Do You Set Rules for Teen Texting?

If you have a teen, tween, or even a sixth-grader, you've probably bowed to the inevitability of texting.

Unfortunately, the nasty texting abbreviations, like GNOC (get naked on camera) and cu46 (see you for sex), get all the attention. If you see POS on your kid's screen, it means parent over shoulder — but it does not necessarily mean that your kid is saying something horrible. He may simply want privacy.

It's immensely annoying when you're out with your teen and she spends more time looking at her phone screen than at you. But texting your teen can be a great way to keep in touch and to monitor his doings without being too obtrusive, as Karen Paul-Stern found out. She writes on CurrentMom that when she dropped her son off at a party, she asked him to text her to let her know whether there were adults supervising. (There were.) She says,

… we have often texted each other with that kind of planning and information sharing. It's almost like a secret relationship that we have, since he doesn't text with anyone else in the family (yet.) I have a handful of friends who send me texts occasionally (it's not an over-40 thing, apparently), but basically, all my texting is with my son. We're kind and funny with each other when we text, and occasionally, we even revert to calling each other and talking on the phone.

Okay, fine, but how much is too much? Paul-Stern says one friend's son sent 12,000 messages one month. The average teen sends 3,000 a month. Psychiatrist Gary Small, author of iBrain: Surviving The Technological Alteration Of The Modern Mind, says brain scans show that when teens text, the areas of the brain that light up are the same as those of an addict using heroin.

Too much texting can hurt performance at school after a night's sleep continually broken by little alerts. It can distract your teen from important tasks, such as driving. Eek.

But any attempt to limit texting is likely to be met with extreme resistance and complaints from your teen that she'll be a pariah at school. And, with the importance of this communication mode among teen-agers, she may be right.

Still, there's good reason to do so. It seems like every week there's a new texting-while-driving horror story. Go ahead and discuss these with your kids. You can also look at your child's pattern of texting, to make sure too much isn't taking place during classtime or the middle of the night.

According to the Pew Research Center,

• 64 percent of parents look at the contents of their child's cell phone and 62 percent of parents have taken away their child's phone as punishment.
• 46 percent of parents limit the number of minutes their children may talk and 52 percent limit the times of day they may use the phone.
• 48 percent of parents use the phone to monitor their child's location.³
• Parents of 12-13 year-old girls are more likely to report most monitoring behavior.
• Limiting a child's text messaging does relate to lower levels of various texting behaviors among teens. These teens are less likely to report regretting a text they sent, or to report sending sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude images by text (also known as "sexting").
• Teens whose parents limit their texting are also less likely to report being passengers in cars where the driver texted behind the wheel or used the phone in a dangerous manner while driving.

Share this information with your teens to let them know that, first off, you're not insane to want them to slow down with the txts and second, that it is for their benefit. One simple way to at least get them to cut back somewhat is requiring them to pay their own cell phone bills. Taking financial responsibility is good for all kids, and watching those bills with bring home to them just how many texts they're sending.

Another resource: AT&T has a free toolkit for teens that includes a quiz and driving safety tips. If all else fails, the telco also has a Smart Limits program that lets you set rules for your kids' cell phone use.

Is this a battle you've fought? Was it worth it?

Photo by Zawezome