Amy Lang has helped 1000’s of parents around the world become their kid’s go-to birds and bees source. Amy is a Mom’s Choice Award Winner for her book & video and the host of Just Say This! an advice-column style podcast offering parental guidance for the birds and bees talks.
503: Talking to Tweens About Sex (389)
Amy Lang
How do we talk to tweens about sex?? In this re-listen, I invited Amy Lang back to the Mindful Mama Podcast to tell us how to approach subjects like gender, bodies, puberty, consent, relationships, and so much more. We talk about how to approach these conversations and how they will protect our kids.
Ep 503: Talking to Tweens About Sex w/ Amy Lang
Read the Transcript 🡮
*This is an auto-generated transcript*
[00:00:00] Hunter: Hey there, it's Hunter, and welcome to Throwback Thursday. Most Thursdays, we are going to re release one of my favorite episodes from the archives. So unless you're a longtime listener of the show, there's a good chance you haven't heard this one yet. And even if you had, chances are that you are going to get something new listening to it this time around. Because it's hard. Like the tween years are rough
[00:00:20] Amy Lang: Because you're starting puberty, often friendships change, major crushings happening. So there's some confusion, social structure changes.
[00:00:34] Hunter: You're listening to the Mindful Mama podcast, episode number 389. Today, we're talking to tweens about sex- yikes!- with Amy Lang.
Welcome to the Mindful Parenting Podcast. Here, it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent. At Mindful Parenting, we know that you cannot give what you do not have, and when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children. I'm your host, Hunter Clarke-Fields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children. I've been practicing mindfulness for over 25 years, I'm the creator of the Mindful Parenting course, and I'm the author of the international bestseller, Raising Good Humans, and now, Raising Good Humans Every Day, 50 Simple Ways to Press Pause, Stay Present, and Connect with Your Kids. Hello, dear listener, I'm so glad you are here today.
This is such an important episode. Oh my goodness. But listen, if you haven't done so, make sure you've subscribed to the podcast and please go over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify and leave us a rating and review if you haven't done so yet. If you get some value from the podcast, it just helps the podcast grow more. We're closing in on 3 million downloads and it's because of you. So it takes 30 seconds and I greatly appreciate it. From the bottom of my heart. And in just a moment, I'm going to be sitting down with sexuality educator, Amy Lang, who has helped thousands of parents around the world become their kids go to birds and bees source. Amy is a Mom's Choice Award winner for her book and video and the host of Just Say This, an advice column style podcast offering parental guidance for birds and bees. Today we are going to be talking about her new book, Sex Talks with Tweens, what to say and how to say it, and I have to tell you, you are going to want to get this book. I have told everyone on my team that they need to get this book. I've told my friends they need to get this book because it is so good. So helpful. So we're going to talk to how do we talk to tweens about sex, and we're going to talk about how to approach subjects like gender, bodies, puberty, consent, relationships, and so much more. And we'll talk about how you can approach these conversations and how these powerful conversations will protect our kids. So join me at the table as I talk to Amy Lang.
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[00:03:39] Mindful Mama Member: Hunter's program that really drew me in was that it wasn't just on like, how do we practice mindfulness? It incorporated the communication and the problem solving and, went a lot deeper. It was really amazing to be going through this process and have that weekly support that extended beyond just our teacher training, really. The whole process was really well laid out and organized and having the materials from a teacher perspective was really nice as well. The course is so thorough, like you're given every single bit of material that you could possibly need. This is really a community reaching far and wide. And I think that this program, because it works on decreasing your inner stress response to taking care of yourself, so then you can give that back to your children and model that behavior for your children as they're growing up into adulthood. Just seeing the positive changes in my own family and knowing that as I continue to spread that into the community, that will be like, just even more far reaching.
[00:04:38] Hunter: Enrollment is open now and there are limited spots available. Step into your dream of becoming a Mindful Parenting coach. Find out more at mindfulparentingcourse.com/teach. That's mindfulparentingcourse. com/teach.
Amy, thank you for going back on the Mindful Mama podcast. So glad you're here. I'm happy to be here too. I always love talking with you. I like talking with you too, but once again, I'm like slightly nervous because my daughter is 12, going on 13, and I know I'm gonna, I know I'm going to be like talking more about some things because we are talking about tweens and sex today, which is enough to make anybody's heart race.
