By Serene Goh , Assistant Editor

YOUR 12-year-old might be married - perhaps even twice divorced. He could be 'poking' a classmate; and that classmate, 'poking' back. They may do it several times a day.

Others out there might 'tea bag' a fellow gamer to shut him up, or go 'cam-whoring' in public loos. All the cool kids are doing it.

Don't worry, the marriages are virtual; the pokes too. Ditto the allusions to sex acts that cannot be described in this family paper.

Cam-whoring? Don't be alarmed, it only means taking great joy in posing for pictures taken by your friends.

Welcome to the slang of youth today.

With so many phrases rooted in innuendo, it stands to reason that a young person exposed to them might get curious about what they mean. But when poking, hooking up, getting hitched and flirting are all done at a click, it is hard for anyone to keep up with what is appropriate, or figure out if a child even understands the talk.

Perhaps they do. And if they don't, parents and teachers will be the last people they would ask. They would choose, instead, www.urbandictionary.com, where definitions of youth vernacular are updated as quickly as new words are coined - and by those who appear to be the world's most puerile authors.

So a child of the Friendster-Facebook-Twitter generation, long before he is even issued an identity card, already has access to a carnal vocabulary. Unfortunately, these words don't come with a values dictionary. It is not quite the early start educators had in mind, to be sure.

Still the Digital Age lexicon does shed light on why the youth of Singapore have become more permissive in their attitudes towards sex.

The online environment, where they spend most of their time, equates promiscuity with popularity. There is no reward for abstinence. Sex doesn't come with disease or abortions. Sex isn't criminal. And of course, they learn quickly to talk dirty.

The chief executive officer of voluntary welfare organisation Ain Society, Mr Md Yusof Ismail, rightly observed in a recent report in this newspaper about underage girls having sex: 'In the past virginity was an honour...now, if you are still a virgin at 15, you are not attractive.'

But the issue goes deeper. Not only is the big 'it' not particularly worth the wait, many have already reduced its value to that of a blogshop transaction.

Virginity, in fact, has become a commodity, open for bidding on eBay, to be exchanged for a bold adult image. They call it 'popping the cherry', and regard it as a shedding of childish ways.

As a parent, you might be panicking just about now. Fingers that used to wag at television for wreaking havoc on the young are now pointing at the Internet.

Who is to blame?

Someone, anyone. Why can't teachers do more? Educate our children better?

Well, here's news: Teachers are human. They can only do so much. How can they be made responsible for what kids are up to online, with everything else we expect of them?

How about getting the police involved, then - have them enforce the law?

Sure, forces are already gearing up to battle criminals engaged in sex with underage girls.

But if the statistics are to be believed, the perpetrators are more than likely to be teenage boys whose girlfriends could have initiated the sex. If you're planning to catch them, you'll need whistleblowers on round-the-clock patrol.

There is the other option: programmes and talks to address the social-emotional development of children.

If these reduce teenage sex, it will be a thing worth celebrating. It will also go down in history as the first time that teenagers anywhere did what adults told them to do.

Some experts advise that we should not over-react. The worst thing that guardians can do is forbid children to go online or visit social networking sites. Besides, even if your child does not visit such sites, his peers would and they would refer to them constantly.

Children don't want to be preached at either. Instead, researchers suggest teaching children digital literacy, including how to behave as online citizens, as soon as they start using the Internet.

And, oh, there is no way around this: Parents must be involved; they cannot outsource this to others.

In her research on the role of the new media in the dating and romance practices of American teens, Dr C. J. Pascoe of the Institute for the Study of Social Change with the Digital Youth Project at the University of California, Berkeley, says the healthy shaping of a teenager's identity relies on parental involvement.

Most well-rounded teens who are savvy online, she said in a 2007 interview with PBS Frontline, had parents who knew about their online profiles and frequently discussed their activities with their parents. The parents knew who their kids were - online and off.

It's that kind of talk which we most need. Talking about sex is a discussion about values, after all, a job that cannot be delegated to teachers or law-enforcement officers. If we are to cultivate in our young an internal barometer that tells them when something is not right, then parents must step up.

Shaping the values of children offline must begin with parents developing an understanding of how youths operate online.

Why not start by paying close attention to how they talk, what they are saying, what sort of behaviour they think is cool? Casually chat with them over an episode of the Gossip Girls. Get them to say exactly what they are doing, who they are doing it with, and why. Understand the words they use.

If they are talking the talk, it's likely they'll soon be walking it too.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.