S05|20 - How to Talk to Your Kids About Sex with Amy Lang
Nov 28, 2022WARNING: this episode may not be suitable for young listeners. We talk openly about sexual content.
Talking to your kids about the birds & bees can be really uncomfortable. And most people dread the idea of having “THE TALK”… but it doesn’t have to be this way!
My guest, Amy Lang had been a sex educator for over 16 years when she freaked out about talking to her young son about her favorite topic.
Surprised by her discomfort with just the idea of talking with her young son about his body, she knew she needed help. Amy did a bunch of research to learn how to talk with kids about bodies and sexuality and realized she could help other parents with this important part of parenting.
Amy combined her expertise in adult education and her love of sexual health and started Birds & Bees & Kids in 2006. Her mission is to help parents feel comfortable and confident when they have these important conversations.
Through her books, classes, online solutions center, and podcast Amy has helped 1000’s of parents around the world become their kids’ go-to birds and bees source.
In this episode you’ll learn:
- What age to start talking to your little kids about sex
- Why it’s so important to regularly talk to your kids throughout childhood about sex
- How to get over the initial awkwardness and what types of things should be included in conversations around sexuality
- How to teach your family values while teaching sexuality
- Where to start in sex conversations, if these talks haven’t been part of your family culture so far (and why it’s an important responsibility of parenthood)
Links and Resources from this episode (the ones mentioned in this episode are in bold)
Website: Birds & Bees & Kids
- Just Say This Podcast
IG: @birdsbeeskids
FB: @birdsbeeskids
Books linked here.
Resources for parents and caregivers:
Sex Talks with Tweens: What to Say & How to Say It
Birds & Bees & YOUR Kids: A Guide to Sharing Your Beliefs about Sexuality, Love & Relationships
Birds & Bees Talk:
- It’s NOT the Stork (4 - 6)
- It’s SO Amazing (4 - 11)
- It’s Perfectly Normal (11+ - and you if you are feeling rusty!)
- The Every Body Book: LGBTQ+ Inclusive Guide for Kids about Sex, Gender, Bodies, and Families
Puberty
- Will Puberty Last My Whole Life? - for everyone
- Celebrate Your Body (puberty only) - for girls
- Guy Stuff (puberty only) - for boys
Porn Education
- Good Pictures Bad Pictures, Jr. (5 - 8)
- Good Pictures Bad (9+)
Body safety
- I Can Play it Safe (4 - 7)
- C is for Consent (4 - 8)
- Consent for Kids (8+)
Kid-safe videos
Monitoring and Filtering
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Episode Transcript
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Hello. You may have noticed the content warning in the show notes at the beginning of this episode. I just wanted to warn you that this episode is not for kids; this episode is for adults.
So, if your little kids are listening in, you might want to pause it and just come back to it later. We do talk about several explicit things as what we're digging into is healthy sexuality. So, there's a lot of things that we're going to be talking about here.
I think it's really important to be having these conversations with your kids, but I would rather you listen to it first and decide how you want to talk to them about it. This one is specifically for adults, so I just wanted to put out that warning first.
Hopefully, this episode is helpful for you. And if you have any other questions, feel free to reach out to me or to Amy on Instagram.
Hi, I'm Crystal The Parenting Coach. Parenting is the thing that some of us just expected to know how to do. It's not like other areas of your life where you go to school to be taught, get on the job training, or have mentors to help you learn. Now, you can get that help here.
I believe that your relationship with your children is one of the most important aspects of your life, and the best way that you can make a positive impact on the world and on the future. I've made parental relationships my life study, and use life coaching tools with connection-based parenting to build amazing relationships between parents and their children.
If you want an even better relationship with your child, this podcast will help you. Take my Parenting Quiz, the link is in the show notes. Once we know what your parenting style is, I'll give you some tips tailored to you and a roadmap to help you get the most out of my podcast. I invite you to help me spread the word by sharing your favorite episode on social media or with a friend.
What Amy Lang does and how she got started
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Welcome to today's episode, How to Talk to Your Kids About Sex with Amy Lang.
Talking to your kids about "the birds and bees" can be really uncomfortable. And most people dread the idea of having "THE TALK"… but it doesn’t have to be this way!
