How to be a blud* with your child
PARENTS struggling to understand teenagers have long suspected their offspring speak another language.
And now it has been confirmed after experts revealed the generation gap is not due to differing attitudes, so much as different vocabularies.
In order to bridge this domestic divide they have devised a jargon-buster to help mothers and fathers communicate with their children.
The charity Parentline Plus has launched the online guide which translates common street slang – or “teenglish” – into plain English.
It is designed to help adults stay “tight”, or close, to their children.
The glossary was launched on www.gotateenager.org.uk after months of consultation with youngsters and their parents.
The idea is to assist parents to understand terms such as “bedrin” meaning mates, “endz” (neighbourhood) and “murk”, which means to kill or injure.
Creator Nikola Mann realised how easy it was to become out of touch as she worked on the site.
“The jargon-buster is light-hearted and fun, but it was actually something parents asked us for when we were designing the site,” she said.
“Parents were struggling to understand their children and they wanted to know what words used by their teenagers actually meant.
“One of the main messages we’re trying to get across is that the key to a good relationship between parents and teenagers is communication and the jargon-buster is all about improving that.”
The site also hopes to give the likes of Facebook a run for its money by giving the parents of teenagers the chance to chat online and support one another.
The website also contains information on subjects such as drugs and alcohol. An online comic book is used to deal with issues such as sex, bullying, personal boundaries, health, school, and self-confidence.
* = that's mate in teenglish
