Pick up your shoes and other fatherly advice: Communication is the key

Our topic for today is communication, but first we have a cautionary tale for parents of preschool and elementary schoolchildren.

When your child is invited to a friend’s house for a play date, it usually goes like this: You drive your child to the other house, you get out of your car, you go to the front door, and you speak to the other child’s parent. You discuss pick up times, you talk about something going on at school, you list your child’s food allergies, and you apologize in advance for any inappropriate behavior or word choices your child may exhibit (I’m not talking to you, of course, because your child wouldn’t do that. I’m talking to the other readers of this column).

When it is time to pick up your child, the same things occur: out of the car, front door, conversation, explanations if necessary. It’s nice. It’s social intercourse, and depending on how many kids you have, it could be your only adult conversation of the day.

But here is what you need to know. When your kids reach middle school, such social intercourse will cease to occur. Your children won’t allow it.

Your children will still be invited to other homes, and you will drive them. But you won’t be allowed to go to the front door, either at drop off or pick up. At drop off, they will run out of the car without your assistance. At pick up, you will be instructed to call your child on his or her cell phone, alerting them to your presence. Your child will exit the house in a timely fashion, and you will not have any social intercourse with the parents of the other child.

Is this process a product of embarrassment? Perhaps. All kids are embarrassed by their parents, even mine, and they clearly have the coolest dad ever. But I think the children don’t want the parents comparing notes like we did when they were little. I’m highly suspicious of their motives.

This problem would not exist if you don’t issue your middle schoolchildren cell phones, and this is where we return to the topic for today, communication.

There are a lot of arguments about when it is best to give a child his or her own cell phone, and I am not going to take a position on that. But I will tell you that life is so much easier when the kids have their own cellular device.

Kids in middle school and high school often stay after school for academics or sports, and arranging a pick up time in advance is difficult, since no one really knows how long these activities will be. Nothing is more irksome than sitting in a school parking lot waiting to pick up your child when you could be at home doing something even more irksome, like laundry.

With a cell phone, the child can call you when they are ready, so that they are the one that is waiting.

Now here comes the hilarious part. You are still going to have to wait, because when you get to school and call them to say you have arrived, they WILL NOT ANSWER! Why? I HAVE NO IDEA!

It’s simply unbelievable, but true. When you call them, they will conveniently have their phone on silent, even though you know they are able to respond immediately when a call or text comes in from a friend. If I didn’t know any better, I would think I am being ignored in those situations.

Oh, and assuming your phone plan allows for unlimited texting, you will be urged to text your messages rather than call. That way your actual human contact with your child is limited even more, and isn’t that what we all want?

Yes, there are dangers to allowing your child to have a cell phone, and parents are urged to take all necessary precautions. You also have to ask yourself if your child can handle the responsibility of having a cell phone, or if he is going to leave his cell phone in his jeans pocket, place those jeans in the laundry hamper, and allow you to wash the cell phone the next day (for which you will be blamed, by the way).

Not that I am talking about anybody in particular named Kyle.

But there is a wonderful benefit to allowing your child to have a cell phone, and it is a benefit that I get to enjoy on a regular basis.

I cover Chicago Bulls basketball games when they play at home, and I am able to converse with my kids by text as I am watching the game. I helped Haley with her homework one night, I sometimes discuss the game with Dan or Kyle, and I always get an “I love you” text from Lindsey before she goes to bed.

That’s my favorite form of communication.

Ÿ Kent McDill is a freelance writer. He and his wife, Janice, have four children, Haley, Dan, Lindsey and Kyle.