Remember the lingo you used in the hall or at the mall with your friends? It was your very own language that adults didn't get -- just kids.

Well, now a new generation is upon us and they are on the Internet. Parents are having a tough time cracking the code they use online, Philadelphia television station WCAU reported.

Sarah Barrett and Meaghan McLaughlin, both 12 years old, showed the station a couple of examples of Internet lingo widely used by children.

"POS -- parent over shoulder," Barrett explained.

"CTN -- can't talk now," Meaghan said.

"If you say it in school, word can get around, but if you say it on computer, it's with you and another person," said Page O'Malley, 12.

Parents generally don't have a clue.

"I'm not very familiar with it, not at all," said Russ Barrett, Sarah's father.

You could call it Internet chatter or phone text messaging. It is a secret code that kids say makes it easy to have a quick conversation. But is it dangerous?

"(The) only time (they) need to worry about code words is when (their) parents (are) over (their) shoulder," said Parry Aftab, an Internet safety expert.

TOS means teacher over shoulder, SOS stands for sibling over shoulder and SAW means siblings are watching.

Aftab said that certain abbreviations are warning signs that your child doesn't want you to know what he or she is talking about.

"I often use G2G -- got to go -- or BRB -- be right back," Sarah said.

There are hundreds of codes, and some are more shocking than others, such as:

ASL: Age, Sex, Location
NIFOC: Nude in front of the computer
TDTM: Talk dirty to me

Learning the lingo is step one in knowing what your child is doing.

Step two is knowing who your child is talking to. Check the buddy list for names.

"If kids are allowed to wander online in unlimited fashion, it's not defined, they get bored, they'll get into trouble," Aftab said.

Trouble can mean an online predator or simply two classmates engaging in racy conversation.

"We were reluctant in the beginning. She's the last of her friends to get a computer. So far, so good," Barrett said.

The girls told the station that they think children should have their privacy, but they do have blockers on their computers.

"If someone keeps talking to you that you don't know, you can block them -- send a warning. If they keep talking, it will sign them off immediately," Sarah said.

Andrew is a TeenAngel, a group of young people trained by the FBI in Internet safety. He said that parents shouldn't police their kids, but they should pay attention to behavior changes.

"They'll be different, act nervous, attitude change -- you'll know something is wrong," Andrew said.

Those personality changes are a red flag that all their online chatter may be with the wrong type of person.

"It's not really about knowing everything they are saying. It's knowing, bottom line, that they won't do anything that will put them in danger," Aftab said.

Related Resources:

Internet Lingo Interpreted

NetLingo.com. Enter an acronym and find out what it means.

List of Acronyms and Shorthand

Parenthood.com: Chat Room Lingo

Parenthood.com: Keeping Kids Safe on the Internet: Warning Signs

AcronymsOnline.com