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Last updated: Friday, October 2, 2009

Holly Kopczynski always prided herself on raising her kids the right way, teaching them etiquette basics like saying “please” and “thank you.” Then it happened. “We were at a restaurant for my mom’s birthday. I looked over and there are my daughter and my oldest son texting, holding their phones under the table,” said the mom of four in Lewiston, Idaho. “I just came unglued. I was like, `Are you kidding? You’re at your grandma’s birthday party. Put those phones away now!’” We all know teens love their gadgets — more for texting than talking. But the devices are posing some new challenges for parents. How can they teach their tech-savvy kids some electronic etiquette? So far, parents are learning on the fly, imposing new rules for their young offenders such as “no texting at dinner.” Beth Herina of Ringwood, N.J., made that rule two years ago because her 13-year-old son was texting friends at the dinner table. She has another rule, too: No texting on family outings. “He can text en route but not when it is family time,” she said. “And I ask questions about who he is texting.” Her son Dylan may not like mom’s rules, but she considers them mild. Her brother-in-law goes into his children’s cell phone accounts to read their texts. When it comes to gadgets like cell phones and computers, some kids and even some adults don’t seem to consider their gadget behavior rude, said P.M. Forni, co-founder of Johns Hopkins University’s Civility Initiative. “We’re seeing behavior that you never would have seen before,” he said. “Students getting up in the middle of class to answer their phones, texting during class, students watching TV on their laptops during lectures.” Kopczynski said she told her 20-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter to shut their phones off and put them away, which they did, but it…

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No Texting at Dinner! Parenting in the Digital Era

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