Distracted by distractions

When I was growing up school homework was done in a quiet place without the distraction of the television. Those were simpler times. Today kids have any number of things to distract them apart from the television -- cellphones, mp3s, laptops, etc.

If your child has text messaging as part of his or her cellphone package it's even more difficult to focus on homework. I know this from experience because Rebekah, daughter No. 1, has had a difficult time looking up from her phone for the past six months. She's constantly communicating with her girlfriends but she rarely says anything to me or her mother unless she needs something.

The phone was a recent purchase and it was made with the understanding that if Rebekah's grades dropped even a little, we would hang up on the little hand-held device.

So you could understand our frustration as we fought with Rebekah on a nightly basis as she sat in the living room with her textbook open, playing with facebook on her laptop, while listening to music on her cellphone and text messaging.

Oh how we ranted, oh how we raged on about how things were done when we were Rebekah's age.

"I swear to God when her report card comes out and her grades have dropped that cellphone is mine, she'll never see it again," my wife Heather said.

Notice the phone? It's surgically attached to Rebekah's hands.

Report cards came out yesterday so I text messaged Rebekah with this message:

"You better pray your report card is good or else your mother will kill you. Now get home."

"Thanks for having so much faith in me," Rebekah texted back.

When I returned from work Heather was in the kitchen with a strange look on her face.

"How's her report card? "I asked fully expected a rough night ahead.

"Take a look," she said.

I opened it up and wouldn't you know it, Rebekah's grades hadn't dropped at all. In fact most of them had improved over her last report card.

How had this happened? She did it without silence, she did it without focus, she did it without concentration, effort or attention. She just did it.

Both Heather and I fully expected we'd be in full fledged fight mode with Rebekah. We were almost looking forward to telling her "We told you so."

We didn't get that opportunity.

How did she do it? She has an 84% average in Grade 8 and she's done it effortlessly. I can only imagine how well she'd do if she put the cellphone and computer away while doing her homework.

I need peace and quiet while doing homework of any type. As much as I hate to admit it Rebekah does not.

Good on her.