Phone is ringing off the hook and I'm ready to throw it across the room

[dkoinzan]

My kids come from a very stable home. I stay home with them and homeschool. They are relatively normal kids yet give them the ability to use the phone as they please and they will make your head spin. They have called their father every 2 minutes with the lunch report. I think he recieved 5 messages in one day telling him we were having hot ham and cheese. The would beg for sleep-overs until you were out of your mind if they thought it would work. It just sounds like this little guy is bored and needs some direction and limits. I am sure it will all get worked out.

 

[mommyof4]

I think it’s going to die it’s own natural death. School starts soon, right?

 

[dulcissima]

I could be completely wrong about this, not having the full story and if I am, please just disregard this post, but I just get the feeling that things are pretty horrible at your nephew’s house and he is trying to get away from it. He sounds desperate not to spend time at home. Being only 8, he has not worked out how to ask for help so he’s phoning and phoning and phoning. You said your sil & bil were having some problems. Maybe, they haven’t really worked them out yet. Perhaps this is the root cause of your nephew’s behaviour. Is he also reluctant to go back home when he has spent the night at your place?

This is not normal behaviour even for a lonely 8 year old and must have something behind it. To me, this sounds like a kid desperate for help but unable to articulate his problems. Just my :twocents:
The next time he comes over, sit him down, without your kids around, and have a heart to heart talk with him about it all. I don’t think you’ll get much joy by going through your in-laws to try to resolve this.

Praying for you and this situation.

I was thinking the same thing myself.

 

[masondoggy]

I could be completely wrong about this, not having the full story and if I am, please just disregard this post, but I just get the feeling that things are pretty horrible at your nephew’s house and he is trying to get away from it. He sounds desperate not to spend time at home. Being only 8, he has not worked out how to ask for help so he’s phoning and phoning and phoning. You said your sil & bil were having some problems. Maybe, they haven’t really worked them out yet. Perhaps this is the root cause of your nephew’s behaviour. Is he also reluctant to go back home when he has spent the night at your place?

This is not normal behaviour even for a lonely 8 year old and must have something behind it. To me, this sounds like a kid desperate for help but unable to articulate his problems. Just my :twocents:
The next time he comes over, sit him down, without your kids around, and have a heart to heart talk with him about it all. I don’t think you’ll get much joy by going through your in-laws to try to resolve this.

Praying for you and this situation.

I hope you are wrong.

I don’t know, I just have the impression that he’s just lonely at home. His parents tell us that all the time. And as far as I can see they’re good parents. Yea, maybe their marital problems are affecting him, but from what I’ve been told, they’re worked their problems out.

Goodness nowhere did I say that you have something against him, I just was trying to explain how he feels since I am only child too. Also my aunt use to watch 160 kids a day by herself,(she was an art teacher to K and 1st graders) and i use to help her in the classroom every once in awhile, which made me never want children, so I know what its like to be exhausted at the end of a day.

I am sorry that you felt I was attacking you because it wasn’t my intention, again I was just trying to explain from an only childs point of view.

I didn’t think you were attacking me. Just trying to clarify that I don’t have anything personally against this kid. It’s not that I don’t like him or anything like that. I know he’s just being a kid and most likely, my guess is, that his parents aren’t teaching him the proper way to use the phone and that it’s rude to invite yourself to somebody’s house. That’s not his fault. But it’s still frustrating on my end because I’m trying to run a household here and these phone tag games are driving me crazy.

I think it’s going to die it’s own natural death. School starts soon, right?

I certainly hope so. I think, with what little I said to DH last night, I’m going to give it a rest until school starts up and see where this goes. If I have to, when he calls on a school night I will just inform him that DS cannot have any calls during the school week.

 

[MooCowSteph]

It seems like not a lot, but remember when we first got cell phones and only had 30 minutes for the month? Now, with unlimited nights and weekends, or just over all unlimited plans, that’s gone!

I don’t think kids NEED to talk on the phone. Meet at the library. Plan what you are going to do when you are in school or otherwise face to face.

It’s amazing to me how many people have NO boundaries for their kids. I’m very proud of those that have established rules.

Besides, isn’t the nephew like 8? What on earth does an 8 year old need to talk about for more than 2 minutes? You should be learning about your family, or your home work!!

I agree that this kid apparently has no boundries when it comes to the phone, but aside from this particular situation, if we speak of kids and the telephone in a general manner, I still don’t see it as a problem. So maybe they don’t* need *to talk on the phone. Neither do we. I could write letters and email to keep up with current events with far-away relatives. And hey, kids don’t need dessert, more than a handful of toys, video games, and the list could go on. The phone is often for socialization and entertainment. So what? I guess I’m biased because I pretty much spent my teen years on the phone, but I always had to answer call waiting, hand over the phone if it was for someone else, and finish my chores and homework. In my middle and highschool reality, I didn’t see my friends much during the way -we had maybe one class together, and you can’t talk during class. Ok, hyjack over.

 

[KCT]

Take the phone off the hook. —KCT

 

[Apryl]

Take the phone off the hook. —KCT

This is something that I (personally) refuse to do.

I also refuse to change my phone number because of someone calling me.

I was talking to a neighbor a few weeks ago, and he commented that they had been in their home for so many years, but had to change the phone number many times when his sisters made it to High School.

Ugh! I can’t see that.

But again, that’s me… but in my house, my father told me that they put that button on the phone so you never had to have an argument over the phone.

My mother told me that the phone was for HER convenience. Not any one else’s.

Logic told me that if any one calls, and I don’t want to talk to them, to tell them, ‘I don’t want to talk to you’. Now, depending on WHY I don’t want to talk to them will determine how I tell them.

But not getting MY calls that I want because of some kid? Ain’t no way!

 

[mystified]

I’ve found a way to use a couple of tools.
First, Caller ID. I don’t answer unidentified or “800” callers.
Second, I use Google’s phone number tracer. If a call is recorded from a number I don’t recognized, it gets entered into Google and I find out that the call is coming from someone I do or do not know, from telemarketers, or some other source. Then I decide whether to return the call.
Although I have listed with the Do Not Call program, some telemarketers, banks, credit card solicitors and others seem to ignore it. This is particularly true for those companies who have “customer service” centers in India, China and other Asian countries. These centers call at any hour of the day or night, sometimes repeatedly.
One of my “favorite” unsolicited calls before I discovered the above screening systems was a call about 6:30 a.m. on a Sunday. It was supposedly from someone representing a bank a few miles from my home with which I have a credit card. In very poor English this person wamted to have a payment made either by phone, or to a small town in the Nevada desert. I asked the person’s name and where he was calling from. He said his name was “Martin Luther” and he was calling from a bank in China. .