THE ETIQUETTE, apparently, is strict: no one attempts to "get off" at a disco unless permission has been granted. Among younger teenagers, this is generally arranged by friends.

If someone fancies "getting off" with someone, their friends approach the object of desire. If he or she is agreeable, the pair proceed to the disco floor and French kiss each other for as long as they can keep breathing or until the music stops.

They might never have met before, might never meet again, but for that brief moment, will enjoy an enthusiastic bout of what one mother describes as "tonsil tennis".

Some kids can't wait to do it; others won't go to discos because they're edgy about the whole thing. And it's certainly a hot topic of conversation wherever parents of young teenagers meet. French kissing (for that is what "getting off" is) generally had greater sexual significance when most of today's thirty and fortysomethings were growing up - it wasn't something you'd do with a complete stranger. (You'd probably let the relationship ripen by a few hours, if not a few days, before getting down to "getting off".)

So parents worry: are kids getting involved in sexual activity too soon? If "getting off" is the big thrill at 13, what will they do for kicks by the time they're sweet 16?

Or is it no big deal, as kids will tell you if you ask?

A generation of parents who may have grown up laughing at pulpit warnings about "close dancing" may now find that they're the ones who have to shout "stop".

Nick Killian, spokesman for the National Parents' Council (Post Primary) see his picture on page 5 has a ringside view of the courtship rituals of today's young teens. He helps organise teenage discos every six weeks in his own neighbourhood, and says "one of the problems we have is how to control the `getting off' end of it. We have two or three people in the hall to step in if things get too passionate."

Nick, 46, reckons that "getting off" is this generation's equivalent of dance floor "lurching" that he remembers from his days of going to tennis hops. But he confesses, "I was a bit taken aback to realize that `getting off' is seen as a completely normal part of the night."

The committee with which he is involved has been organising discos for a few years now, and has worked out a set of rules to ensure that they are properly run: essentially, it aims to make sure that "getting off" doesn't get out of hand, as it were.

It allows "getting off", defined by Killian as "this boy/girl thing where they'll start deep French kissing and petting each other on the dance floor. But we have two or three people in the hall to stop a couple if things are getting too passionate, if hands start roaming."

In Nick Killian's experience 12 and 13 year olds are experimenting and there's an element of dare. "You'll see lads daring friends over how long they can do it for some get up to five minutes. But at 14, it can get serious."

GROUND RULES at the discos mean heavy petting is out. "If we find kids sitting on each other's laps in dark corners, see a hand slipping into a blouse, we step in. One of the ladies on our committee has no hesitation about breaking things up." At their discos, children must stay inside - so they can't slip out to resume "getting off".

Since "getting off" is a feature of slow dances, they can also keep control of activity through the music. "We always have the same DJ, and he'll know when to flip a record so we can stop things getting too steamy without creating a brouhaha."

The dilemma for his committee, he reckons, is whether to put on a disco at all, and let all this sexual activity happen in a controlled setting - or whether to leave kids to their own devices, socialising in parks and other public places, away from anyone's control.

Certainly the only reason, he says, to run a disco is for the sake of the kids: apart from monitoring "getting off", they have to be vigilant for the kids who'll try to smuggle alcohol into a disco in lemonade bottles, or the potential for fights between lads from different villages - obviously a problem in rural more than in urban discos. After paying for a DJ and insurance, there's certainly little profit in running a teen disco.

Killian has three teenagers of his own, and only allows them to go to the discos he's involved in. He's amazed at the number of parents who simply deliver and collect their young teenagers at discos, no questions asked.

Parents, he says, should find out if discos are properly run. For example, a minimum of six adults is needed to handle the door and monitor what's going on the dance floor, he says. His policy as a parent would be to arrive half an hour early to collect kids and have a look around, whether a child liked it or not; he welcomes parents into his discos.

In the end, he estimates, perhaps only to per cent of the kids at a disco "get off". "You still have the boy or girl who's shy, who'll sit on a chair all night, or only dance to the fast numbers, where kids just mill around in groups.

"Getting off" 1990s style seems to be a newish phenomenon, and adults are a bit confused about its significance. However, teachers such as Eve Roche, a religion coordinator at CBC Monkstown, Co Dublin; Richie Keane, one of the founders of the IFPA's sex advice line for teens, and sex therapist Mary O'Conor feel that "getting off" on the disco floor does not lead to further sexual experimentation among young teenagers.

But Mary O'Conor, a sex therapist and relationships counsellor at the Albany Clinic, would worry less about the effect of it all on the confident, gregarious teenager than on the "little ones who might find this all a bit too much" - those who feel pressured by peers into something they're not ready for. A bad experience of something intimate like French kissing early on might seem a little thing, but can cause problems in later life, she warns.

What can parents do? The answer, it seems, is to reassure children that they shouldn't "get off" if they're not comfortable about it. And, Mary O'Conor says, you might slow them down by not letting them go to discos when they're still very young "and not emotionally developed".