My guest, Amy Lang had been a sex educator for over 16 years when she freaked out about talking to her young son about her favorite topic.
Surprised by her discomfort with just the idea of talking to him about his body, she knew she needed help. She did a bunch of research to learn how to talk with kids about bodies and sexuality and realized she could help other parents with this important part of parenting also.
Amy combined her expertise in adult education and her love of sexual health and started Birds & Bees & Kids in 2006. Her mission is to help parents feel comfortable and confident when they have these important conversations.
Through her books, classes, online solutions center, and podcast Amy has helped thousands of parents around the world become their kids' go-to "birds and bees" source.
All right. Hello, Amy. Welcome to The Parenting Coach Podcast.
Amy Lang: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk to you, and thank you for trusting me with your people; I always feel so honored.
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes. When you reached out with this topic idea, I was like, 'Yep, I think that it's going to be great for my audience.'
I think it's something that we're all interested in, and I think a lot of people that tune in have kids of kind of varying stages and ages. I'm sure there's lots of people with toddlers, but I think there's probably even more with teens and tweens and even some young adults. And so, I think this is a topic that we can all learn from.
Before we dig into what we're going to talk about today, I would love for you just to introduce yourself to the listeners and tell us a little bit about you and what you do – and also why you do it, how did you get here?
Amy Lang: Well, of course, I did not start out my life thinking, 'I want to be a sex educator that works with parents and helps them have these conversations.'
And what happened is that I was a sexuality educator doing birth control, pregnancy, abortion, counseling, STI counseling, kind of all the usual stuff with teens – and you know, everybody pretty much.
And I had just assumed that when I had kids, I was going to be a rockstar…that it was going to come naturally to me to talk to my children, that I'd be comfortable and confident to know what to say; and I was not.
My son, Milo, was about five, and he was getting ready for a bath, and he grabbed his penis and he said, "Hey, mama, did you know?" And I stood there and I thought, oh, I poker faced right? Supposed to do. And I stood there and I thought, "Oh, no, please do not tell me it feels good to touch your penis because I've got nothing."
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.
Amy Lang: And then I just looked at him and I said, "What?"
And he said, "I can see the veins in there where the blood goes."
And I said, "Excellent, get in the bathtub."
And that was my moment when I thought, "Okay, you're clueless, you got to figure this out."
So, I also have a Master's degree in Applied Behavioral Science, and my focus was in Adult Education. So, as I was figuring this out for our family – you know…when, how all that good stuff – I realized that I could also help other families, other parents.
And so, I started Birds + Bees + Kids. Milo was five. He's 21 now. As you can imagine, there was a big period of his life where he was completely mortified by my work. But he appears to have recovered from that.
And so, yeah, that's how-- You know, that's how I got started. I do online classes – and once upon a time, live classes. I have a podcast and other, you know, resources and that kind of thing.
So, I generally focus on parents of kids who are ages like 5 to 12; that's my sort of sweet spot, but that does not mean a thing because I know the whole shebang. Right? Of course.
Why do we have a hard time talking about sexuality with our kids?
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. You're like, it all works for everybody. Okay. I would love to start off with like, why this is even needed, right? Like, it was, obviously there was something about what he said, and you were like, "Oh, wait a second, I don't know what to do here," kind of a thing.
And I think a lot of us in this generation feel the same way. We're like, 'Wait a second. Like, where did that stem from?' Why do we have a hard time talking about all things sexuality with our kids?
Amy Lang: Well, the first thing is that culturally, we don't talk about it, right? There's shame and embarrassment. There's lack of information. We grew up not having the information – so our parents were not, and caregivers were not giving us good examples of how to do this thing.
And so, just like parenting, in general, as you know, we're making it up as we go along. And if you have nothing to go with and you're uncomfortable and you've been told through your culture and how you grew up that it's not okay to talk about this, you're not going to do it.
Are you going to-- You're going to try and maybe not feel very comfortable. And you know, there's just so many myths about having conversations with kids that don't…you know, they're myths, they're not true. Right?
And so, you know, for me, I believe talking with our kids about sexuality is a fundamental human right. We are sexual from the get-go. Little people with penises hang on to that dang thing when they're in utero, you know? And people with clitoris figure out it feels good to touch them.
