How Refusing to Multitask on the Phone Impacts Your College Freshman
Obsessed with efficiency? You’re not alone. In the age of ad-free subscriptions, online check-in, and app food orders, one might stop and ask—for what are all of these conveniences freeing you?
Maybe this extra time allows you to spend more time with your children or meaningful time with your significant other. Maybe this extra time frees you up to spend more time doing things you need to do like pay bills or wash clothing. In any case, you do what you can to juggle all of your task items so that you can accomplish more, even if it means multitasking on a regular basis.
You likely know this, but no one can truly multitask. In an article for the Seattle Times, columnist Ellen Goodman shares the reality that those who prize their ability to multitask do not actually have a unique or better ability, because the quality of their work suffers as a result.
Multitasking while on the phone does not produce better results either. Cornerstone Coaching & Consulting, an HR consultant firm specializing in communication, shares that communicating via the phone requires exclusive focus on the conversation.
In all likelihood, your college freshman is a notorious multitasker when communicating with you. Always having one eye on her phone during conversations or family time, you may be tempted to ignore her in a similar fashion. You maybe have come to believe and accept that this is simply “how kids are these days.”
What you may not realize is that even if your child demonstrates poor etiquette while conversing on the phone, she is taking note of how you interact with her. Your college freshman notices when you are texting or scrolling while talking to others. She hears when you you are doing house tasks while chatting on the phone with her. She can tell when she does not have your complete attention.
So why should you refuse to multitask while on your freshman’s calls and what will this focused attention accomplish?
Focusing solely on your freshman’s calls models good etiquette.
Todd Smith, author of Little Things Matter, shares that people notice when a caller is doing several tasks while on the phone. They quickly pick up that they are not the sole focus of the caller.
Your freshman is not an exception. She notices when she doesn’t have your full attention. Even if her etiquette is fairly poor during her phone calls, she takes note of your etiquette.
Not only does she notice your lack of focus, but she may start to imitate this behavior while calling you and others. At her impressionable age, she is still picking up on cues from you of how an adult should behave.
If you consistently demonstrate proper phone etiquette, your freshman is likely to pick up on your example. Additionally, you may want to encourage her to show you the same kind of attention. If she is clearly multitasking (to the point of obvious distraction), suggest that you call another time when she is less busy.
By setting up what is and is not acceptable phone behavior, you help inform your child’s thinking about phone etiquette.
Focusing solely on your freshman’s calls encourages more communication.
Is there anything quite so disheartening as someone not paying attention to you talking? Your likelihood of wanting to communicate with a distracted person diminishes with each interaction. Whether this person means to or not, he or she is signaling to you that there are more important things that require attention.
This thinking is also true with your freshman. If you are often sidetracked, backtracking, losing your train of thought, or giving disingenuous “uh-huhs” on the other end of the phone, your freshman is likely to take a hint—her phone calls are not the most important thing to you right now.
Giving your freshman your full attention then can have the inverse effect. When you freshman calls you, she feels valued and heard. She feels safe to talk to you, because she knows she has your complete focus.
In order to commit to giving your full attention, you may need to come to grips with this fact: you cannot always be fully available to your freshman. There are times in which you cannot answer her phone call and give her full attention. Whether you’re running errands, dealing with other children, or in the middle of a family meal, you know that if you answer you will be only halfway listening.
In these kinds of situations, pause and take a moment to consider if this call may be better for a later time. Text and inform your freshman that you cannot talk right now, because you cannot give her your full attention. You will call her back when you are available.
Focusing solely on your freshman’s calls demonstrates your respect.
Being distracted on the phone, Todd Smith shares, can cause others to view you as “rude, inconsiderate, and disrespectful.” You certainly don’t want to come across this way to your freshman, because you want to build or maintain your relationship with your child.
Your freshman is morphing more and more into an independent adult, and as a result respect may become a bigger and bigger issue to her. While you cannot sidestep all of the potential landmines in your parent-child relationship, you can avoid communicating you do not respect your freshman.
By giving your freshman your sole attention on phone calls, you communicate that what she is saying is important to you and worth your attention. While your temptation might be to interrupt and insert some advice, your freshman likely is calling merely to talk and share, not to get tips on how to handle the situation.
If you are unsure what her desire is, merely ask her—are you wanting some advice? If she declines, please don’t take it personally. She might not be ready to move on to a solution yet, and sometimes she needs someone to talk to more than she needs someone to tell her how to fix her problem.
Focusing solely on your freshman’s calls indicates you care.
Not only does focused listening communicate respect, it can also be one of the best ways to demonstrate care for your freshman. College can be incredibly difficult, stressful, and challenging—especially for college freshmen.
Dorm drama, bad grades, and more are your freshman’s everyday experiences. While eventually these struggles will (hopefully) become less and less pressing, your freshman can often feel very far from home and very unloved.
Show her your concern by giving her your full attention during her calls. Try to listen with empathy, affirming her feelings when appropriate and sympathizing with difficult situations. While you may not be able to visit her, truly showing concern over the phone can help her feel close to you and home.
Society continues obsessing over productivity, but you choose to focus on being there when it matters for your freshman. Make an intentional choice to push pause on your to-do list and give your freshman your complete focus. Your calls may be the thing that makes a difference in her day.
