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Welcome to familywisdom.com, a website dedicated to informing and inspiring couples and families. Each week you will find a new article, story or essay about parenting, marriage or life. Suggestions for articles and questions to Ellen Terich are welcome. You can contact her at e.terich1@verizon.net |
ASSAULT ON THE DINNER TABLE 2002-08-21 Everyone knows that the traditional family dinner hour, when all members of the family sit down at dinner together, enjoy a leisurely home cooked meal and converse with each other has become a modern rarity. We all know the reasons for this: sports activities on week nights with mom acting as chauffeur and making a mad dash through the take out lane at the fast food restaurant; mom and dad both working and picking up the kids at day care before rushing home to throw something in the microwave; the lure of dinner time television programs for both kids and adults; meetings, homework, and exhaustion. But there is one more element of modern life that interferes with the possibility of setting aside one small block of time for the family to relax and converse together: the telephone. I have worked with many children over the years who were exhibiting one or more behavioral problems at home that I ultimately found to be connected to a lack of parental time and attention. Often, during the brief time that the family was together in the evening, the parents' time and attention was diverted with numerous phone calls. This frequently occurred during the dinner hour. Sometimes the calls were work related, especially when one of the parents had their own business and felt it necessary to answer every call so as not to lose any potential income. Other times it was the PTA, the church or some other organization which needed volunteer help from one or both of the parents. As the children got older, of course, many of the calls were for them. And finally, far too many of the calls were from telemarketers. One of the suggestions I made to these families was to stop allowing the telephone to control their lives and assault their dinner hour. Usually, the family then agreed to set aside time each night when the answering machine picked up the calls so that family time would not be interrupted. In addition, the phone was either moved out of the eating area or the ringer was turned off on that phone. All calls were then returned later. The children could call their friends - with parental permission, and after the homework was done - and parents could return their calls while the kids were doing homework or after they had gone to bed. That leaves the pesky telemarketers who love to call in the evening when there is a greater likelihood that the adults are home. Of course there are some devices that can be purchased to screen out telemarketers, but I have a less expensive solution. Leave the following message on your answering machine: This is the _________family. Please leave a message after the tone and we will return your call at our convenience. If this is a telemarketer, please leave your name, time zone and home phone number so that we can call you tomorrow night while you are trying to enjoy your dinner. Hopefully, in time and with enough complaints, the telemarketer menace will leave your family alone. Then you will only have to contend with friends, co-workers, volunteer organizers and family members who wish to speak to someone in your home. Unless there is an emergency, these people can wait and speak to you and your family after you have had time together and digested your food. This sends a wonderful message to your children - that they are more important than anyone else and that your time with them is sacred and worth protecting. Unfortunately, we have all allowed ourselves to make the ringing phone our first priority. We didn't do this intentionally, we just have become conditioned (answering the phone puts an end to that annoying ring and thus reinforces our answering it). We may all be extremely busy these days, but one thing we can do to ensure that we have some uninterrupted family time each day is to control the telephone instead of letting it control us. |