How to crack your teen’s sneaky text codes

FOR parents who have only just learnt that in text- speak LOL means ‘laugh out loud’ and not ‘lots of love’ there may be some nasty shocks in store.

A guide to teenage internet slang reveals the steps they take to keep their messages secret. Several code terms they use have unwelcome and even potentially sinister meanings.

GNOC means ‘get naked on camera’, IWSN is ‘I want sex now’, and PAW ‘parents are watching’. The seemingly innocuous ‘do you want to Netflix and chill?’ is code for ‘do you want to come over and pretend to watch a film, but actually have sex?’.

The ParentInfo guide has been produced by the Department for Education, which hope it will help parents spot the signs of internet grooming by paedophiles. It lists LMIRL (‘let’s meet in real life’) and WYRN (‘what’s your real name’) – as examples that should cause alarm.

And parents will know there is something going on if they read KPC for ‘keep parents clueless’ or CD9, which means ‘parents are around’.

The guide, Developed by the National Crime Agency’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, also helps identify whether children are being encouraged to post sexually explicit material. The only problem is, as soon as parents have learnt all the terms, new ones will have been invented.

Julius Murray, 14, from Camden in North West London, told the Sunday Times: ‘Language is changing all the time. I reckon that soon everything will just be letters. If I was a parent, I would have a really hard time to keep up. Kids will definitely invent new ones if they don’t want their parents to understand.’

The guide, which will be made available through school websites, advises parents who find their child has been viewing pornography not to make them feel ‘naughty, grubby or in trouble’ and suggests they activate parental controls on gadgets.