As a Gen X parent, the things my teen and young adult kids fret about often surprise (and occasionally amuse) me. For instance, texting anyone older than them causes far more consternation than I would have expected.

I would have guessed that growing up with texting as a standard form of communication would make Gen Zers confident in it, but texting their elders often stresses them out. They know that Gen Xers and Boomers text differently than they do, but their generational habit of reading into text details makes those differences feel like a minefield of potential missteps and misunderstandings.

Thankfully, most of their fears are simply unfounded. Here’s the advice I gave them to help ease their worries:

Understanding the way different generations text is almost like learning different dialects of a language. To understand the differences, it’s important to first understand the ins and outs of how you communicate amongst your own people.

As Gen Zers, you grew up texting, which came with creating all kinds of slang and text-specific “rules” that aren’t part of the older generations’ dialect. Basically, Gen Z has assigned meaning and intention to words, emojis, and punctuation that simply does not extend up the texting age chain.

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That can be both problematic and beneficial when messaging with elders. On one hand, you can’t assume that Gen Xers and Boomers will understand the nuances of text........

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