Rather than hinder, text message "shorthand" may in fact help youngsters to improve their literary skills.

This was the conclusion of research carried out by Bev Plester, a psychologist at Coventry University. She told British Psychological Society in London that this evidence supported the conclusion that texting can actually increase children's literacy awareness and linguistic creativity.

"There is no evidence to link text messaging among children to a poorer ability in standard English, and those children who were the best at using textisms were also found to be the better spellers and writers,” she said.

For parents who want to join in the banter, a variety of online texting dictionaries exist where they can go and learn the lingo