PDAs and Kids: Teach Your Children Well

 You know how when you start thinking about a certain topic, suddenly you see evidence of it everywhere?

Such is the case with my recent series on PDA etiquette. I actually thought I was done writing about that topic -- felt just fine moving on to the next topic on Business EQ, in fact -- until yesterday afternoon during my daughter's volleyball game.

The game was part of a city-wide tournament and it was held at one of our local high schools. As I walked across the campus, I was struck by the number of teens texting on their cell phones. But what really surprised me was the 13-year-old walking beside me.  She was a member of my daughter's team and I had given her a ride from their middle school to the game. I had never met her before and was asking her the usual polite questions that parents ask their childrens' friends: you know, where do you live? do you have brothers and sisters? what other sports do you play?

She answered -- sort of. See, she was distracted because she was texting at the same time.

Then halfway through the tournament, I headed out to get myself some coffee. At the cafe, the barista -- I'm not kidding -- was texting while making my latte.

And then when I got home, I discovered that one child had called one of my children eight times between 4:30 and 7 pm. I knew this had happened because the child had called my cell phone, as it's the one listed in the school directory. What said child obviously didn't know was that cell phones have Caller ID -- as well as, in many cases, a "call history" function.

Next Up: A few PDA etiquette lessons to teach your kids (please)