“Hello?”
The young man on the other end of the line sounds annoyed.
He might as well have said “What do you want?”
I’m so startled for a second that I don’t answer.
“Is L. there?” I ask in my most well-mannered voice.
“No,” he answers thickly.
Then there’s silence.
“May I leave her a message?” I ask after a pause so long that I can hear myself breathing.
“Yeah,” he answers thickly.
Then there’s more silence.
Though my almost twelve-year-old can sometimes be monosyllabic, I’m not exactly sure what to say. This is beyond not having proper phone manners. The silence is stonewalling.
Then it strikes me: the boy on the other end of the line doesn’t actually know he’s being rude.
“Should I just ask for two kid tickets for the movie?” my 10-year-old asked when I sent her to the movies with her brother.
It seemed like a silly question. Of course she should ask for two kid tickets! Duh.
But it wasn’t: Athena had never gone up to a movie kiosk, asked for tickets, handed someone money, taken the tickets, and gone into a movie.
Why should she have?
There’s always been a grown-up there to do it for her.
If your kid doesn’t have proper phone manners or any practice speaking on the phone and answers calls in monosyllables, are they being rude?
Yes!
But is it their fault?
No.
It’s our fault as parents if our children are rude on the phone and have bad phone manners
It’s our fault as parents if we haven’t taken the time to teach our children proper phone manners.
Most children don’t know better.
And we parents forget to teach them.
But it’s not hard to teach a child phone manners.
We need to teach them to say:
“Hello, this is A. Is B. there please?”
“May I please ask who’s calling?”
“Just a minute please.”
“I’m sorry, she’s not available. May I take a message?”
Adults are impressed by children who are polite.
It’s annoying to call someone and get stonewalled by an impolite child on the other end of the phone.
Now, if you would please be so kind as to pardon me.
I must excuse myself to go do some role playing to teach my kids some proper phone manners.
Published: November 10, 2011
Last updated: January 25, 2019
Note to self: Pay extra attention the next time kids answer the phone.
Do you think cell phones have something to do with this trend? Back in the day, there was a family phone that was used by all members of the family. People took turns answering it and calling one another to the phone. Today, so many people have individual phones that I’m not sure kids get much practice answering the phone or using phone manners. What do you think?
I think cell phones play a part in this, and also phones with caller ID (which includes cell phones and many land lines). My younger brother rarely calls me, and his number just registers as “wireless caller” on our home phone’s caller ID. (I don’t have a cell phone.) He starts talking at me when I answer, and though I’m embarrassed to say this about my own brother, I don’t recognize his voice right away. I’ve had to ask “who’s this?” on more than one occasion. I think people still need to introduce themselves in the age of caller ID. “Hey, it’s Morgan,” would suffice.
I agree Natalie! I have friends who just say, “Hi, it’s me,” and I sometimes don’t recognize the voice right away, which is embarrassing for both of us. It’s much easier if you say who you are. I usually add my last name, even with close friends, because so many people my age are named “Jennifer.”
Good question Jennifer. Perhaps the rise of cell phone use among children does have something to do with why we are forgetting to teach our children basic phone answering skills. But I’d argue that good manners are important for answering cell phones also!
Maybe there has been a decline in good manners in general in American culture? Have you noticed how many adults these days are also sometimes remiss with phone manners?
I always find it funny (or perhaps irksome is a better word) when I call someone who works from home and they answer the phone, “HELLO?!” in a gulping sort of way, instead of picking up the phone using a more professional-sounding greeting.
The phone manners thing is such a peeve of mine. Every time my kids use the phone I remind them to say hello, say who YOU are, and could you PLEASE speak to whomever. When kids call here and are rude I tell them they are rude and how they should call my house in future.
I like these ideas. I also like the way kids in my husband’s country, Sweden, are taught to introduce themselves when they answer the phone. In their country, when I picked up the phone, I would simply say my name. It makes sense, doesn’t it?
What bothers me the most is when they call you, many far older than what we would normally call ‘kids’ in anything beyond manners (and possibly education), and have the wrong number. They never say anything other than the occasional cussing, and just hang up! Why does no one teach their children how to use the phone any more? Do we need to have classes in schools? I get more of these calls than I do calls for us, and it’s not a ‘new’ number, we have had it for more than four years now.