Teen message boards: entertainment, socialization and danger in a single venue

Today, virtually all of our kids participate in teen message boards. Many parents aren't hip to the texting acronyms teens use to communicate. How about GAL? That's get a life. The text language is huge and as a parent, you may not delve into the entire dictionary of this online language. You may be well aware of the teen message board your child frequents on a daily basis.

If you've got a good relationship with your kid, you may even be invited, or allowed to peruse that message board's contents. When you do get a gander of the interchanges, it may seem on the surface to be fairly meaningless in terms of communication. Kids post some texting acronyms, followed by a smiley face icon. Someone responds with content that seems to lack substance or posing any threatening or predatory message. OK. So you think that while these teen message boards aren't exactly educational, they're not inherently bad either.

Making a good assessment of the message board your teen finds captivating requires that you look below the surface and gain a better understanding of the new language of acronyms. You should also take a look at the screen names of posters. Some are out and out scandalous, which should give you pause. That poster whose screen name is 'superstud' or 'blondebombshell' may be some insecure kid looking to make an impression with other posters. On the other hand, at the risk of seeming too much of a fuddy-duddy or paranoid parent figure, that poster can be ghosting as a teen looking for friends and in fact be one of those nasty and dangerous predators we hear so much about on the news.

Make your own investigation into the teen message board your child finds so fascinating. Go online and lurk. You might even want to register and put out a few posts of your own. See who responds and how. See how the message board is monitored. A well-managed teen message board has an adult moderator on duty, 24/7, to be sure that posters aren't of the manipulative sort, luring unsuspecting teens into potentially dangerous situations.

However, almost all of these message boards allow PM, or private messaging. A poster with less than honorable intentions, might capture the attention of an innocent teen, with largely innocent postings. However, the private messaging may contain much more explicit invitations which are not monitored by a moderator. It's all left up to the discretion of the teen user.

Teen message boards can be a legitimate source of entertainment and socializing for teens. However, no matter how carefully you monitor, as a parent, you can never be sure if danger lurks. Guarding your child can be tough. Maintaining a sense of trust is perhaps your best weapon against potential harm.