And so, we're sexual from the beginning of our lives until the end. And we don't have information about that, just like developmentally. So, we're all worried about trigonometry; and frankly, their academics and their intellect – sure, that's important.
But it's not as important as being able to have a healthy, romantic relationship to understand what it means to be a sexual person – to not feel shame about this natural, healthy, really, you know, positive part of life.
But all of our socialization and information is, it's all been very negative. It's secretive. You shouldn't do it until you're married, but everybody does it before they're married. I mean, like, everybody does something sexual; by the time they're 19, they've done something.
So, we have these unrealistic expectations that cause a lot of shame and embarrassment. And so, we grew up like that. And so, the expectation that we're going to step in and be rock stars with this, even someone like me, right? I am liberal, I'm American, I'm secular. Like, I got-- Like, I got all that. That's my perspective. And it was still hard for me.
Crystal The Parenting Coach: I do feel like there was definitely almost like a gap in knowledge. Like, it's almost like this big thing that needs to be talked about and we want to talk about.
And like, we did learn a little bit in school, and sometimes our parents might have had some conversations, but it definitely wasn't comfortable; it was always awkward. It never felt like just a normal part of everyday life.
And I think that in our generation now, people are starting to see like, 'Okay, yeah, I want-- I want to teach this to my kids. I want to teach them how to be a healthy sexual being.'
How to teach your family values while teaching sexuality
Crystal The Parenting Coach: And I also love-- What I'd love to dig into is like, how do we teach healthy sexuality along with whatever our personal values are?
That we can still have those personal values – we can still teach our kids what we believe and what our beliefs are, and what we hope they'll believe also, but we can still be teaching healthy sexuality too. Like kind of combining the both; even if we have not been taught that ourselves, even if that wasn't what our childhood was like. So, let's dig into that.
Amy Lang: So, I think one of the ways I think about this is that there are the facts of sexuality, which there's a lot of stuff, right? The facts of sexuality, you know; our body changes, our sexual orientation, our gender, how people roll, healthy relationships.
Like, there are things that we can make research and have data, right? So, that's the fact side. Everything has a value attached to it.
So, there's a values and belief side. So, really a good sex talk talks about the facts and the reality of being a sexual person and sexuality, and then your values about it.
And so, one of the most important things parents can do is actually think about, you know, what are your sexual values? And you know, it's kind of funny. Like, we have values about everything. We have values about tampons, thank you very much, right?
And so, thinking about that, what are your values? Getting clear on them. So, for example, you know, if you think that people should – your value is that people should wait until marriage to have sex. Why? Why? Why is that important? Right?
You know, I don't believe that, but I do believe that people, especially, we think about the-- Like, I'm all about the first time and really getting busy with somebody.
So, for me, it's like loving, committed relationship together for a while, able to be communicative if pregnancy could be on the table – birth control, talking about that – talking about STIs, being really clear about consent and if they're down for it and all that and understanding all of that.
That's how they begin. That's how, for me, that should start. And I'm guessing if your value is that you should wait until marriage, it's really about that – commitment, trust, communication, right? And, you know, so that's kind of the first thing.
And one of the other things to do that's helpful is to think about this in terms of preparation; you're preparing your child for this really important part of life. You know, we're very focused on prevention. Like 'Wait until marriage', like we're telling them don't do it. And, then how are you going to not do it? Right?
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Right. Instead of preparing for like, 'When you do, this is what you need to know and this is how it goes, and these are some things to look out for,' and, you know, all of those things.
Amy Lang: Yeah. "This is how-- this is how you're ready."
So, that's the first thing is change in perspective. You're preparing them for one of the most important parts of life. So, that's the first thing.
The other thing is, if you take some time, and if you're parenting with someone, or even with a best friend or journaling, what are your hopes for your kids when it comes to their romantic and sexual relationships? Right? What are your hopes? And your hopes are your goals.
And so, if your goal is for, you know, I don't even know what – but like if your goal is for your child to wait until they're 28, full brain development before they get busy. That's not-- I'm just joking, but I mean, really, wouldn't that be nice?
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Come up with a goal. Yeah.
