Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Who is it?

A few weeks ago, Jabberwalky started playing with the tween's old play house. Pardon the dust, we need to scrub it up for the season.
He really enjoys the house. He plays with it's kitchen it's phone, the door. I pretend I am calling on my cellphone and he play answers. I knock at the door and he answers with a first time homeowner's pride.
But it got me thinking. When I was little, I played games like this with my mom and my friends. They were opportunities to learn the social conventions of answering doors, and phones, and opportunities to learn what to do when different people come to the door.
It strikes me that in all her years, tween has not ever answered the phone or door at home for real. Only in games or when I have looked outside and verified that it was a grandparent and specifically asked her to open it.
I wonder if I'm the only one, and if it's normal that I reserve door answering for adults. How do you handle it?
Sent from the TARDIS Intergalactic Temporal Mobile Service

1 comment:

Rachel W. said...

So, this is really late, but I just discovered your blog!

At our house it's a constant flurry of 'Who's at the door', since we live in a neighbourhood chock full of kids and their parent, wondering if they've landed at our place (which is usually the case).

The kids are usually the ones to answer it, and the same rules apply as back in the day when we were young.

The phone, though, that's another story. I really don't think any of then have ever answered a phone that they didn't know who was at the other end. We have play phones they use- but I'm sure it's not the same.

I suppose it wouldn't hurt to set up a few practice sessions, having friends and family call so I can walk them through it. You could do the same thing for the door, I would think...