[00:05:37] Amy Lang: I think so, it's just part of it. I think one tiny bit of advice is just accept that you're going to be uncomfortable, right? Roll with it. Admit to it. It just makes everything easier. Yes. And it, I think sometimes people think it's a parenting fail, right? To be uncomfortable or not to know what to say or to be behind, like I know you're feeling like you're behind, but it's not. The deck's stacked against us. We didn't get what we needed. No. No. The expectation that you're going to be like all a rock star at this and comfortable is just don't bother. It's okay to be uncomfortable. It's okay to say it because as you well know, it's connecting when we use a feeling word with our children. No matter our feelings.
[00:06:13] Hunter: All right so the next car ride, I'm sure I will have things to talk about because Amy has written a wonderful book called Sex Talks with Tweens and has answered the question of how do you say this, which is, this is so brilliant, Amy. I'm sure you've been asked for this book for so long, but it basically gives us the language for how to say this. And Amy is an incredible person and expert. And just so you know, she, if you want to hear more of her, we can hear her on episode number 268 and 159 of the Mindful Mama podcast. But we're going to talk about tweens specifically today. But before we dive into talking to tweens, I want to mention that this having conversations about sex and sexuality and gender and things, it doesn't start when they're tweens, right? When do we start talking about these things?
[00:07:01] Amy Lang: Ideally, like the first sex talk is using the correct names for private body parts when you're like changing the diaper and saying, and wiping, I'm wiping your penis. That occasionally happens. Wiping your vulva and this is your vulva. This is your bottom, your anus. I hate that word, but so using those words and then having conversations about body boundaries and consents and friendships. And then getting into the actual, and then Nuts and Bolts of Reproduction, which is my favorite way to enter the conversation because it's science and it's easier on parents to talk about science.
And we can't ignore the fact that it's also a social situation, right? People do it because it feels good. It's about, having a healthy body, understanding that, this is something that's for later in life. And getting that out of the way by five, which I think I talked about on the first podcast that we were, we did together. Is really important because it's just easier on everyone as you just establish in your family when your kids are little we talk about this. It's normal for us to talk about this. And your discomfort gets less. As you get used to it and as they get used to it. And the getting, ideally you get to the tween years and they've got a lot of info. So it just makes it a lot easier to roll through this period of time because it's hard. Like the tween years are rough because you're starting puberty often. Friendships change major crushings happening so there's some confusion, social structure changes, and part of that is romance and sexuality. So if you can set your kids up ahead of time to just have a kind of a little bit of stuff to talk about, it's easier.
[00:08:34] Hunter: But a lot of us may have gotten to this point, 9, 10, 11, 12, and not necessarily have talked about some of the things that. We know we should have talked about we may be rolling with it, we maybe have been, like, killing it in some other ways maybe you're killing it with emotional regulation, you're like, yes, that's great, but you might be a little behind the ball on talking about things, sex and sexuality, because one of the things you talk about in your book is that, in an ideal world, We might, we should have taught, we would have talked about all the things in this book by the time your child's 12, right? Isn't that what you say, 12? And just, and I know I haven't talked about all of these things by the time Answer is about to turn 13. You're not alone, right?
[00:09:25] Amy Lang: And I think one of the problems in our culture is I just had a mom call me for some stuff that was going on with her child, and she kept, people kept saying, the experts were saying, Oh, you shouldn't have the sex talk until they're 10. And that is just a cultural norm because that's, for most of us, that's when, it's like right before puberty for some kids, it's, school has sex ed, and it's a total myth. So she's getting all this misinformation, calls me, and I'm like, because 10's too late. And don't, okay, I'm saying that, 10's too late, but we don't know.
That's not the- if your pediatrician says to wait until 10, you're going to listen to your pediatrician, right? It's typical to, it's normal to be behind no matter where you are in the conversation. It's normal to be behind and, getting it rolling in between years is fine. It's just a little harder because your younger kids are more on the whatever deal, right? But your tweets are like looking at the world, right? They're watching things. They're more attentive to relationships and romance and then their bodies and then the word sex. They've all heard the word sex. By the time they're nine or ten, unless you live in a cabin in Montana and no media.
[00:10:33] Hunter: Yes. Okay. All right. So let's assume that the listener that you may also have a tween and you may also be behind. I love all the tips you have about talking about these subjects, but maybe thinking about the books, about what they Obviously we should, we want to start with we want to start with private parts and how parts work and things like that. Would you then go into their own personal changes and things like that? Like puberty, what's the sort of pecking order where we want to knock these down?
[00:11:04] Amy Lang: So it depends. So some folks actually did have some kind of birds and bees talk, like lots of folks have, like they read a book.