Amy Lang: If your goal is for them to feel really good about themselves as a sexual person, to feel confident and to know their limits and be comfortable, you know, like understanding the signs of an unhealthy relationship and a healthy relationship…like those are really good, important goals.
And then, okay, how are you going to do that? How are you going to do that? So, facts and values.
And then the other piece is limits. So, when is it okay to do the thing, whatever the thing is? And so, you know, this is not a perfect formula, right? So, for example, I like to use oral sex as an example. Like, what is it? And you know, it's when one person puts their mouth on another person's penis and clitoris; it's something they agree to do, right?
It feels really good. It's part of being. It's sex. It's part of being in a sexual relationship. It's not anything you ever have to do. And it's just, you know, like one of those things.
So, the limit is you don't ever have to do it. You can talk about how, you know, this is something that is part of a sexual relationship. It's part of-- It's something people consent to do, agree to do. And it's something that is, you know, for later in your relationship or something like that. Because if we just say, "This is what a blow job is," good luck with that. That's not helpful.
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Mm-Hmm.
Amy Lang: That's not helpful. What's helpful is, "This is what it is, this is what I think about it…you don't have to do it – you can, if you want to," you know, some boundaries and limits around that. And I'm sorry, you know, I just jump right into BJ's sometimes I--
What age is appropriate to start talking to your little kids about sex?
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. Let's rewind back to if your kids are younger. So, obviously, you're not going to have this conversation that we're talking about right now with your, you know, five-year-olds.
So, when you're-- When you first start talking about sexuality, right? Like, you've been doing this for years; and so, you're probably super comfortable with having all these conversations with all the people. But for somebody that's like listening to this conversation and like, 'Oh my gosh, I can never imagine myself talking to my child about that.' Yeah. Where would they start?
Amy Lang: Yeah. Yeah. So, BJ's are kind of the goal.
Crystal The Parenting Coach: They're like, this is the end. You can have this conversation.
Amy Lang: Yeah. Turn around. Yes. We do not start with oral sex. So, what we know from study after study that it is best to start the conversations when your kids are really young. And the first sex conversation is using the correct names for private body parts.
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes.
Amy Lang: Right?
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.
Amy Lang: Everybody needs to know the correct names for all of their middle down-there parts. It's protective. If your kiddos-- You know, we've got our Thanksgiving coming up, and if you got a four-year-old and everybody's there and they say, "Mama, my vulva, itching," in front of God and everyone, which, you know, no thank you.
If there is a creepster in your family or in your friend group who's there, they're going to hear that and they're going to say, "I'm not going to mess with that kid because their parent's talking to them."
And so, boundaries is really important. Body boundaries; talking about safe touch…making sure they know they have the right to say no – not touching kids without permission. And then by the time they're about, they do need to know the usual way people get pregnant.
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Hey, did you say five? I missed the age. What age you say?
Amy Lang: Five.
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Five.
Amy Lang: I said five.
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Mm-Hmm.
Amy Lang: And people sometimes have a minor heart attack about that because it just sounds so flip young. And yeah, it is young. But the thing, you know, the reason why five is so great is because they're an empty vessel. They don’t know.
And you can fill them up with like, "Hey, this is a great positive life, your body's amazing…you know, this is how babies are made – it's really cool, it's not something you do now, it's for later in life."
And you know, they're starting kindergarten, they're getting information from other kiddos; they're out in the world more, they're curious, they're open. And so, I just think about it this way…if you tell a five-year-old, "This is how you make butter and this is the usual way a baby's made", the standard response is the same, "Oh, Huh."
Sometimes they'll say, "Did you do that?" And then you say, if that was how it worked…well, most people do, or whatever. You can answer that however you want.
I'm talking the whole thing, penis and vagina. Three little words people, three little words. And so, it's easier on you as you know, you have kids of multiple ages to talk to your six-year-old than it is to your 16-year-old.
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.
Why it’s so important to regularly talk to your kids throughout childhood about sex
Amy Lang: Your 16-year-old is going to be like, you know, 'Hell no, I know everything.' They do not. And so, it's easier for you. And by the time they're eight or nine, they need to know about puberty because average age of puberty start for girls is nine – eight or nine. It's a little later for boys.
They need to know what's going to happen to their body before it happens. And I know lots of people who have periods who did not know they were going to bleed out of their ho-hawk.
