For three weeks, my teenager and every friend in earshot said "six-seven" to each other — about nothing. A shrug. A punchline with no setup. I finally asked what it meant. The answer: basically nothing. And somehow, everything.
I'll admit it — I let it go longer than I should have. "Six-seven." I heard it at the dinner table, in the car, over the phone to a friend. No context. No explanation. Just this phrase, dropped like a password I didn't have.
So I asked. Not with an eye-roll, not with the tired parental sigh of "what are you kids even saying anymore" — just genuine curiosity. Turns out it doesn't mean anything. It's a viral nonsense phrase, the kind of inside joke an entire generation somehow agrees on overnight, for no reason anyone can fully explain. My teen actually laughed explaining it to me — mostly because I asked, and because I wasn't trying to shut it down or prove it was dumb.
Here's what struck me afterward. Thomas Mann, the German novelist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929, once wrote: "Order and simplification are the first step toward mastery of a subject — the actual enemy is unknown." He wasn't really writing about parenting. But he might as well have been.
Our kids develop their own language, their own rituals, their own social physics we weren't issued a manual for. Their friends can seem strange and often smell funny. Their humor can seem baffling. And it is tempting to treat all of that as noise to tune out, or worse, as something to correct. But Mann's insight cuts the other way: the enemy was never the phrase, the friend group, or the ritual. The enemy is not knowing it. You cannot fight, correct, or guide what you refuse to understand.
This doesn't mean becoming your teenager's best friend or approving of everything they love. You are allowed to mightily disapprove of the friend group, the phrase, the trend. Disapproval and understanding are not opposites — you can hold both. What breaks connection isn't disagreement. It's distance. It's leaving their world "unknown" because engaging with it feels tedious, cringey, or beneath you.
Get curious instead. Ask what the phrase means. Ask who that friend is and why they matter. Order and simplify their world in your own mind, the way Mann described — not to become like them, but so their world stops being foreign territory. Once you know it, you can actually parent inside it. You can set the boundary, hold the line, have the hard conversation — because now it's not a fight against the unknown. It's a conversation with someone you know.
And that's exactly where boundaries get harder, not easier. The closer you get, the more your teen will test what you'll allow — because closeness invites pushback. Knowing their world doesn't mean giving up every limit; it means you can hold the limit without becoming the very "unknown, unreachable enemy" you just worked to stop being. That's what Power of No (Teen Edition) was built for — clear, calm language to say no to a teenager you actually understand, without the relationship cracking under the weight of it. Find it at dinnercommander.com.
Tonight's Briefing
Ask about one phrase or trend you don't understand — no correcting, no eye-rolling, just "what does that mean?"
Let them explain it fully before reacting, even if your honest reaction is "that's ridiculous."
Name one friend you don't know well and ask a real question about them at dinner tonight.
Separate disapproval from distance — you can dislike something and still stay close to the person who likes it.
Practice one boundary conversation this week using calm, clear language instead of frustration.
Every family eats. Not every family bothers to learn the language.
Tonight's Table Question
What's a phrase, joke, or trend your friends are into right now that you're sure I wouldn't get?
This Week's Challenge
Pick one slang term, trend, or inside joke your teen has used this month that you don't fully understand. Ask them to explain it to you completely — no judgment, just curiosity — for five minutes at dinner this week. You'll know you've done it when you can explain it back to them correctly.
Execute the Mission
Staying curious about your teen's world doesn't happen by accident — it happens because you decided the unknown wasn't going to win.
Join the growing community of families at dinnercommander.com who are:
Reclaiming dinner as sacred family time
Building unbreakable connection through conversation
Creating protective factors for mental and family health
Raising kids who actually want to spend time together
If you find value in this or know of someone who could really use these tips, please forward this newsletter to them and invite them to join our community too!
The families who stay curious now are the ones whose teenagers still show up at their table in ten years.
Crafting Connection, One Dinner at a Time!
P.S.
P.S. — What's the strangest phrase or trend your kid has thrown at you lately? Hit reply and tell me — I read every one.
— Chaps