JUDY GRUEN is frustrated because, rather than chatting with her, her teenage sons are texting friends while doing their geometry homework and discussing Talmudic Aramaic at the dinner table.

This is, admittedly, a problem more common among boys than girls, and it was no hyperbole for the Talmud to state that there were ten measures of speech given, nine of which were given to women! (If you need any proof, watch your daughter's rapid-fire talk on her cell phone.) I have had this problem also. I have watched several sons attached by the ear to an iPod, texting endless messages to friends and doing geometry homework, all at the same time. Apparently, the dictum "Say little and do much" is one they have taken to heart.

But how do we break through that classic "strong but silent" persona? How can a mom who isn't fluent in Dodger talk have a conversation with a teen that will last longer than it takes to even utter the word "con-ver-sa-tion"? One night, as I watched one son laboring over a book of Talmud, I had an idea.

Family dinner conversations were increasingly laced with halachic references and "Talmud-speak." My public high school didn't offer Aramaic as a second language, so I felt as if I almost needed subtitles in my own kitchen. I began cribbing notes when my boys tossed off various Talmudic references, and paid close attention to the disputations at hand. After about a month of furtive note-taking and my own research, I launched Operation Confabulation – one mother's attempt to wrest recalcitrant repartee from her beloved son.

Give 'em a break, Judy, and count your blessings. All parents should have your problems. But you do get points for trying to meet them on their own ground.