Who has a teenager?

Who has a teenager with a cell phone? Facebook? Twitter? Their own blog(s)?

And how do you feel about that?

The direction I'd like to take this evening is along the lines of The Deterioration of the Art of Communication. Now it's dawning on you. The dead stare you get from your child. The one-sided conversation met with silence on the other end of the phone. You know exactly what I'm talking about.

It's really mind boggling if you think about it. We want our children to be socially accepted and socially acclimated. We also want them to be smart and get jobs. More and more businesses are moving forward in the tech-age. Applications are easily accessible online. Interviews are done by Skype. Resumes are sent via email. All quite acceptable.

However... ! (my index finger is pointing in the air) The world has not quite made the move to 100% automation. We do not yet have chips in our brains to send thought communications to a receiving party whom we can just dial up by clicking our tongue against a specific tooth. We still rely on our mouths and voices (and hopefully our brains) to let those around us know how we feel and what we want.

There is a lot of aggravation on my part when I attempt to converse with my child. I've gotten over the acronyms: lol, b.t.dubs, fyi, etc. In fact, I sometimes use them myself. I suppose I'm disgruntled with the fact that she can sit at her laptop for hours and carry on six different "convos" on FB while texting to half the high school population and Skyping to at least two persons with whom she is doing homework with.

At first, I thought that was pretty awesome. My daughter is little miss social butterfly and she gets good grades. But now.... I'm not so sure. I believe she lives in a bubble world. I picture this "bubble" to be a clear cube around her head. She can't comprehend things, no matter how simple, when you speak to her. She can plug in her earbuds to listen to her tunes, but unfortunately, Mom doesn't know how to record a podcast for her to hear. So when I talk to her and ask her questions, it's very reminiscent of talking with a 5 year old. Use short sentences, small words, as much detail as possible in short doses.

This is becoming rather problematic. Our house phone (yes, we still have a land line) is set to ring four times before going to voicemail. All the kids rush to the phone, look at the caller ID, then..... nothing. They don't answer it. My children, especially my two oldest, simply don't know the basics of answering a phone, saying hello, finding out who the caller is and asking if they can take a message.

When I was a teen, we had a special class in school called Skills For Living. Very simple. Little material. Lots of exercises. Such as: Conversations: looking people in the eye and not screwing around when they are speaking to you. Responding to statements and questions with more than just "MmHmm" and "Yeah". Shaking hands firmly and making people feel welcome - even if it is just your old mum coming home from work. It seems very simple to you and me. After all, it's just common courtesy, right? Why is that so hard for kids to understand. And it's not just my kids, I know this crudeness and disrespect is world-wide.

I love and use technology just as much as the next person. And I don't see that changing any time soon. But I do know when to "unplug" and actually use my God given vocal chords to speak to living, breathing  people. Although... my mother may disagree.... (hmmm.... vicious circle? naaaw, it can't be.)