"Tyler, do you have any homework?"
"Huh? I can't hear you."
"Do-you-have-any-homework?"
"What?"
New tactic. I whispered, "How about some cookies?"
"I WANT SOME COOKIES!" Uh-huh!
It's amazing what our kids can hear when they really want to. I learned a long time ago that telling them anything while they were playing their gameboy was wasted breath. Even the television can totally disrupt their hearing. My husband is a volunteer firefighter and has a pager in the living room to notify him of calls. It is often turned up and can be very loud. Often I will come into the room after hearing it go off and ask my thirteen year old, "What was the call?"
She usually turns a blank face to me, "I don't know."
"Well, where was it?"
"I don't know."
"But you were sitting right next to it! You should have heard something!"
She shrugs her shoulders and turns her attention back to the television.
Then here was that time my son was playing his gameboy and his father got a fire call while watching television next to him. He was gone a full ten minutes before my son looked up, "Hey, where's dad?"
However I can be in another room and paper rustling will bring them running, "Can I have some too?"
I think the wisest thing a parent can do is go by the thought, "If you can't beat em', join em".
"Mom, can I have twenty bucks?"
"What? I 'm afraid I didn't catch that!"
"Hey, how about if I use the car tonight?"
"Did you say something?"
Yep, there certainly is something to this selective hearing thing. Try it on an adolescent near you!
