S07|13 - Shame-Free Sex Education with Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator

Did you feel like your parents gave you a healthy and comprehensive sex education as a child and teen? Or did you find that most of your learning (or lack of it) came from friends or other less helpful resources? Join this conversation with me and Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator to learn more about how to teach your kids about sex, shame-free. 

Carlie Palmer-Webb is a gender and sexuality researcher, data-nerd, enthusiastic Jesus-lover, new mama, and The Christian Sex Educator. She has made it her life mission to provide shame-free sex education for Christians in every life stage. 

In this discussion: 

• You’ll hear about Carlie’s own story, her lack of helpful sex-ed, and how that led her on a journey as an adult to learn more (and share what she learned)
• How we can change the paradigm in our home and teach our children about sexuality, while we teach them our values too.
• What shame-free sex education looks like, and how it’s never too late to start (even if you’re 70!)
• Carlie shares about her un-shaming journey and what books and resources helped her

Links and resources: 

Come As You Are by Dr. Emily Nagoski
The Great Sex Rescue by Sheila Gregoire
A Better Way to Teach Kids about Sex by Laura Padilla-Walker and colleagues
Teaching Kids about Sex—The Parent Guidebook (ages 0-9) by Carlie 
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Episode Transcript

Crystal The Parenting Coach: 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 and get taught, get on the job training, or have mentors to help you, but now you can get that help here.

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Welcome to today's episode, Shame-Free Sex Education with Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator.

Did you feel like your parents gave you a healthy and comprehensive Sex Education as a child and teen, or did you find that most of your learning or lack of it came from friends or less helpful sources? 

Join this conversation with me and Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator, to learn more about how to teach your kids about sex shame-free. 

Carlie Palmer-Webb is a gender and sexuality researcher, data nerd, enthusiastic Jesus lover, new mama, and the Christian Sex Educator. She has made it her life mission to provide shame-free Sex Education for Christians in every life stage. 

Today's episode, you will hear about Carlie's own story; her lack of helpful Sex Ed as a child, and how that led her on a journey as an adult to learn more and to share about what she was learning, how we can change the paradigm in our own home and teach our children about sexuality and still be teaching them our values around sexuality too, what shame-free Sex Education looks like and how it's never too late to start – even if you're 70. Carlie shares about her unshaming journey, and what books and resources helped her. 

If you love this episode, I would love for you to share it, like subscribe, add a review, do all the things, and make sure you scroll down to the bottom of the show notes and check out the links and resources. 

 

Carlie's own story, and her lack of helpful Sex Education as a child

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Hello everyone. Welcome to today's podcast episode. It seems like podcast episodes somehow for some reason, just go in themes; and this is just going along with the theme that we've been talking about this season. 

So, I'm excited to talk all about Shame-Free Sex Education with Carlie, The Christian Sex-- No, I don't-- I'm not going to say it right. Christian-- Okay. You just-- You just-- You introduce yourself.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: The Christian Sex Educator.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Christian Sex Educator.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Yep.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes. Okay. So, you can find her on Instagram there; her content is amazing, that is how I found her. And as soon as I started hearing about what she was talking about, I was like, 'Yes, yes, this is what we need.' 

So, if you have little ones around, just to let you know, we are definitely going to be talking about sex in a more open and frank way. So, do that. Do what with what-- Do what you will with that. I'm going to say that again, just so you have that little FYI before we start this episode. 

So, thank you so much, Carlie, for being here. And why don't you tell us a little bit about how you got started in the shame-free Sex Education space, and especially within the Christianity sphere.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Yeah. Sure. So, I grew up in such a wonderful Christian home. My parents are honestly incredible; I adore them, we're really close. And I say, often, that they should win every parenting award except Sex Ed in the home. So, I just grew up in a home like so many of us did, where sex was never really talked about.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: We kind of pretended like it didn't exist. 

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Yeah. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: We're like, 'Oh, if we don't say it…somehow, they'll figure it out.'

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Right, right, right. Even to the point where body parts weren't really talked about; I didn't know the correct name for my genitals or things like that growing up. We didn't really talk about periods; I learned that periods were a thing at fourth or fifth grade menstruation or Maturation Day that happens at school. That's when I learned that I would have a period. 

