{"id":49529,"date":"2026-04-24T13:41:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T13:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/adopting-the-slang-of-my-gen-alpha-kids-took-me-from-being-an-outsider-to-someone-who-is-in-on-the-joke\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T13:41:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T13:41:12","slug":"adopting-the-slang-of-my-gen-alpha-kids-took-me-from-being-an-outsider-to-someone-who-is-in-on-the-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/adopting-the-slang-of-my-gen-alpha-kids-took-me-from-being-an-outsider-to-someone-who-is-in-on-the-joke\/","title":{"rendered":"Adopting the slang of my Gen Alpha kids took me from being an outsider to someone who is in on the joke"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69ea30213fecbb42897a326f?format=jpeg\" alt=\"A mother and child walk together in a courtyard.\"\/><figcaption>The author said her three kids (not shown) were all using Gen Alpha lingo when they spoke. She decided to join in so she could connect with them.<\/p>\n<p>Maskot\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>My three kids were speaking with a lingo that I could barely understand at times.<\/li>\n<li>As a millennial mom, I knew that joining in could help me connect with my Gen Alpha kids. <\/li>\n<li>Adopting their vocabulary has helped us connect in new ways. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>My fellow millennials will likely agree how bizarre it is that generational labels are so prevalent and such a hot topic of discussion these days. Growing up in the 90s, my peers and I were never categorized by birth years. We were just kids living without the constant comparisons or intense debates about generational discourse.<\/p>\n<p>Then came Gen Z and Gen Alpha, with their distinct fashion, digital habits, and, above all, a baffling (at least to me) new lingo. It was then that I realized I wasn&#039;t just a person. I was a millennial with a specific set of habits that are now considered, well, vintage.<\/p>\n<p>My three children, ages 12, 9, and 4, are all Generation Alpha. I often find myself living a double life. On one hand, I&#039;m trying to revive 90s trends for my kids, while on the other, I am desperately trying to decode the slang they use every day. Sometimes, it&#039;s a lot harder than I think it should be.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>I couldn&#039;t understand my own kids<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Initially, terms like &quot;<em>s<\/em>kibidi&#039; or &#039;sigma,&quot; frequently used by my sons, deeply annoyed me. I didn&#039;t know the meanings, and I worried they were forgetting how to speak properly. <br \/>The verbal sibling fights were full of &quot;stop the cap&quot; or &quot;you&#039;re cooked,&quot; and every conversation seemed to end with &quot;period.&quot; Even my 4-year-old was chanting memes like &quot;67,&quot; which I didn&#039;t recognize when I first heard it.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69ea1f7e3fecbb42897a31b5?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Ariba Mobin\"\/><figcaption>The author said that her kids&#039;s heavy use of Gen Alpha lingo made her worry if they would forget how to speak properly.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Ariba Mobin.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I checked in with my friends, also parents of Gen Alpha kids, and realized I wasn&#039;t alone. We were all experiencing the same &quot;brain rot&quot; terms and the resulting sensory overload. To our kids, this wasn&#039;t offensive; it was just how they talked. They simply dismissed our confusion with another term: a &quot;skill issue.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>These terms literally became their primary mode of communication, and my frustration grew. While we, too, had terms like LOL and OMG back in the day, I don&#039;t recall slang taking over 90% of our vocabulary. I feared my kids would lose their emotional depth and the ability to express themselves thoughtfully. I also felt left out, as I always hope to be their cool parent, but this linguistic barrier was making me feel stuck.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>I decided to embrace the Gen Alpha lingo to bond with the kids<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>In an attempt to connect with my kids, I decided to adopt their lingo. I hoped this would have a dual benefit. First, it would make our conversations more relatable. Secondly, I secretly hoped that if I started using the words, they would become &quot;cringe&quot; and my kids might naturally use them less.<\/p>\n<p>The adaptation wasn&#039;t easy, but it was certainly fun. Some words, like &quot;aura&quot; (which I learned is one&#039;s coolness factor) or &quot;clock it&quot; (noticing or finishing something), were easy to use. But most were terms with little logical connection to their original meanings, like &quot;cap&quot; (lying) or &quot;sus&quot; (suspicious), and I had to look them up.<\/p>\n<p>When I first used their terms, my kids were puzzled. Once, while eating ice cream, I casually told them that the flavor I chose that day was just &quot;mid.&quot; They looked at each other, smiling. The other day, I deliberately misused &quot;sigma<em>,&quot;<\/em> and they laughed so hard and said that I&#039;m being desperate to fit in. I immediately snapped back, telling them that making fun of their mom was &quot;not very sigma&quot; and gave them &quot;negative aura.&quot; We all ended up in splits.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>My plan worked<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Eventually, my efforts started showing positive results. My kids even began to guide me through their world. My middle son explained that the &quot;67&quot; meme was just another way of saying something is average, and he taught me to use the word &quot;twin&quot; for best friends.<\/p>\n<p>Now we are having deeper, more frequent conversations. The buzzwords haven&#039;t disappeared, but their power has definitely shifted. <br \/>The children realize that their lingo isn&#039;t a secret code anymore, and their mom can decipher it, too. As the charm of these words tapered off, a healthy balance was created, which I was content with. I&#039;m no longer worried that they are forgetting how to speak properly. I have realized that using this slang makes them feel cool, and I shouldn&#039;t try to completely strip that identity away. <br \/>Instead, I&#039;m focusing on shrugging off the harmless terms, gently disciplining the offensive ones, and staying in sync where we can. In the meantime, I&#039;m just happy to be part of the conversation.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The author said her three kids (not shown) were all using Gen Alpha lingo when they spoke. She decided to join in so she could connect with them. Maskot\/Getty Images My three kids were speaking with a lingo that I could barely understand at times. As a millennial mom, I knew that joining in could [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49530,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-49529","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}