[00:11:12] Hunter: Yeah, “Where Did I Come From?” was such a great, I love that you reference that, by the way, in talking about orgasm. Can we just make an aside to just talk about how great that is, that description of?
[00:11:25] Amy Lang: Yeah, the analogy between an orgasm and a sneeze, right? It's like this big feel good explosion. That's what an orgasm basically feels like. Not for everyone, but-
[00:11:33] Hunter: Don't start with that. Okay. Don't start with that. No. Okay. Getting back on track.
[00:11:41] Amy Lang: Yeah. So you, there's some choices that need to be made. So if you have kicked the door open, but you didn't pick it up again, then definitely start with the sex like stuff and the bodies and all that kind of thing. So I would start there. If you have not, it is okay to start with puberty because you can use that as an entree into talking about sex because the reason your kid, your body goes from a kid body to an adult body is because it's getting you ready to be to have sex and, potentially, Make babies, and so they need to know that as well, but the bigger piece of this is that they absolutely need to know that 99.999 percent of the time people are having sex and doing sexual things for fun because it feels good. And that goes a long way. It explains a lot because it, sex is not just for reproduction. And if two women are having sex, then ain't no babies happening. Just establishing this idea that sex is a good part of life, it's a positive part of life, and it's something for later in life, right?
We don't want 13 year olds having sex. I'm guessing you don't. You can start with puberty because it's an easier entree. And the other thing you can do too is just say to your kiddo what the word sex means. Have you heard of the word sex? Do you know what that means? And see what they do. So they may say male or female. They may say, Ew, gross. I can't believe you're telling me that. They may say, yeah, isn't it like how you make babies? So you don't know what your kids know unless you ask, right? And in this day and age, because of, we can have a whole ‘nother conversation, a whole ‘nother conversation about this because of the high rate of porn exposure, they may already have some experience or ideas about what sex is, which is. So I don't want to hijack our conversation with that, but I need you to have it in your head.
[00:13:27] Hunter: Yeah. And there, Amy has in the book, and you should have protections on your computer. Like you really should. We made this mistake. I'll admit it. We made it personally. My child actually overheard me say the word spanking on a Mindful Parenting coaching call a long time ago, and she Googled it. And then my husband saw, looked through a window and saw her, she had must have just Googled it, and what she came up with was porn. And it was she must have been like eight at the time or something. It was just not, we shouldn't have done that. It's our fault. And dear listener, don't do that.
Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
[00:16:09] Amy Lang: Yeah. And it wasn't, you wouldn't expect it though, right? You wouldn't expect it. And most folks don't. So again, side note, there's a great project called, a product called Bark. It's in the show notes. And it provides monitoring and filtering. And and we're going to, everybody shove that freak out into the dark place. We can't stop. Other business to attend to. So one of the things that we also, that also happens is that we're afraid we're going to hurt our kids or afraid we're going to encourage them to get busy.
And all evidence shows that is just not the case. One of the lovely things about tweens is that sex grosses them out. Oh my God, why would you want to do that? I'm never doing that. It's a very common response. And then your response is thumbs up. Yay. So by talking with them openly, it's not gonna, they're not gonna run around and, do it. They're going to be more informed. They're going to feel better. They're going to be more confident. And my goal for Milo, and this should be for your goal for your kiddos, is that they are the smartest kid on the playground. You want them to be the smartest kid in their friend group. Because it's protective, feels good to know the most about this stuff to them especially as they get older. So if there's an incident where you do have to talk about porn, where their friend shows them porn, or is talking about something they're able to say, that's not cool to look at, or there's a conversation about something like oral sex, if your kid's the one that's able to say, Yeah, and that's a sex thing, and you have, you can do it, you don't have to do it they're able to understand what it is, they're going to be less likely to Google, they may correct their friend there's so much slang, and they need to know that. It's, they feel better, and when you feel better, you do better, right? Your whole universe is about helping us feel better, right? You feel better, and then, with information, you make better choices. And this is really the age to establish that, I am the go to, I gotcha, you can tell me anything, you won't be in trouble, all questions are good questions.
And then you can say, I might feel uncomfortable, you might feel uncomfortable, but this is such an important part of life. And it's the only thing we do, one of the only things we do from birth until death is be sexual, have sexual feelings, and be, have our gender, and have all this romance, like it's a huge part of life, and we pretend like it's this extra thing.
