TEXTING AND PARENTING: ARE WE IGNORING OUR CHILDREN?

Father texting while holding daughter

Father texting while holding daughter

As a divorce lawyer in Chicago, and being a parent to teenagers myself, means that I am always on the look out for news stories on parents and their children. The last few weeks I’ve stumbled across a few articles on the same topic: texting and parenting. However, it’s not what you think.

Kids often get the bad rap for being attached to their phone, unable to make eye contact with their parents or look up at the dinner table. But there’s a new trend in town: parents ignoring their children in favor of their Blackberries or iPhones. You can read about it in this article and here.

In one article, the reporter chronicles how a father made the explicit rule that he was not allowed to make phone calls for 90 minutes after coming home from work, in an attempt to show his children that they were more important than his job. However his wife pointed out to him that his rule didn’t matter if he was going to spend that time texting and answering emails anyway.

It’s important to remember that as parents, we lead by example. Asking our children to put down their phones during dinner means we need to do the same.

What are your thoughts on parenting and texting? Do you have rules in your home regarding the subject? I’d love to hear from you.

Michael Craven

Attorney Michael Craven

Michael C. Craven is a well-known divorce attorney and a partner of the Beermann Swerdlove, LLP law firm in the Chicago area. He is highly respected among other divorce lawyers, judges and his clients. He is also a CPA and a LLM (Masters in Tax Law). Click here to email Michael for additional information about his services.

1 comment

  1. Martha Chan says:

    You are right Michael, there is a bad trend of people addicted to their iphone, blackberry etc. It was bad enough when there were just cell phones.

    We are old fashion, I guess, we don’t even answer the phone while having dinner unless we were expecting something and must take the call. Maybe a bit of that rubbed off on our children, they are not tied to these devices or computers.