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes. They're like, 'Why is this not something that's talked about all the time? It's so huge.'
That's something that I felt like I really wanted my, once I did have a daughter to know about. I was like, 'I just want this to be a normal part of what we talk about.' So, my boys know, my daughter knows. You know, when I get my period, I talk about it.
They know all about pretty much everything to do with it, which I know some people are probably like, 'What? That's too much information.' But I felt like I didn't know enough, and I would've loved to know more. And I've heard of people who literally thought they were dying; like had never even heard about it from any of their friends, from any of their family…and were like, 'I must be dying.'
And because it is a shocking thing if you have never thought about it before, never know that it was going to happen. I love the idea of it just being just as normal as talking about butter and like, not just talking about sex – but everything related to healthy sexuality, puberty, and anatomy. I think it does keep our children so safe, and it's going to create more confidence in them and their sexuality.
Amy Lang: For sure. For sure. And you know the more-- I think knowledge is empowering, right? So, the more, you know…the more you're going to be able to empower your kids with this information – the more they know, the more empowered they're going to be.
And you know, we always need to talk about different kinds of families and healthy relationships; and what does that look like? And crushing and romance and sexual orientation and gender – big, big, big stuff right now. It's always been there. We didn't have the words.
So, making sure they understand that, you know, it's okay to-- it's okay to be gay. Right? It's like-- Who they are as a sexual person – no matter what your belief system is – you have to be supportive of your child even if you don't get it or you think it's wrong.
One of the things folks don't know about LGBTQ kids, their suicide rate is four times higher than the general population; and no one wants that. But the thing that keeps those kiddos on par with the general population is full-on parental support, full-on – 'I love you no matter who you are, how can I support you with this?'
And being there for them and managing your own crap offline, offline. Like managing your own stuff around this offline because they need you more than any other child. And you know, I know this is a tough thing for lots of folks, but the reality is people are queer. They don't pick it. It's not the picking thing. It's who they are in a fundamental way.
How to get over the initial awkwardness and what types of things should be included in conversations around sexuality
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. I just want to interject there for a second. I have a really great episode from a few weeks ago that you can go back and listen to where I talk about someone who runs a nonprofit organization for LGBTQ people and their families. And we talk all about exactly this.
So, if you're listening to this part and you're like, 'Oh, I don't really know,' or 'I'm uncomfortable with this,' go listen to that episode for more.
I love that it's just this part of like, we just talk about this all the time – but when you very first start out and you're like, "You talk about it when you're five," and you're like, some people are probably thinking, 'Wow, that's really young and I'm going to be really awkward and uncomfortable about this.'
How do you push through those discussions – or even when you're a teen, it's going to be awkward and uncomfortable when you're talking to your teens about it? How do you push through that level of like, 'I'm uncomfortable but I still have to have this conversation.'
Amy Lang: So, the glory of the little people – like eight and under – is you just get a book, and kick it off with the book. There's a great book. There's a couple of really good books; It's Not the Stork!, and It's So Amazing!.
You read the book; you read it first, it's going to feel like a lot of information – but compared to what they're going to hear from their peers and the influence of pornography now and childhood development and sexual development, they need to hear it…this safe, positive information.
And then the focus is not on you; it's on the book. And then when you see how they respond to that, you'll feel better. And the more you do it, the more you're going to feel better. So, one of my colleagues says, "It's 2002-minute conversations." So, you keep it short and sweet. You practice.
I have a new book called Sex Talks with Tweens. It's all scripts. So, you're like, "Okay, we’re going to talk about masturbation," click – read, quote me.
So, when they're little, it's easier because they're not going to ping off our discomfort.
Now, when they get to be tweens, they're going to notice that we're being weird. And if you haven't started the conversation yet…it is important to say a couple things.
The first thing is to say, "You know what? You're old enough now for us to start talking about this – I'm sorry we didn't start sooner, I didn't think you were ready, I didn't think I was ready, I'm actually pretty uncomfortable about this…my folks didn't do this for me, but I know how important it's to be really well-informed about this so we're going to start talking, and that's it."
And then, you don't launch into…when a man and a woman love each other very much-- Shouldn't even say that anyway. But like, you don't launch in…so you just kick the door open, if you haven't started yet with your nine-and-up, and then you just flip and do it.
