It may be shocking to parents just how foreign the written IM language can be. It may also be surprising to see the intensity of the words written by these young teenagers, but it is important to realize that instant messaging tends to remove inhibitions and promote the use of extreme emotions in a casual manner.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children publishes a pamphlet that tests parents’ knowledge of IM abbreviations . There are also websites such as IMHut.com and NetLingo.com that provide dictionary-style interpretation. Periodically, parents of teens should update their knowledge of their kids’ spoken and written vernacular.
The right to privacy is a delicate issue with teens. I am particularly sensitive to it with the patients with whom I work. But to keep teens safe—and I don’t just mean emotionally safe—monitoring Internet activity is extremely important. Initially Marcy felt that her parents were being invasive. We had many discussions about how the Internet, mass media, and her friends were influencing her. As they came up in our discussions, I was able to educate her about the cultural barrage or messages that she had to sift through. Once I empathized with how difficult and overwhelming it was for her and other teenagers, Marcy became more receptive to working on changes with her parents. We began to distinguish the cultural messages that were positive and negative influences on her. After a while she told me that she realized her parents’ involvement in general, and even their monitoring of her Internet use, made her feel that they cared enough to try to understand her.