Yeah, your kids should be quite and respectful... but in the real world sometimes that isn't going to happen because, well, they're kids. It just takes one time to make you feel a little uneasy about being on the phone during an important conference call.

I have three of them and luckily I don't need to be on the phone much, but my ultimate plan is to build a detached home office. Not a solution for everyone, but if you have the land and skills you can do it yourself with very little cost when you factor the value it adds to your home.

This article also points out a couple other bonuses, mainly that it gives you a physical divide between home and work, which I think is a hard problem for anyone that works at home.

http://shedblog.historicshed.com/2008/12/perfect-home-office...

My parents would just banish us outside for the afternoon if we got noisy.

Sound proofing is a possibility, but disciplining his kids for being too noisy? Having four kids myself, I'm busting up laughing picturing them sitting quietly around a table doing 'quiet things.'

Kids need to make noise - it's good for their development.