Curbing Kids’ Phone Tirades : Behavior: There are simple strategies for parents to have uninterrupted conversations.

Little Joey Jackson is the picture of sweetness in his blue sailor hat--which he has, at age 3, developed a borderline obsession for wearing.

Sitting on the kitchen floor, little Joey is a cutie. A sweet boy. A honey, even.

A honey, that is, until Mommy--Debbie, to you--gets a telephone call. And then, li’l Joey becomes a hellion, all arms and whines, grasping for attention, interrupting even the shortest conversations.

“At first,” said the boy’s mother, “I thought I was raising a really mean little kid, a kid who demands much too much attention.”

But then she talked to her friends and found that something about a telephone’s ringing triggers feelings deep in a child’s psyche. Perhaps it is genetics.

So the mother is on the telephone, and the child starts to talk to her.

C’mon. Only moments before, the child was oblivious to his mother’s presence. Nothing could have turned his attention to her.

But get on the telephone--or pick up a book, or try to take a warm bath or have a conversation with another adult in the grocery checkout line--and a child suddenly is riveted to his mother’s side.

“It’s very annoying, because 15 minutes on the telephone doesn’t seem like a lot to ask, but to that child, it’s like someone coming in and stealing their mother,” said Jane Richards-Jones, program director for Creative Parenting, a 4-year-old state-funded program that is part of the Parent Training Consortium of New Britain, Conn.

“When you’re not busy, you’re right where the children need you,” said Nancy Robinson, who cares for six children in her family day-care business in addition to raising her own two children. “It’s almost like a craving someone has for chocolate. It could be around the house for months and then all of a sudden, because it’s not there anymore, you want some.”

Even the best-mannered child may slip when Mom or Dad is otherwise occupied, Robinson said. But it’s an important part of developing into well-adjusted adults.

“It’s just like learning what you’re going to have to deal with later in life,” she said. “Not everybody can tend to you every second. They learn this at an extremely young age. They understand a lot more than some people give them credit for.”

The best time to deal with the interruption issue is before it happens, Richards-Jones said. When it occurs, most parents don’t think rationally. They just want to gag the child.

“A lot of times, if I am going to be on the phone, I tell them beforehand: ‘I am going to be on the phone. I have to make a phone call. Do not bother me,’ ” Robinson said.

Richards-Jones suggests holding a family meeting if children are school age, or explaining to the smaller children that Mommy or Daddy has to talk on the phone for a while, and soon she will be off to play with them.

Or store quiet activities, such as games or coloring books near the telephone to distract the children.