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.
Amy Lang: It's, turn up your radar. Like our world gives us so many opportunities. You have a pregnant friend, there you go. Here are the different ways you can get pregnant.
And you know, with older kids a few strategies to use, which is to say, "I need, I need to talk to you about a sex thing…we can do it now, we can do it later." They always say, later.
And then within 48 hours you need to come back to them and say, "Okay, it's later."
They're a little-- They're more ready for it. You can tell them, "You don't have to ask me questions, say a word…I just need to tell you about this thing."
You always ask them a question at the end. Like, what do you think? Any thoughts? Anything you need me to know? Anything?
You just throw a question at the end of that. They're going to do what they're going to do. Sometimes they're going to say, "What? Why?" Right? They're going to say something.
Another strategy is; write notes, text, use all of the tools in the toolbox. And then, one thing is that people use as an excuse is like, "My kid's not asking me any questions, therefore, they don't need to know."
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Don't have any—Therefore, they're not curious…they don't need to be educated. Yes.
Amy Lang: Yay.
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Everything's fine.
Amy Lang: Yeah. That is not a thing. It is your responsibility to make sure they have this information; and the more you do it, the easier it gets. You'd be funny about it.
Like after Milo was like – I don't know, five or six – I knew he knew all the names. I knew he knew what his penis was. So, I would just say junk, tallywhacker, business, weenie; I just used all the slang because it makes it funny.
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes.
Amy Lang: And you know, you don't have to be all 'Penis' all the time…'Vulva', so just lightening up.
And as they get into those tween years, as you may recall, the body stuff was confusing but the thing that was really going on was all the relationship stuff, right? People dating, the chat, the crushing, all that.
And so, the focus should really kind of switch into; what does healthy relationship look like? What is consent? Making sure they understand about birth control.
And everybody, if they got a penis, they need to be using condoms. And everybody should know about everything for both gender, both sexes and genders.
Everybody should know all that. Because if your child is straight and you know it's potential to have pregnancy, then you know, the person with the penis should know about the birth control. So, they can talk with their partner about, "Hey, what do you want to do here? What's the plan?"
And you know, I know we don't want think about our kids having sex, but like I said, everybody does something, which last name is sex by the time they're 19. And everybody – I mean, like 80% of folks, which is in my head pretty much everybody.
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. I love the idea of circling back to those tough conversations because I talk about that in lots of different situations, not just sexuality talks. Right?
But it's like, 'Okay, this is kind of a heavier thing… I know it might be a hard conversation for us to have, so let's both kind of prepare ourselves and come back later.'
I love the idea of it. We're just talking about it and teaching about it all the time. And I remember one conversation with my son, I think he was probably a teenager by then; and I'd had several talks with him, but I was always so uncomfortable.
And at one point I just said, "I just want you to know that I'm super awkward about this…like, you might be feeling this from me." And he was like, "I actually didn't even notice, I thought you were doing a great job."
And I thought, 'Wow, that's really great.'
Because I was not feeling that way, but I just said, "This is isn't something that I talked to my parents about a lot, so it makes me feel awkward. It has nothing to do with this. It's not an awkward thing. I'd love to talk to you about it, but just so you know…if you ever feel that way, it's coming from me."
And so, I think just opening it up, like you said, like "let's be honest about this", that helps break the ice too. You don't always have to use humor.
You can if you want, but you can also be like, "I just want you to know, I feel awkward…it's still really important – we're still going to have this conversation, but this is where my starting point is."
I love the idea also of us being more educated ourselves because the more education we have, the more confident we're going to feel, the better these conversations are going to go, the more questions we're going to be able to answer for them.
And also, doing them age appropriately. We don't have to talk about everything there is to talk about sex when our kids are 5 or 10 or even 15. You get to decide when you want to have those conversations with them.
So, this has all been really helpful. I'm sure that a lot of people have found a lot of great advice here who are feeling this way, feeling awkward or uncomfortable about these conversations.
