Dear Dr. Laura,
My husband and I have always respected our daughter’s privacy. I did briefly read her diary once when she was ten, but that’s pretty much it. Last week, she was rushing to work and left her phone on the kitchen counter. Her phone kept on beeping so I had a quick glance and I couldn’t believe my eyes – the GRAMMAR IN HER SEXTS WERE ATROCIOUS!
My husband and I are both English teachers and have done our best to raise her right. We made sure she did her homework every night. She won the school spelling bee competition in Grade 8 and a class haiku competition in Grade 9. Now she’s on her phone inviting “too guys to come over while my parents are out of town and tea-bag me.” “Too guys,” not “two guys.” “Tea-bag,”not “teabag.” Another message said, “Your (not you’re) going to love my racing stripe.” I don’t care if she’s dashing off a quick message because she promised to let the football team run a train on her, we have a zero-typo policy in this family! My husband and I have been distraught all week.
Where did we go wrong? We don’t know what to do and how to confront her. Please help!
Signed,
A Concerned Mom
Dear A Concerned Mom,
I get asked about this all the time so please know that you are not alone. One minute your little girl is winning the school spelling bee, the next minute her sexts make her look she’s never read a book in her life. Bad grammar and typos in sexting are very common amongst teens. In most cases, teens sext during situations when they don’t have time to proofread.
Encourage her to make a sexting schedule so that she’s not feeling rushed. Advise her to write as many sexts as she can before she goes to bed and to save them in her drafts. When she wakes up the next morning, get her to edit them at breakfast or on the way to school so that all she has to do is hit send.
It’s also important to remember that sexting is the modern-day version of a harlequin romance novel on a phone. Compliment her on her creative writing skills. Let’s look at the sentence where “she’s inviting too guys to come over when you and your husband are away and tea-bag her.” Does she misspell the word two and hyphenate the word teabag” Yes. However, she’s also using imagery and descriptive language by using the word teabag. She does the same thing again when she likens the style of her wax job to a racing stripe. Clever!
I know that you and your husband are startled by your daughter’s grammar, but her coherence and flow are on point. It sounds like her spelling is the real problem. She may be in a place where reading her sexts out loud may help her catch typos and errors.
Don’t worry, she’ll be fine.
Signed,
Dr. Laura