The following excerpt, “Who’s Clueless?,” gives parents a guide to teen vernacular and the intricate vocabulary of texting. It is reprinted from Generation Text: Raising Well-Adjusted Kids in an Age of Instant Everything, by Dr. Michael Otis, with permission from AMACON.
Parents believe that teens have no idea about the real world. Teens believe their parents are the clueless ones. Both are partially correct. Parents certainly need to give their kids the tools to function successfully in “real” life. But to understand their kids, parents also need to learn as much as they can about their kids’ world. Keeping up with fads, decoding teen jargon, and understanding the user of technology at their kids’ disposal will help parents construct a bridge between them and their teenage kids.
Talking the Talk
Teenagers desperately want their parents to understand them. Their motivation for wanting to be understood is so that their parents will see the wisdom of their need for more freedom, and so they can validate their newfound identities as separate from their parents. To understand them, you should familiarize yourself with the typical lingo your kids use. Since teenager vernacular is such an important part of their identity, start by understanding their jargon. That is one of the first things I had [my patient] Marcy’s parents do.
I encouraged Marcy’s parents to ask her the meaning of any terminology that appeared to be “teen talk.” Teen talk might occur during carpooling conversations, telephone conversations, electronic communications, or while watching TV, listening to music lyrics, or looking at various forms of advertising media with your teenager. By doing this, Marcy’s parents sent a clear message that they wanted to understand more about her.
Speaking the language—or, at the very least—understanding the language—or teen subculture is important. The easiest way for parents to keep up with what’s current is to listen to their kids. They can also pay close attention to advertising, which quickly figures out and mimics the latest trends and fads for teenagers. I don’t recommend that parents use teen phraseology; it will seem contrived. What I do suggest is that parents understand teen vernacular so that when kids use phrases like “my bad,” “knocking boots,” “mad good,” “that’s whack,” and “baggin,” they can follow the conversation. When Marcy’s parents started asking her the meaning of specific teen slang phrases as she used them in conversation, it communicated a sincere attempt to understand her. They avoided using the slang, but it facilitated communication when she would say, “Mom, we were just kickin' at Josie’s house,” and her mom could reply, “Who was hanging out at Josie’s with you?”
Teenagers of every decade since the 1950s have used socially oriented slang. The major difference with Generation Text teens is that the jargon is not restricted to verbal conversation. There is a whole new addition to the spoken and written English language associated with the technology they use.