Constant texting when she is supposed to be working

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Hi

My stepdaughter (who lives with us) is 16 and in her first year of A level studies. She is at a private school, I pay a great deal for her to be there, and she is capable of doing very well, her GCSE results were excellent. The plan is for her to get into a good university, she wnats to do marine biology or oragnic chemistry.

My DH went to parents' evening this week and was very disappointed to hear she is not doing well at all in her studies, less than average, which is well below her capability. There were lots of tears from her when this was discussed with her by us later, and she complained that the teachers were not explaining things well enough and not helping her understand the work. I was also concrened that she seems to be having hours and hours of homework every single evening, having no time for anything else, even soending time with the family or finishing her dinner properly. She also seems tired all the time and said she has so much homework and revision that she is not getting enough time to sleep. I was thinking of speaking to the school about this.

DH was also all set to phone the school to ask why the teachers were not teaching properly, and why such an unresasonable amount of homework, keeping her up after midnight every night, when this morning I received the mobile phone bill. The kids' bills are itemised on my bill.

DSD has send nigh on 700 texts (costing a total of £60!), nearly all to the same number, in the last month. The texting goes on all day and up to after 2 in the morning some days. Peak texting time seems to be when she is in her room in the evening supposedly doing her homework and revision. Texts are being sent every two or three minutes all eveing at times. She clearly is not attending to her work, she cannot be concentrating on maths, chemistry and biology when she is sending a text every couple of minutes!

I just phoned DH, he is furious and there is bound to be a major showdown this evening. He is particularly aggrieved that we were all set to believe that the school or teachers were at fault, totally beliveing DSD, when it is clear that in fact she is not paying attention to her work, and there is probably some romance going on which is taking all her attention. He thinks we should remove her phone in the evenings, take away the computer in her room, ban facebook, everything. What do other people feel would be reasonable measures (apart from getting her to pay back the cost out of her pocket money, I also feel really annoyed that she has basically free rein to make calls and send texts and I just pay for it all, she has really abused this trust). I also have been paying an extra chemistry and maths tutor to come in, because she said she was struggling with those subjects. I wonder now whether it is just that she is not paying attention.

She is normally a responsible and sensible girl, and I did not think she had any secrets from us, she always seems so open. This has come as a big shock! (Maybe I am naive, not having any previous experience of teenagers!)

I am totally cringing for your dsd, she is going to be mortified tonight.

I totally agree with Swedes and your dh, make her take responsibility for it. My cousin has been unbelievably guided by my aunt, to the point where she has taken such control of his life that he feels able to blame her for anything that goes wrong. He is 23 in January, and we are all still waiting for him to grow up. But why would he take responsibility for himself when he's never had any need to?

It's her success. Or not.

Involve her in the solution. I agree she may well end up agreeing to leave the phone downstairs for short periods of time, in which case she'll also then feel pleased when she gets more work done and can text with a clear conscience.

As for the separate issue of the cost, I would say by all means set a rigid limit to that - that's your place to do since you're paying. Although looking for a better deal might be good.

It sounds like she's procrastinating and will regret it later but you won't necessarily be doing her any long term favours by setting rigid rules about the phone being with her or not - let her try to make her own rules with your help and then she might be able to do the same once she's at university. You need to help her learn how to beat the distractions herself, not do it for her by removing phone, computer etc.

We are in the UK, yes, but the kids are South Africa and thir mother still lives there and has to hasve them for holidays.

Well, she actuAllay dealt with it impressively maturely. I felt like a prat when she pointed out that the texting till 2am was at half term and so not on a school night. She immediately apologised for sending so many texts and went straight away to fetch money to pay me back. She then admitted this amount of texting was really too much and said that she does not want her text bundle increased as she does not want to be tempted. She said that she will pay far more attention to her work now, and promised to do better.

Me and DH both felt like tits!

should have read the kids are from South Africa

Can I just say, that as someone who taught that age group for many years, that this is not an uncommon situation.

Does she have the phone on in class? Can you track any of the texts to the times when she should be attending to her teachers? I've heard the "The teacher didn't teach me" argument so many times. In every single case I have seen this translates as "I spent all my time gossiping, surfing the net and texting under the table so I didn't learn a thing". She is a young adult. part of her burgening maturity is learning to take responsibility for her own actions.

The computer in the bedroom issue is one where you can take this as an opportunity to install some real skills in her. IME I have never known a maths teacher to set A level maths homework that required tinternet. (and bear in mind maths was one of the things I taught) There are some good revision sites out there, but i the end, she will actually have to do the sums herself, on paper. Nor do I know much in the way of Chemistry or Biology homework that requires hours of internet research. I would hazard a guess that much of the "research" that is going on is, in fact, MSN, Facebook and idle surfing. The problem with the dreaded internet is it is so easy to waste time and get nothing of any value done. I would suggest that you limit the hours the internet is available to the girls. 2 hours maximum then unplug the router. Teach them to get the information they need quickly and efficiently then spend the rest of the time actually doing their homework rather than moaning to their mates about how much they have to do. You will probably find the actual hours spent in homework/revision will plummet yet the amount done will stay more or less the same.

Thnaks slug. We have pretty much said that this is what will happen if things don't improve pronto. She does seem to use the internet a lot for her maths homework (she seems to just type whole equations into Google as far as I can see and then get answers, which she claims helps her understand?). I have never been much of a maths whiz and can't really make any comments in the maths dept. I have agreed to help her with her biology (something I am supposedly able to do although it has been years...) and I have ordered some textbooks and past papers and intend to work through them with her.

She is probably not as bad a girl as I originally made out! But it WAS a boy (of course) she was texting, she says he is just a friend and definitely not a boyfriend (Ewwww! was her comment!). I did give her a little talk about what message her constant texting (including from bed!) gives to the boy, which may be unfair if she is not actually interested in him!

PS no she does not use the phone in class, one can clearly see on the bill the hiatus during the time she is in school. That is something at least!