[00:18:24] Hunter: It’s everywhere. Okay. Okay. I'm right in the weeds with this. This is perfect. So we want to- I love, I'm going to acknowledge the discomfort that it can take away. I'd love this idea that we want to talk about how mostly sex is done for pleasure and there's a really, there's been a lot of really fascinating books I have read about that recently, including Sex at Dawn, which I bet you have read, which is fascinating on that subject on a little side note. But when we say to our kids, most of the time. Sex is done for pleasure. How do we get from there to things like, what is oral sex? And masturbation and orgasms and that kind of thing. How do we I'm worried, I'm wondering about how do we bridge from the basics and the biology to the nitty gritty? Because that seems like an insurmountable gap to me. Yeah, it does. It does.
[00:19:18] Amy Lang: I totally feel you. When I. I do walk my talk, but I'm also a parent, right? And so I had not talked to Milo about oral sex. So the night before middle school, he's in his bedroom, I'm outside the door, and I'm like, hey, do you know what oral sex is if you do you know? Sexes, have you ever heard of that? No, he said, I said, have you ever heard of oral sex? And he said, yeah. And then I said, do you know what it means? And he said, and so I did my spiel, which is, I'll give it now. And then you can get the book and you can have all the words for you. And I just said how people have sex for pleasure.
And sometimes one person will put their mouth on another person's penis or vulva and it feels good. They do it for pleasure. It's nothing. You don't ever have to do it. It's something they choose to do. And so when it's done to a person with a penis, it's called a blow job, giving head, giving some slang. When it's done to a person with a clitoris, it's called, they say, people say they went down on or going down on someone. And again, it's not something you ever have to do. And I'm outside the bedroom. I'm not in the room with him. And Keri, my husband, is across the living room, and so he's listening to all this, and it was good, and I said, do you have any questions? Nope. Nope, says the child, and Keri's just makes some crack about the whole thing, and we all started laughing. Yeah. It, that is all okay to do. So to your question, so you do, like when you say people do, you can say have sex and do sexual things, like touching, body rubbing, kissing, so you establish that there's all, there's different kinds of things to do that are considered sexual.
So there you go. You got that. And then, there, and then you can say, you like I did. So hey, have you ever heard of oral sex? Or maybe blowjob. You ever heard that BJ? You just throw it out there, right? We practice. This is why we practice. You read the words and then you get them out your mouth, right out of your mouth. So you see what they do. And they may say yes, no, gross. And even if they say they know what it is, you still say this is what that is. And I know it sounds gross to you. That's because you're a kid. Sex isn't for this kind of stuff. Isn't for kids. It's for later in life, right? Establish some boundaries around it and some limits around it. Yeah, it's going to be gross to them, because again, yay, good, we want that to sound gross in the moment.
[00:21:35] Hunter: For a while. I love how direct this is and everything, but let's imagine this. A hypothetical person who may have an even older child like, who may even be like a teenager going on, say, 16, who has never said to that older child, have you ever heard of oral sex? And pretty sure they definitely have heard of oral sex. Not that it's asking for anyone personal, but what might you do for the person who has really missed the tween years on this one?
[00:22:07] Amy Lang: So if you've, so for everybody, this is rule of thumb. So for your tween, if you haven't started the conversations, just say “I blew it. We should have been talking about this. This is totally on me. I didn't think you were ready. I wasn't ready. I'm really sorry. We're going to start talking about this because it is so important to your health and your safety and your life. It's a cool part of life, it's complicated, and I want you to be ready for it, right?”
So we're going to just, “Hey, I made a mistake, right? Teenager, I really blew it.” And you just say, “I should have been talking to you. It feels really awkward. I know you know a ton of stuff, but I'm worried about you being healthy and having good relationships. So I really want us to start talking about this.” And they may pull the old, “I know everything, I don't need to talk to you. “And they don't. Hello, they're 16. Come on. And I would say, “You're probably getting a lot of misinformation from your friends. I know your pals have seen porn and kids think teenagers use porn for sex education. Bad. So nice. And so just start we're going to start having these conversations and the same thing. I'm probably going to be uncomfortable. My parents didn't do this for me.” And so then you again, kick the door open. You need to get them books. Again, they're great books for teens about sex and sexuality. And then you can use the world.
