We talked a while, and I asked him how he's handling it. He told me just keeps talking with her, explaining the problem, the dangers. He said he's come down on her a couple of times when he caught her lying, saying she hadn't been moving around in public with eyes on phone and earbuds in when he'd seen her doing it. He says he can't take her earbuds away because new ones only cost about 10 bucks; she'd just pick up another pair and hide them.
He sent me this photo; he said he didn't take it, but on the occasions he picks his daughter up when school lets out that the crosswalks look just like this:
I seldom if ever have interaction with high school or middle school kids other than driving through school zones. These are the future generations, and they're essentially being "trained" to move around with brain, eyes, and ears distracted. Arrrgh!
Too, Texas is not one of the states that has laws against wearing headphones or earbuds while driving. I'm not in favor of any new laws, but we gotta do a better job of teaching our kids that the only way to pay attention to what they're doing...is to pay attention to what they're doing.