It just wasn't a conversation in my home. There were some occasional moral conversations or religious conversations like-- I actually don't even remember the word sex being used, but maybe, you know, intimacy is saved for marriage. That conversation might have happened.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Or like having a baby or something later.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Right – but mostly, nothing. So, as I got older, I mostly learned about sex from my friends at school who were sexually active. Or who were having conversations with their parents, even if they weren't sexually active; and that was my Sex Ed experience. Plus, some, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it at church--  

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Which for me was mostly a facilitator for shame only because I didn't understand what I wasn't supposed to be doing. And so, I just felt guilty about pretty much everything because I thought maybe everything was wrong. I had my first kiss when I was in high school; and it was like the most innocent little peck, like awkward little peck – and I felt guilty about it for so long because I thought maybe I had done something wrong. I just didn't know.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Oh, my goodness.

Carlie's journey to unshame sex, learn more about it, & teach others

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: So, then when I went to college and really came to terms with the fact that I did not know what I should--  

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: I tried to start educating myself – but doing that as a Christian was really difficult because there wasn't a lot of content aimed at people who were religious and had some moral convictions about sex, but still wanted to be educated. 

There are a lot of books, many of which I might not recommend, targeted towards Christian couples – but nothing really for singles; and I didn't get married until I was 28. So, I just kind of decided to pursue an education to become the sex educator that I wished I would've had; and, kind of at the same time, educate myself.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: You gave yourself your own Sex Education.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Right.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: While you were spreading all of the information to everyone else. I love this.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Right? Right. So, that's what-- I did Human Development for undergrad, and kind of dabbled in the Healthy Sexuality Research space during undergrad; and then decided to really commit to it for grad school…and did Human Development again for graduate school, but focused on Healthy Sexuality Research.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Amazing. So, you literally were like, 'I'm not just going to like watch some YouTube videos on it, I'm going to like go to grad school and get a proper education about all of this.' That's amazing. I love that that's what you decided to do. 

And I feel like my home was similar in that there was not a lot of discussions about it, there was not a lot of proper terminology about anatomy, and my parents felt like it should be taught in the home. So, they would pull us out of the Sex Ed classes at school, because you could like opt out of them. And so, I kind of felt like I was like, 'I'm missing something, but I don't really know.' 

And I definitely felt under-prepared when it came to my period. Like I don't even-- I mean, maybe there was discussions about it and I just didn't know, but I remember being blindsided when I got my period. 

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Yeah, it's shocking.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Like I remember being like, what is this? What's happening to me? Am I dying? I don't know. Like, I'm sure we'd had some conversations previous to that, but I didn't know; I felt like I didn't know anything. 

And going into high school as well – junior high and high school – dating a lot of different people, meeting a lot of different people, learning more about sexuality – but not from the home, for sure. And definitely a lot not from a Christian perspective.

 

What shame-free Sex Education looks like

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, what would a proper Sex Education look like? So, if you were to go back and you were like, I didn't really learn these things. Well, I guess you are going back and doing that because you have your own baby.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Right.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: These are probably questions you've asked yourself; what do you hope for? What do you hope in teaching your child, and what would that look like from like Day 1 to adulthood?

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Yeah. I think one of the major things is I wish it would have been-- And I hope this for my kids, that it's an ongoing conversation. We're kind of past the days of the talk, especially because children that are growing up now are exposed to way more way earlier because of technology. 

We're not-- We're no longer in a place, whether or not it used to be a good idea, to have one--

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: It wasn't. 

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Sit-down talk about sex.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I did it. My kids are older; and my two oldest, I was like, read all the books that was like, have this big conversation. And then a girlfriend of mine, we're chatting about it later and I was just like, it was so--  

Not only was it so awkward and so much pressure for both of us, but she was like, 'Well, if you make it this big experience, then every single time they're going to-- like they feel like they have to make it this big experience to ask you just like little questions.'

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Right.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And I was like, 'Oh my God, I did it wrong.' I always tell my teenagers that. I'm like, I was doing it wrong.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: But that's what-- But that's what everybody did, right? You know, that's what-- That was the norm--  

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: -when your kids were that age. So, I mean, no blame there, but--

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

How we can change the paradigm in our own home and teach our children about sexuality & values in a shame-free way

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: But it does-- It is so important to make it an ongoing conversation, not only so that it feels a lot less intimidating for your kids – but also, like you kind of alluded to, so that they feel comfortable coming to you. This is a normal thing that we talk about in our home. No question is off-limits. And you can come to me anytime. You can ask me about any word, anything that you've heard; and you're not going to get in trouble for asking questions. Right? An ongoing conversation is important. 

And you mentioned what I would hope for, like from the get-go. My baby is five months old, and I'm already practicing with him. Not talking about sex, but we're talking about body parts – correct anatomical terms. He doesn't understand yet. 