Where to start in sex conversations, if these talks haven’t been part of your family culture so far (and why it’s an important responsibility of parenthood)
Crystal The Parenting Coach: For someone that is listening in that's like maybe they haven't had these conversations yet or this hasn't been a part of their family culture to talk about, what tip would you leave them with to be like, "Okay, I agree and I do want to talk about it, but also this hasn't been something we've really, talking about sexuality in a common way hasn't or hasn't been common".
Amy Lang: So, there's a handful of things. So, first of all, this is about you. It's about you. And the first thing that I think is really important-- There's a couple of things I recommend.
First of all, have that…you know, like, what are our hopes? What are our hopes for our children? What's my hope for my child when this starts when in their relationships, ultimately?
Another exercise that's really good to do and can be very entertaining and maybe even a little traumatizing is to think about how you learned. Like, how did you learn? Where'd you get your information? What worked for you? What didn't work for you? You know?
And then that kind of also leads back into that, what you hope for your kids. So, actually, I would do that one first. It can be, again, journaling; if you're parenting with someone, that kind of thing, because you get it out of your system. You get it out of your system.
And then just in terms of starting the talks, I would definitely get books and they're books we have; they are recommended in the show notes.
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.
Amy Lang: And so, I would definitely get books, read them all yourself first; that'll make you feel better when you have the information. And then pick something that feels low stakes to start with.
You know, the lowest stake thing with your eight-and-under is just to read the book with them.
With your older kids is to say, "Hey, I blew it…just that one little thing, just that one little thing." And you'll be surprised at their reactions and just go for it, and push through their discomfort. This is not-- This is required. It's required.
Parenting, it's required kid learning because, I mean, chances are you did not-- Like you've said, you did not have a trustworthy adult that helped you be as ready as you could be for this part of life.
So, if you just imagine what it would be like if you had that person in your life and what that – you know, who you'd be and how you'd feel; and then, you can be that person for your child. So, I'm a baby homework person, so my homework is the…how'd you learn, what are your hopes? And then, just do it.
Crystal The Parenting Coach: I love that idea of like, we can go back and be like, "Okay, what do I wish it was?" How do I wish somebody had this conversation with me?"
And I love what you said in the beginning about preparing, like we're really just not preparing them. We're like, 'We're going to prepare you for nothing, but here--' Instead, like, how do I want you to prepare?
It's like you're going to go on a trip; I'm going to tell you what things you're going to be expecting, and what the culture's going to be like, and what the language is going to be like.
And you know, I love that this idea of like…how would you have loved to be prepared and how then can you give that to your kids, even if it's awkward, even if it's uncomfortable.
But knowing that it's a responsibility, I think especially in our culture and all the things that are happening in our world in order to keep our children the most safe in lots of different situations, is to teach them about sexuality and have it be just a healthy topic that you talk about all the time.
So, thank you for being on here, Amy. I appreciate it.
Amy Lang: My pleasure.
Crystal The Parenting Coach: And for all of the links that she's mentioned, you can find those in the show notes.
How to connect with Amy Lang
Crystal The Parenting Coach: If somebody wants to reach out to you, connect with you, learn more from you, how can they do that?
Amy Lang: So, my website is birdsandbeesandkids.com. So, that is obviously there's tons-- There's a hundred years of blogging. There's all kinds of information and support there.
There's a free download that is called The Seven Tips for Terrific Sex Talks – of course, I can't remember the name of it – which is really robust and helpful in terms of how to do this whole thing. And then I have a podcast too. You're a podcast listener, right?
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Awesome.
Amy Lang: And it's called Just Say This; and it's Q&A style. So, people call in, leave me a voicemail with a question, and I answer the question on the show. And then I oftentimes talk about some other things. I kind of rant about things.
Crystal The Parenting Coach: That is a fabulous way of doing it. I love that.
Amy Lang: It's so fun. Highly recommend. Highly recommend.
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Awesome. Okay. Thank you, Amy. Make sure you go connect with her; Instagram, Facebook, podcast, all the places. That sounds like an amazing PDF download; I'm definitely going to get that for myself. And thanks again for coming on the show.
Amy Lang: Thank you.
Crystal The Parenting Coach: Thanks for listening. If you'd like to help spread this work to the world, share this episode on social media and tag me, send it to a friend, or leave a quick rating and review below so more people can find me. If you'd like more guidance on your own parenting journey, reach out.iub