It's really- the nice thing about teenagers is you do not have to edit. You can just bleh. You can say all the things. So there's an article in the paper about abortion and you can be like, Oh, I, okay. Bye. And whatever your opinion is about abortion, but I should not have said abortion because it's such a hot button issue, I am going to say this: one in four women in the United States terminates a pregnancy for any number of reasons. So if you are very shaming and mean and awful, frankly, about people who do that, if your child has a pregnancy, they are not going to talk to you about it because they know how you feel about that particular issue. So take abortion away, but you have to talk about it. So it could be any number of things. There are all kinds of shitty relationships out there, right? So you can talk about how, Oh my God, get This is terrible. Here's why. And then when you're watching shows, right? It's great opportunity. Sex education is awesome.
Bridgerton: full of sex. Maybe you don't want to watch that with your kiddo, but there are opportunities to point things out. Another thing with your older kiddos, and you can do with younger kiddos too, is to say, “Hey, what are you what's going on with your friends?” Don't ask them, “What's up with you? Hey, so and so's boyfriend: how's that going for them?” Cause you're going to be able to get, gather some data and that'll lean them into what are you're interested in anybody you're dating? How's your relationship going? You just need to push yourself into it. And again, the beauty is you do not have to edit. You can just say whatever the heck you want. You can ask the questions, you can save the things. You don't need to worry about that because again, they're getting so much information from their peers and then That's the source that starts with P. The other source that starts with P. It's just important. And it's okay, right? And they may give you the cold shoulder, and that's okay too, but you just need to like, my whole thing is make the effort so you can say I tried. I tried.
[00:25:02] Hunter: Yeah. We have to be a little brave. I will, dear listener, I will be being brave with you and I'll be saying, Hey, because I get a lot of real angry pushback from my oldest child. And I'll say, “this is going to be uncomfortable and it's going to be over soon, and we're going to say this, we're going to talk about this thing which, I got from you a long time ago, and I really appreciate.”
What about disclosing our own sexual history? What do you say about that and starting these conversations, if ever?
[00:25:36] Amy Lang: Overall, our kids don't want to know about our sex lives, right? No, thank you. I'm pretty sure. Are your parents sexless? Thanks. You can hold that. You can take this. Yes. Good. We know that. So you don't need to talk about how you had 14 sneezes last night. They don't want to hear that. They don't want to hear that. But with your own personal history, so my belief is that it is totally good to talk about your early dating and your past relationships. Like my first boyfriend, XYZ, my first girlfriend, my first partner, blah, blah, blah. To talk about that relationship, what it was like.
It's okay, to say, we had sex. I was safe, not safe. Talk about the first time you had sex, what was good about it, what wasn't good about it what you wish you had done differently, and then what you hope for your kiddo. So they, it is okay to talk about that because it's far away in the past, you learned lessons, right?
It's- they're not going to attach it to you, like you now, because you're talking about your history. You don't have to tell them about the first time you had sex. But if they ask you, you need to, there's a script in there for it actually, like what to say to avoid it and you can but I'm, and I feel like you should be honest however, if the first time you had sex, you were assaulted or it was not a positive, relatively speaking, if it wasn't a consensual experience, do not tell your kids that. Talk about the first time you had consensual sex. The reason I I'm not for having talking about that kind of thing is because your child needs to see you as whole and healthy and it is traumatized, can be traumatizing to them to hear that this traumatic. And to you, not everybody agrees with me, but I think we can all look back and I know lots of folks parents, they divulged that they were sexually abused or whatever.
And so if you think about how that was for you at however old you were when you learned that, did you need to know that? Did you as a, did you need to know that as a child? So just thinking about that and then if that didn't happen to you, thinking about how you might have felt if if your mom when you were 10 said, said, yeah, I was sexually abused by my cousin for 10 years, how's that helpful? So that's my thing. So here, but you can talk about it when they're older. Let's do some 25, 28. Or if it happens to your child, then you can say, this happened to me too, and I'm here for you, right? So you can say it then. Be careful about the detail because again, we don't want to re traumatize our kiddo with our own crap.
[00:28:05] Hunter: Okay, so we want to talk to kids when they're teens and tweens about safe sex, right? Regardless of, and we haven't even gotten into sort of gender and identity and all those things, but anyway, regardless of whether they may identify as gay or straight or whatever gender they identify as, but we want to be talking to them about safe sex. Help us, walk us through an initiation of that conversation.
