Sexting Code List Is Useless at Best
I know many teachers and parents live in fear of the Sexting epididemic. It is scary to think that your child or your students are participating in dangerous or risky behavior. It’s their job to stress us out and our job to worry about them.
However I think the risky texting fear is getting out of hand. The people at Fox News put up a list of the secrect teenage text language to try to exploit your fear and anxiety (I know you’re shocked).
If you follow the link you will see some familar lingo such as l33t meaning elite and some terms that I think someone made up for this story such as FOL as in fond of leather. Some of the specifics of the terms listed sound more like terms of creepy AOL Chatrooms than texts between teens. This is the kind of stuff that local news casts use to keep you watching and parent sites use for linkbait. At best it is annoying, but it is often just making a confusing thing more confusing.
Luckily the people the good people at Fox News are able to shine some light on what’s reallying going on with a more recent article, Secret Sex-Message Codes Your Teen Is Using — or Probably Not. It’s way more likely that kids are coming up with their own terms and acronyms amongst their friends than anything else. Most likely there isn’t some secret sexting language, but rather some kids being risky in their own way.
Like with anything there is no list or magic parenting bullet that will keep your kids chaste and pure. You’re going to have to go incognito as their parent or trusted adult and do what you think is best.
No one said this was going to be easy.
