It’s a question I asked myself a few weeks ago when my 4-year-old begged to pick up the phone while I was in the shower.
Here’s the answer I came up with:
If your child still holds the phone upside down and can’t figure out why grandma sounds so far away
OR
He or she tries to shove a freshly colored picture of Elmo into the receiver so grandma can see how well he or she stayed within the lines, then your child’s phone skills need some work and you might want to hold off on using him or her as your designated receptionist.
My daughter still does the latter, so needless to say, she hasn’t quite reached the phone-answering milestone just yet. She’s almost there; thanks in large part to the fact that her maternal grandparent’s live in Hawaii and call on a daily basis. As a result, she is guaranteed at least one opportunity per day to work on her telephone skills.
However, making the jump from chatting it up with grandma, grandpa, uncles, aunts, and various other friends and family members to screening calls from doctors, business associates, and pesky telemarketers is a lot to ask from someone who can’t even reach the bathroom faucet.
Answering a phone is a life skill all kids need to learn at some point. A couple of years ago my firefighter brother gave me a pamphlet he hands out during visits to schools and day care facilities. It provides some excellent tips for teaching children how to use the phone, namely how and when to call 9-1-1, and perhaps more importantly, why kids shouldn’t be pressing 9-1-1. I’ll share some of the other tips in a future blog. While the pamphlet is a great resource, it doesn’t address the challenge we deal with on a daily basis: Manners and the speakerphone.
Ah, yes, the speakerphone. I considered it a saving grace when I was trying to breastfeed a baby with one arm and load the dishwasher with the other. I also hailed its inventor when my daughter first learned how to walk and talk and my parents would call to chat with her. No more chasing down squirmy tots so they could speak directly into the receiver or getting a 2-year-old to hold onto a phone without pressing each and every button. Back then I simply placed the phone on the couch hit “speaker” and my daughter could “read” to my parents from her picture books. Unfortunately, I have yet to break out of the speakerphone habit and I see how it has influenced my daughter’s perception of phones in general. She thinks all phones have the “speaker” option and has no interest in holding onto the receiver beyond “hello.”
The phone answering milestone is in sight. My daughter is a work in progress. She’ll get there soon enough. And when she does I know I will look back on these days when the phone was not attached to her ear and wonder why I introduced the device to her in the first place.
How old was your child when you allowed him or her to answer the phone?
Related Articles:
Can You Miss Your Kids Too Much?
A Mother’s View from the Pool-Bikinis on Babies?
A Mother’s View from the Pool: Why are you Wearing Crocs in the Water?
Bad Economy + Tooth Fairy = Unhappy Kids
Cell Phones – How Young is Too Young?