But it helps me to get used to saying like, "Okay, now I'm going to wash your penis," just the same way that I do, 'Okay, now I'm going to wash your belly or your arms or whatever.' You know? 

It's good practice to start those kinds of conversations early. So, that's one piece, is I wish it would've been more consistent across my lifetime; and that's what I hope for my kids. 

 

Another thing is shame; removing shame from conversations about sex and sexuality is so, so powerful. And it can feel tricky to do that, especially for people who are coming from a religious background or who feel really strongly about their moral beliefs around sexuality like I do. It can be hard to figure out when all you've learned is shame-based sexuality, how to do it differently for your kids. 

But that's a huge piece that I wish would've been present in my home growing up, and one that I'm trying to put into practice in our home now.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes. Yes, yes, yes. And this is tricky to do. I've had other people on my podcast, I'm thinking back on my conversation this season with Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife. So, if anybody is listening to this, I would go listen to that one; and we specifically talk about pornography and social media, and screens and teens. 

And one of the big tips that she gave for us, when it comes to this about how to take shame out of sexuality, is like you have to do your own work first. Like, if I'm feeling a lot of shame around my own sexuality and I'm not comfortable with myself, my anatomy, my body, sex, then it's going to be really hard for me to have those conversations. And not like, don't have them. 

I had another expert on in the past who was awesome, Emily Christensen; and she said like, do it awkward. Like that's kind of like the tagline, like, just do it anyways. So, keep doing it anyways. But also, you can be doing your own work to unshame yourself, your body, your sexuality simultaneously--  

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Right. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: -because they just learn so much from us, even things we don't say. Right? More so than what we don't say.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Yeah, totally. Totally. They can feel what's genuine. They can-- They can tell how we feel about these conversations.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes. Yes. I remember talking to my son about-- We were having a conversation about pornography; and in my mind, I'm like, 'This is so awkward. Like, this is never something I talked to my parents about ever. I don't even know what to say.' 

And I just decided, I was friends with my friend Emily back then, and she was just like, 'Just do it awkward.' 

I'm like, 'Okay, so someone is going to do this.' 

And I even started out with, 'This is really uncomfortable for me because my parents did not have conversations like this with me…and it has been something that's been awkward for me, and I don't want it to be, so I'm going to keep talking it out.' 

And so, then I just did, and I had these regular conversations with him. And I will say that one time we were conversing about it, like weeks later, and we'd had pretty regular conversations. 

And like, I feel like, I was still pretty awkward every time I would have these regular conversations – but I was like committed to like, we're going to have regular conversations about all things sexuality. 

And I told him one time like, 'Oh man, this is still so awkward.' 

And him and my husband both turned to me and they were like, 'It is? But like, I couldn't even tell…it seemed like you were so normal, just conversing about it.'

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Yeah. You got on the hang of it.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. I was like, 'Good, that's good to know.' 

Like, so it's not all just like, 'I'm not giving him all just the emotion that I'm feeling in that moment too.' 

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Yes. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And we just had so many good conversations where I could really like answer questions and lay it all out; and then I kind of go into these modes where I like forget about it and then don't talk about it at all. And then I'm like, 'Oh yeah, right. Sexuality. Whoops. Okay.' 

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: So, normal. So, normal. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: But I also want to point out, I really love the approach of saying to your kid, "This is hard for me…my parents didn't do this, this is new for me, it's going to be kind of uncomfortable for me at Verse 2."

But then saying, "I don't want it to be," so if you are in the place where you're needing to do it awkward, I think that's a really good way to share at least the belief that it doesn't need to be awkward. You don't want it to be awkward for them, and it's going to get less awkward as we practice. But admitting that it's hard for you, I think that's great; I love it.

 

How Shame-Free Sex Education helped Carlie to unshame sex

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. And when you did all this work – so you did like your degree, then you did your Master's – at what point did you get married? Because I'm curious if it made a difference in your own personal sex life, if that's not weird to ask you because you were already so prepared from doing all of your own research.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Yeah. I got married after I graduated from graduate school.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. Okay.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: So, did it make a difference? Yes.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: I will say I had so much shame, so much shame to unpack around sex and sexuality – and not just that, but also broader religious shame that I was working through.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Me and Jesus were doing some work.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes. Oh, amen.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: But when I got married, I was still obviously a total beginner; I had chosen abstinence before I got married. But at that point, I felt really empowered to educate myself. I had already done a lot of educating myself, but I also knew where to look when I had other problems. You know, I knew what resources to seek out, which was helpful; and I could do that without shame.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Mm-Hmm.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: I knew that if I experienced any pain or if I was struggling with desire, or if we were just trying to navigate a discrepancy in desire or trying to figure out pleasure in our sexual relationship, I knew that it was good for me to seek out education…to find resources, to talk to my husband about it really openly. And that was so helpful. 

