>
<p>I think it’ll be a great lesson for all of her friends not to expect an instant response to a text, especially during school hours. My friends always knew that I was horrible at responding to texts promptly. If it’s something so important that they need an immediate response, they should call me. Maybe your daughter and her friends need to learn that.</p>
<p>My Droid has the ability to block notifications during my chosen times while permitting contact from a list of accepted numbers. I use it so I only get calls, emails & texts at night from dh, our kids and my security system monitoring station. That way I don’t have to be out of touch in case of an emergency. Maybe your daughter’s phone could be set up similarly, allowing contact only from parents, then she just needs to tell her friends that her mean parents don’t allow her to text during school hours.</p>
Your child is not 911available 24x7.</p>