Reply to Do you allow your kids to read in the car?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This can't be real, can it?  You'd prevent your kid from reading in the car so he can be "more present?"  I hope you don't let him look out the windows, there are words everywhere out there.  [/quote]

Yes, it’s real. I just took him to lunch and he was trying to eat a sandwich and read a book in his lap. I asked him to put the book away so we could enjoy lunch and chat. You don’t think being present is an important skill for kids to practice? [/quote]

Table etiquette is different from that of riding in a car with your parent.  While you should be “present” and pay attention to your dining companions, it is with the assumption that they will be equally focused on you.  I would hope that when you are in the car, as the driver, your primary focus would be on the road, not on entertaining your passengers.  While I would chat and otherwise interact with my kids when I drove them, they understood that it was only with whatever mental resources could be spared from driving, and that for safety’s sake, I might at any time have to tune them out and devote my full attention to the road and whatever the other drivers were doing.  Requiring them to be “present” for my benefit when I was unable to reciprocate would be an unreasonable expectation.[/quote]

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