I think for me, if I would've gotten married or transitioned into sexual activity several years earlier, I would've had to do a lot of work within marriage to get rid of the shame around sex.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: In research, it's sometimes called Good Girl Syndrome. I think it's was coined by Dr. Laura Brotherson, is that right?

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I don't know, but I've heard that.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: She talks about it; I'm not sure if she initially came up with Good Girl Syndrome. It's not just something that girls or women struggle with – but sexual shame as adults and as married adults who are living in a way that aligns with their religious beliefs, there's still so much shame there for so many people. So, I definitely think the education piece was helpful for me.

 

Shame-Free Sex Education Books & Resources

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. So, spinning off that question then, what are educational resources? So, if people are looking to either learn more to kind of unshame their own sexuality or want to learn more about this in a shame-free way or learn more about teaching their kids, what are those resources that you would direct people to now?

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Well, it kind of depends on life stage and what they're currently wanting to learn. This is going to be tooting my own horn a little bit, but one of the reasons that I created The Christian Sex Educator courses and just the free resources that I have was because I felt like there wasn't very much education aimed towards singles who were currently choosing abstinence, but still wanted to unchain their sexuality. Still wanted to be educated.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes. Oh, that's so good.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: If you're single, I have a lot of resources for singles that can be helpful. People who are engaged and preparing for a sexual transition and married, there's a lot more resources. 

So, some of my favorite, favorite books – some of them are Christian, some of them are not. Come as You Are by Dr. Emily Nagoski is a great book for desire, understanding and navigating female desire. The book--  

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Hey, I love her book Burnout. I never knew--  

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Oh yeah.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I haven't looked into other ones.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Burnout is great too. Mm-Hmm.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: So, she's a sex researcher.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Right. I remember her saying that in a podcast I was listening to. Okay.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: For unshaming sexuality, the book, The Great Sex Rescue by Sheila Wray Gregoire – I think is how you say her last name – is fabulous. She's a Christian woman, and surveyed over 20,000 Christian women about their experience; and her work on trying to help women separate shame from sex is really beautiful. So, I love that resource. 

For teaching kids, there are a lot of children's books that I really like that maybe we can put in the show notes. But I also have a guidebook for parents, just a digital guidebook for teaching kids that might be helpful. And the book A Better Way to Teach Kids About Sex is another thing aimed at parents that I really like.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. I love all of these. I want to put all of these books in the show notes. They all sound-- I'm like, I want to read them all. Personally, I'm like, 'I want to read all of these, they all sound good.' 

And I love just how you went back and so easily were like, 'This is kind of what a Sex Education would look like, and this is what I'll be doing with my kids.'

 

How it's never too late to start learning about Shame-Free Sex Education

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, I just want to point out to the listeners too, that like, it's never too late. I think sometimes we hear about things and we're like, 'But my kids are all teens,' or like, 'I didn't have these conversations with them'. 

And so, I think for me personally, I hear things like that and then I'm like, 'Oh, I guess my two--' With my two older kids, where I read all those books and I did it, kind of, the way that I think is the wrong way now…it would be so easy just to be like, 'Okay, it's over, I'll just focus on my two younger kids because I can do it new with them.' 

But I love what you said about, we can just have this ongoing conversation. In fact, so many times I sit my kids down and I'm like, 'You know what? I was totally wrong about this thing that I've been like-- how I've been doing this thing for a long time.' 

I did that with parenting years ago, and then I was like-- And did it with some like educational, the way we were doing education; and then I'll like come back and do it. At one point, the kids were like, 'Mommy, you do this a lot.' Like, by the way, I'm completely changing my paradigm about this and doing something different. 

So, just have that kind of a conversation where you're like, 'You know what? We haven't done this before, but I really-- it's really important to me.' 

My mom – I don't know if my mom's listening to this podcast. This will be funny if she is – but she sent me a couple like messages and was like, 'You know what? We didn't really do a very good job at this. I just wanted you to know that we didn't, and here's some Instagram pages that have been really helpful and I think they'll be really good.' 

And I was like, 'Thanks, mom.'

And I was kind of like, 'Yeah, I kind of knew – it wasn't the greatest job, I also didn't do a great job with my first few kids.' 

