Deciphering "Netspeak"

It's important to know what our children are doing online. Many parents feel as though if it's online and not face-to-face that it's safe, but lots of internet activity affects our children emotionally, affects other young people, and can also lead to something that can be dangerous. Its crucial that parents monitor their children's social network accounts from time to time. Who are they interacting with? What kind of language are they using? What plans are they making? Are they communicating with strangers? Is there bullying going on?

The problem is that some of us have no idea what young people are saying online. Teens have an internet language of their own, "Netspeak", and if parents aren't versed in the language, we may miss important opportunities to intervene.

If you saw "OMG" or "LOL" ("Oh my God" and "Laugh out loud") those are pretty innocent, but what if you saw "TDTM" or "P911"? Do you know what they mean? If not, what would you do? I tell parents to google search the terms they don't know. And, if you did you'd learn that "TDTM" means "talk dirty to me" and "P911" stands for "parents watching".

It's not snooping. It's monitoring and it's important because our job in raising our preteens and teens is to help guide our young people in the right direction, and as their prefrontal cortex continues to develop, sometimes we need to be the voice of reason and logic to keep them safe, happy and successful.