Dear Parent,
Teens text too much. Seriously. It can easily be as much as 100 times a day, and the majority are during the school day! I know this for a fact because I have asked many kids and their parents. Every time the parents are shocked to hear that the number is so high. So, as a parent, do you check your phone bill? Do you know how many times your son/daughter is texting a day? Check it out. But don’t be too shocked, since I warned you. Now think about how your day would be if you were dealing with as many as 100 texts a day. Personally, I could not get my job done, let alone focus on anything else. It would be horribly distracting. So it really may not be too hard to figure out why Johnny is not doing well in school. When a parent asks me for help because their teens grades are down, my first questions are “Do they have a cell phone? With texting/internet ability? How many texts do they do a day?” I suggest that once that is under control and if they are still having trouble at school, then call me. Maybe then we can get to the root of the problem.
I know texting is here to stay or at least until the next new way to communicate comes up. So maybe when you give your child a phone, you also teach them how to use it, and what is appropriate. Research what teens are using and doing. Set up some guidelines. Let them know you will check to make sure nothing gets out of control. Make them part of the decisions and discussion. Please think about limiting access and use, especially during the school day. Help them pay attention to what is happening in the classroom. Help them limit the distractions. There are already way too many things happening in the life of a teen to add any other distractions.
