How should I handle my teen's frequent text messages to me during school?

If you are a career mom, those constant interruptions will interfere with your job and may reflect poorly on you at work. Regardless of where you are working, it is good to recognize that you need time to focus on other things.

The true issue is, why is your daughter text messaging you so frequently? Could this be the reflection of an insecurity issue? Could it be that you are working too hard trying to make her life easier?

It sounds like instead of talking with her peers, she is texting you. How is her social life in school? Does she have friends? How are her grades? Her boredom in school may be the result of her not taking classes that are challenging enough for her and she may need supplemental enrichment activities. Or perhaps she has fallen behind in her classes and feels that she can't catch up so she becomes bored and unhappy.

Whatever the answers are to these questions, it is time for her to take the responsibility for handling her day-to-day life on her own. The accumulation of trials and tribulations she faces during the day can be discussed best over dinner in the security of her own home. She needs to become her own best friend, and you can encourage her to do this, while offering quality time to talk with her at the end of the day.