Telegraph, Telefax and Tell-a-Kid
(are 3 poor ways to communicate)
Talking to a four year old on the phone is about as productive as teaching the family dog seven words. And then after his moderate verbal skills are achieved go on to teach it to laugh and say in audible mumblings. Then give that dog a phone in the shape of a ball and ask it to hold it to its ear all the while waving a doggie treat in front of its face. Then open the front door of the house, start the car, and say 'here boy get in the car!' The last thing that dog will want to do is talk to that ball.
My granddaughter who is in India for a three week vacation is that dog. The very same child that sits in my lap four breakfasts a week and watches George the monkey with me. The same child that has something to say all the time! She and I are 'Buddy's'!
Charlotte (my granddaughter) and her mom have lived with us all her life in a suite in our basement. I love that little girl so much. We spend many hours together and I know, or thought I knew, she loved me very much too. That was until I talked to her on the phone from India.
Now in her defense the modern phone, the all new one they came out with this week, has become almost everything but a phone to a child. Children don't use phones to talk to people they share interests with....other children, they use phones as a source of entertainment.
Phones are magical things to a four year old. One minute they're games, then music, then dancing picture books and then they can become a TV.
"Here hold this to your ear.... it's grandpa.......say something.....anything!" pleads the parent while trying to matin the phones proximity to the child's ear because if she sees it's the magic rectangle all she wants to do is see what's on the screen. Oh sure you could use speaker phone but if the magic phone is on, and here it's any 4yr. old, all they want to do is play hair salon, or dress up princess on the device. So you have to keep it at their ear so they hopefully won't know that it's the magic phone. It would probably blow their little mind if they knew that it had the capability to do boring things like having to listen .... then respond.
"I miss you. Are you having fun?" Silence. "What was the plane ride like?"....Silence.."Is it hot?".....Silence..."What are you going to do today?"..........Silence......"Do you know it's supper time here and your just getting up"...................(here boy get in the car.) I tell my not so magical black rectangle that might as well be a block of wood.
"Grandpa guess what." followed by laughter then something about perhaps flying baby horses, then maybe something about a kid named Dora then more laughing. Then the phone drops,...she recognizes the phone as the plaything it is,... and then there's demands by he parent, tears, concessions made, tears stop,....."Say something to grandpa...anything" the parent pleads. "Grandpa guess what."
"What.....what........ .......what!"
"Daddy can I play hair salon? I'm all done." she whispers into the phone perhaps thinking that if said quietly into the phone it won't reach all the way to Canada.
This was my first momentous phone call to India and all I get is 'Grandpa guess what'. This from a child whom I can't shut up, that talks all the time even when no one is in the room. A child that began verbal communication at a very young age ahead of other kids her age. And then when I do guess 'WHAT' three times, I get dumped for an app. And they say verbal communication is dead.
Maybe I should of made a movie of myself at a beauty salon having my hair washed, cut, coloured, dried and then I try on silly hats and different mustaches and beards. Then jumped up and down and lite my pants on fire to try and fit into her attention span long enough to get verbal communication of some kind.
When I was a kid we would almost have to dress up in our Sunday finest to use the phone. We would have to sit at the phone, because of the cord, and carry ourselves in an adult manner. I loved using the phone because using the phone proved that I was more important than my other brothers because I knew people who could also use a phone.
As a kid if the home ever got a long distant phone call the whole house had to come to a stand still, and silence reined, because it was probably news somebody had died. Phone calls were important!
My 90 yr. old mom will almost break a hip trying to get to the phone still to this day. "It might be important." she maintains as she agrees to answer another questionnaire over the phone.
Now it's been almost two weeks since my last phone call to India to try and communicate with my granddaughter. Two quiet weeks of no sticky messes or toys all over the floor. Fourteen days with nobody to ask me 'Guess what'. A fortnight of no crying, wanting, needing, have to have or things that aren't fair. One half of one month watching what I want on TV and not having Mac-n-cheese every day for lunch. And after all this time, after all the things I don't have to clean up, or do or decide, answer, or justify my decisions,.... if all she said to me was 'Grandpa guess what' it would be the best thing I've heard in two weeks.
For after a period of time it's not what they say, it's just that they're there. There, being in a movement of time with you. In a moment where pouring out your heart, telling them how much they're missed is not the right thing to do. You want them to have the best time possible. You don't want them missing home, with all it's familiar comforts and tired old you. You just want to hear that personality on the other end of the line having fun. Being themselves. And then you know all is right in your world.
'Here boy get in the car!' And she's off. That's not what she heard or saw but it had the same effect. I hang up my block of wood and smile she's having the time of her life.
Bob Niles
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