Do your children do XTC? When you’ve gone to bed at night, does your teen GNOC? Is a your child’s boyfriend or girlfriend pestering to meet up with your child “46”? Are strangers on the Internet asking your child WYRN?
You may not know what any of these acronyms are, and teens would prefer to keep things that way. After all, this is not a new idea: kids have long known that it’s easier to fool parents and hide drug use and sexual activity when by using a secret language. But that doesn’t mean you can’t decode this language. In the video above, I explain to Katie Couric what this secret language is, how teens chat online and via text message, and how you can decode these messages.