Chat Language - Keep Your Eyes On It!

Are we acting as the notorious Big Brother if we want to check through our children's contacts on their mobile phones, IM chats or Facebook accounts?

My son recently had an internet safety session at school last week which highlighted the frightening prevalence of all kinds of dangers, from bullying (which has allegedly recently resulted in four teen suicides at one regional high school), to pedophelia and other undesirable results.

It really is a virtual world out there, and one that is almost impossible to control, patrol or regulate. Unfortunately, there is a whole new language known by kids, and anybody else who is au fait with the latest in communication technology.

Some of the terms are intentionally keeping parents unaware of what the children might really be up to. I will hazard a guess that many parents aren't even aware of the languages out there Here are a few words from this internet language vocabulary of which there are many variations & even simply symbols in place of words:

• pos = parents over shoulder
• ftbomh = from the bottom of my heart
• (()):** = hugs & kisses
• irl = in real life

There are a whole lot out there...you should check it out. There's even a text or chat language conversion site!

Hmm this may be useful...but don't tell the kids!

Teach Your Children

Why are we so embarrassed to teach our children anything formally? Neither of us are teachers, yet our children do look to us as teachers although they may not see it that way.

This morning, we made an effort to sit down as a family and share a book written by a well known family psychologist - Dr James Dobson - called Preparing for Adolescence. I pulled it out of a drawer where it had lain unread for many years this week while I had been in bed with flu. I did a speed read and discovered it's actually written TO pre-teens and teens, not to parents.

That said, the information I read was like discovering gold to me. I so wish I knew back then what I know now. Dr Dobson asks why do parents keep their own stories and examples from their own children? My reason is that I didn't realise how common the problems teenagers face growing up actually are, or how the manifestations of different behaviours are linked. We're not all psychologists are we?

It's amazing, I thought till very recently, that I was the unusual one. I was shy, bullied, felt insecure, uncoordinated and probably experienced many other problems I thankfully have forgotten for now. It is apparently normal for most if not all adolescents to go through all of these and more! This has spurred us to action!

We have three children at a different point in the teen years, one entering, one in the middle, and one towards the end. I think this book will help us approach and maybe even begin to solve some of the problems we have been experiencing in our family for some time.

It seems to be an answer to prayer really.