Lifestyles

Jennifer Hewitt of Upper St. Clair has 11 commandments in her household. First, there are the 10 from the Bible, plus this: If Mom's on the phone, leave her alone.

"From the time my daughters were little, I just tried to really explain to them that when I'm on the phone, you can't interrupt Mommy," says Hewitt, 48. She and her husband, Patrick, have two daughters: Halle, 7, and Carlie, 5. "I have a lot of hot-button things that bother me, and that's one of them."

Hewitt says that her kids seemed to have a sixth sense about when she was on the phone: They would come toddling from the farthest reaches of the house and start demanding her attention. But, after repeating the rules to the kids -- and interrupting them when they are absorbed in something, just to demonstrate how annoying it is -- the concept is sinking in, she says.

Interrupting is one of the most annoying habits children can have, and it often happens at the most inopportune moments. You just get on the phone for an important call, or are having an in-depth discussion with your spouse or a friend, then your kids appear and start pestering you for attention. It's just as annoying for the conversational partner as it is for the parent.

"Young children particularly want our attention whenever they become acutely aware that they don't have it; then, they will act in ways to obtain it," says Sandy Beauregard. She is a parent educator for the ParentWISE program of Family Services of Western Pennsylvania, a regional organization based in Harmar.

Exasperated parents wonder what to do to break the habit, and where to draw the line.

"This is a question that comes up a lot in the parenting classes," Beauregard says. "I always tell parents, No. 1, that little kids can't wait very long. Sometimes, it's more expedient to go ahead and address their question than it is to fight with them over, 'Leave me alone until I'm off the phone.' "

Obvious exceptions to no-interrupting rules are emergencies, but parents need to define what constitutes emergencies, Beauregard says: to a child, wanting a cookie can be an emergency, but to parents, it may be only if someone is hurt or something dangerous is happening.

Author Stephen W. Garber, who has a doctorate in psychology, says kids practically have a radar for becoming disruptive when their parents are on an important phone call.

"It's a pretty common occurrence," says Garber. He is the co-author of books including "Good Behavior." Garber also is the director of the Behavioral Institute of Atlanta in Georgia.

"There's a couple of different reasons that kids interrupt," Garber says. "The first reason is that kids just have to learn to wait, have impulse control, and delay gratification. That's just part of growing up. For some kids, it comes sooner than others."

Missy Laughery, of Tarentum, says her twins -- Niah and Neve, a 10-year-old girl and boy, respectively -- often take advantage of her divided attention when she's on the phone: it's the perfect time to ask her for permission to do things she normally would say "no" to. But the kids are getting better, she says.

"For the most part, they're pretty polite," Laughery says. "I just have to remind them that it's bad manners (to interrupt) when I'm on the phone; it's not polite.

"I don't have a lot of trouble," she says. "We're doing a lot better."

Dennis Hughes, 61, of Penn Hills, nipped the interrupting problem in the bud with his son, Shawn, with a firm "don't" that showed he was serious.

"I would say ... 'Shawn, can't you see I'm talking to Mr. or Mrs. such-and-such?' " says Hughes about his now-deceased son, who would be 37. "Shawn would go about his business.

"I would say it one time, and that was all," Hughes says. "You have to mean what you say; you can't play with it."

To keep her children from interrupting during phone calls, Judi Dorazio of Derry, Westmoreland County, uses a practice in which the child places a hand gently on her leg, and she addresses the query during a convenient break in the conversation. If they are impatient and demanding, she will have them sit in their room's doorway until she is off the phone.

"That way, (the kids) are not interrupting me, or interrupting the other person. ... It's not so much of an interference," says Dorazio, 39. "It's worked marvelously. ... They have really matured through this process.

Jeanne VanHouten of Whitney, Westmoreland County, used to give her now-grown kids -- Victor and Chris -- a "phone time box" to keep them occupied when she would talk on the phone, and she says it worked wonders. The box -- which only was available during phone calls -- included puzzles, crafts, markers with colored paper, and stickers with a sticker book. When the call ended, VanHouten would praise her kids. She also had a "car time box," for car trips, when she wanted to have a conversation with her husband, Cecil.

"I taught them that telephone time is not the time to interrupt people," says VanHouten, 52. "When people are on the telephone in our house, we try to respect that for each other."

Josi Hatalla, an academic counselor at Carlow University in Oakland, taught her now-adult daughters -- Andy and Kaytea -- that interrupting was not appropriate behavior, and she would repeat the message until it sunk in.

"My whole philosophy was that I couldn't expect my children to know anything that I had not taught them," says Hatalla, of Regent Square. She would tell her daughters: "Unless it's really important, you need to let me finish my phone call."

Hatalla's daughters, however, were nothing compared to her pesky dog, Rocky, a Rottweiler mix. Now, when Hatalla gets on the phone, Rocky comes rushing into the rooms, taps his feet on the floor, and growls until she lets him outside.

"The girls, at some point, were trained not to interrupt me when I'm on the phone," Hatalla says, laughing. "I see no possibility whatsoever with training this dog."

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Taming pesky interruptions

• Have realistic expectations for your child. Age 3 and older is a good time to set guidelines about interrupting; the smallest tots usually can't help it.

• Tell your children before you start a conversation that you don't want to be interrupted unless it's really important or an emergency, and define that.

• Make a "telephone box," and fill it with inexpensive items that are stimulating for kids: coloring books and crayons, for instance. Allow them to play with the box only when you are on the phone and they're not interrupting you. The same tactic can be used to stem interruptions of other conversations.

• Make a distinction between casual phone calls, when you're chatting with a friend, and critical ones, like when you're talking to your child's principal or doctor, or your attorney. You can be a little more flexible on the casual calls, and end them early if needed.

• Don't be quick to pause or end your conversation in order to tend to your child. This can reinforce the interrupting, because it got your attention.

• Consider your children's needs, and their sense of timing. If they really are hungry, for instance, your half-hour conversation is a long time to wait.

• If you are entertaining people in your home and don't want to be interrupted, expecting small children to sit quietly might be unrealistic. Consider getting a baby-sitter to keep the kids occupied, or sending them to a friend's or relative's house.

• Don't lose your cool and yell if you are annoyed by an interruption. It's better to discuss it calmly before the conversation begins, or after it ends.

• When your children behave well -- for instance, they let you have a long conversation without interrupting you -- praise them. This reinforces the good behavior.

Sources: Sandy Beauregard of ParentWISE; author and psychologist Stephen Garber

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