But I love what you said about like, we can do the work now and we can unshame. I love the idea of unshaming our own sexuality because then it will come more naturally. The conversations won't seem forced like they sometimes do when I'm doing them.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Totally.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I feel like it just-- Anytime that we unshame a subject, it just makes it so much more open for conversation.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Mm-Hmm. Definitely. I actually had a mom reach out to me who – I'm assuming is in her late fifties, sixties, maybe later – but she reached out to me a few weeks ago and said that she was learning now, she's a grandma now, that she didn't do a good job of having these kinds of conversations with her kids. 

And so, she talked to her grown children and said, "This is something that we didn't really talk about" – just like you're saying – "And I want better for you as adults and for your children". So, she reached out to me to ask if she could buy like a gift card for a couple of my courses for married couples and then for the kids' guide so that she could help her kids teach their kids in a better way. 

And I just thought, 'You know what, that is evidence that it's never too late to start.' 

You know, her kids are grown and married, but she's still trying to do a good job in this space. And I just thought that was so beautiful, really--  

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: That is beautiful.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Ideally, it will start when kids are really young. Of course, that's the ideal. But when are we ever aligning our life with the ideal in any area? 

You know, we're all learning, we're all growing. I am going to get to the point when I have teenagers, and I'll look back and be like, 'Ooh, I really could have done a better job with their Sex Education.' And this is my career. That's totally normal. 

It's okay to just start wherever we are and try to do a little bit better. We're all figuring it out as we go and learning as we go, and that's okay.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Hey, I love that. I feel like that's such a good ending. Like, just start where you are; it's okay that you haven't done it before, it's okay wherever you're at-- wherever you're at in this phase. 

And even just start small. Like if the idea of having conversations with your kids about this puts you into a panic attack mode, maybe just grab a book and start reading through it on your own. Start doing that work if it feels like too much pressure to have those conversations.

 

The last tip from Carlie, and how to connect with her

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay, I love all of this. This is just all so good; and I would love for you to just to kind of end with sharing with people-- Actually, two things; one is how people can find you and connect with you because that's always fun too. 

But then also; just like one last thing, one last little tip that you'd give to people, or – it doesn't have to be just one – but one last little bit of advice where we're all kind of on this unshaming sexual journey together, what would you want to tell us all?

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Well, that's a big question, but we'll start with where they can find me, so I can have a minute to decide what I'll share. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. 

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Everything for like all my social and website stuff is The Christian Sex Educator. So, I'm @thechristiansexeducator on Instagram. My website is thechristiansexeducator.com. If you go to my website, there's a tab for singles, engaged couples, married couples, and parents. So, you can find, I have free resources at every stage. You can find whatever you're looking for there. 

One last thing that I will share; I think something that I wish that I would have understood much earlier that has really helped me in my unshaming journey is that this part of me that desires sex and is curious about sex-- Some of you're like, 'I would like to desire sex, but I don't.'

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Mm-Hmm.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: It's okay if you're there too. But the part of us that enjoys it and can experience pleasure is so good. And that part of us was, I believe, intended to be a gift. And because we have attached shame to it, we often don't get to enjoy it as the gift that it is. 

So, I would say if you're working on this shame journey for yourself or you're trying to help your kids with the same thing, I would focus – not just as we often do, especially in religious circles – on unhealthy sexuality. So, we don't want to just learn about behaviors we want to avoid, we also want to educate ourselves about healthy sexuality. 

What does a healthy, happy, pleasurable sexual relationship look like? What can it be? What does embracing my sexuality, which we hear sometime, what does that actually look like? What could I experience if shame wasn't a part of it?

And I think if we focus on that part of the education, in addition to trying to avoid sexual behaviors that we don't want, I think that can help a lot.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, when you said that, I just felt it in my heart. Like I was just like, 'Oh, I can feel the truth of the words that you're saying right now.' 

And I love it when that happens, especially when it happens on the podcast because I'm like, 'Oh, I really just bring on people that I want to learn from.' 

And I'm like, 'This is awesome that I get to learn so much.' 

So, thank you. Thank you for ending on that sweet note. And yeah, just if you're listening, there's nothing wrong with you at all. This is, we're all humans. We're all just learning this, figuring it out. And there's nothing wrong with you if you've never taught your kids anything about this before. 

We're all on this journey together, and I love that we have these amazing people that we can find so much inspiration from on social media. I know there's some like negatives about social media also, but there's so much good out there; and I love filling my feed with the good, and I'm so grateful that you are one of those. So, thank you for doing the work.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: You're so sweet. Thank you so much.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And thanks for coming on the podcast today.

 

Carlie, The Christian Sex Educator: Yeah. It was so good to meet here.

 

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.