Decoding Da Kid

What’s your child talking about online?

By Sybil A. Clark

Our children live in the internet age. Nearly every home has a computer (or two or three). Kids today aren’t spending hours chatting with a friend on the phone. They are having multiple conversations with multiple people all at the same time, on the computer.

Instant messaging allows our kids to talk with one, five, ten or more other kids simultaneously. Chat rooms are filled with whoever shows up.

With concerns from internet predators to drugs to sexual concerns, conversations about dangerous issues are occurring online.

There are many computer programs a parent can install on their computer to block out websites or certain words from e-mails. There are programs that will record every keystroke, every website, and pictures of what your teen is looking at online. While surveillance programs can capture information, they cannot interpret it.

Your teen will communicate online in four ways: (1) regular English – get a dictionary if you don’t understand the word, (2) condensed English – leaves out all unnecessary vowels and consonants, capitals are for “hard” sounds, sound it out phonetically and you’ll understand the word, (3) acronyms – one letter represents a words, multiple letters together represent a phrase, (4) emoticons, aka smileys – where keystroke symbols are put together to visually look like something (an emotion, a person, a body part!).

Kids today have invented their very own shorthand. Just like the court reporter, the stenographer or administrative assistant, they have developed a way to write their messages quickly. The goal is to write as fast as you can talk to keep the conversation moving in real time.

Teens have created a way to abbreviate words, sentences and feelings. This is done through the use of acronyms and emoticons (emotions + icons = emoticons). Most teens have a limited vocabulary of acronyms and emoticons that are used within a friendship group or in the chat rooms they frequent. For parents to understand what is going on they must understand the acronyms and emoticons their child uses.

One way to figure out what your child’s acronyms and emoticons mean is to do a web search for it. The other option is to read it in print.

Looking for some examples of online Acronyms & Emoticons?
Here are just a few...

• CDIWY Can't do it without you
• B%Z Booze
• BOHICA Bend over here it comes again
• BTSOOM Beats the sh** out of me
• A/S/L Age, Sex, Location?
• SBB Stupid beyond belief
• ROTFLOLPMP Rolling on the floor, laughing out loud, peeing my pants
• GMAFB Give me a f**king break
• MOS Mother over shoulder
• TYMBI Thought you might be interested
• X Kiss
• XTC Ecstasy

• :*D Drunk
• .Y. Flat breasts
• %*@:-( Hung over
• :-...... Heart-broken
• :-) < Slut
• L-) Loser
• >:-< Angry