[00:28:30] Amy Lang: I think one of the biggest parts of safe sex is consent, right? So making sure they understand what consent is, what it looks like and so they understand that ideally healthy sexuality, healthy relationships, everybody agrees to do whatever the sexual stuff is, including holding hands. So everybody agrees that So it's having an understanding of consent, and so that is fundamental to safe sex, right? So then in terms of like their physical bodies talking, everybody needs to know about all the birth controls, everybody. Don't care if you're, don't care your sexual orientation, don't care your gender, everybody needs to know because A, it's safer, because then if there's a couple and they're, pregnancy can happen. If you have a son like Milo he knew everything and he knows that IUD is the best. Absolutely the best. And then depo, then implants, right? And then depo and then birth control pills. You know them in order. You want to talk about them in terms of efficacy. And so it's fine for them to know all this stuff. And of course, condoms. If there are penis involved, penises involved, everybody needs to be using condoms. Because, and then you talk about STIs because, you can get ailments
[00:29:39] Hunter: Oh my God. Wouldn't you do the condom banana thing for the tween? Oh, I did. Yeah.
[00:29:46] Amy Lang: You can do the condom banana thing. What I did with Milo is I think he was like eight or nine and we, I had condoms around cause of course I did. And I'm like, Hey, this is a condom. It goes over your penis when you have sex. It prevents pregnancy because the sperm can't get out. The semen can get out. And sometimes people can get sexually transmitted infections, which means you can you can get a cold in your crotch. He was young, so I, you can get infections down there. So then I said, get a load of this. They're incredibly stretchy. So we're in the bathroom and we filled it up in the sink. He had this watermelon sized condom and I, the reason I told him that is because people will say, the condom doesn't fit. Yes. Unless you have a penis that is like a can of soup, the condom, even that, the condom's gonna fit. So then we got that condom and we put it in a pot because we couldn't, we couldn't get it out of the bathroom and we took it and we have a deck and we dumped it over the deck. And so we just had this fun, silly conversation.
I didn't show him how to put it on because we had books and he, I talked a little bit about it, but he had books to learn that from. And I would have thrown a banana at him if he wanted. So you can be funny about it. And then his friend Ethan came over a couple of days later. He's Mom, can we do the condom thing? I'm like, sure. Now, I don't know, like Ethan's parents know I'm a sex educator at the time. So I don't know if he even went home and said, so condoms. And I don't remember if I said anything to his parents. I probably did. So yeah, the condom and the banana thing is fine. Just making sure.
And then this is again, a kind of a family values thing, but they should have condoms available and Plan B should be available in your house. We sat up in a drawer in the bathroom. Of course they were never touched. And then I was, I shouldn't even say this. Don't tell my child, but I was in his car and I opened the glove compartment and there's a box of condoms and nobody never touched the ones that we had in the bathroom. And at the time I didn't have plan B available. And the reason for that is because. Plan B is not an abortifacient, it just prevents the egg from implanting if you're already pregnant. The pregnancy will continue without any trouble so having that available, because if you have a whoops, the condom breaks, or you do it without the condom and pregnancy can happen, that needs to be an option without, with ease, and again, family values choice. Totally family values thing, it's on you to figure out. If this makes sense to you, work through your family.
[00:32:03] Hunter: Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcast right after this break.
Okay, so let's say it is a value in your family to be open about sexuality and expect maybe use of condoms and sex and things like that before marriage, et cetera. We are having a conversation about talking to tweens about sex. Do we? Have condom as a plan B available. Because for the parent of a nine year old, you might be like, Oh my God, do I need to have that available in my drawers right now? That sounds crazy.
[00:34:50] Amy Lang: No. So they should know what's fine for a nine year old to know about birth control because you're talking about sex for pleasure, that to know about birth control, to be, to push very hard on, we plan a pregnancy in our family. Plan pregnancies. Pregnancies should be planned. Planning pregnancies. Please. Can't stress that enough. So you're going to talk about that. It's okay for them to know about the condoms and the birth control and a little bit about like STIs and then you don't need the condoms and the other stuff in your home until they're like 13, 14, like eighth grade. Totally fine because you want them to have them available before they need them. And so you're just like talking about this stuff, you're planting these seeds with your tweens, like we're responsible, you need to be responsible. You'll have more fun when you're in a sexual relationship if you know that everybody's communicating about birth control and you're safe, pregnancy can happen.
And that you have language for it, right? And then back to that smartest kid on the playground thing. So when they're 13 and a friend says, my 15 year old boyfriend, no one wants to hear that, is trying to get me to have sex, then your kid's going to be able to say, that's probably not a great idea. Let's talk to my mom. You can talk to my mom. Because that's the other thing. When we're open with Our kids talk. And so if there's a child in your kid's friend group that needs help, they're going to be likely to come to you. And that is an incredible place of privilege, right? An incredible place of privilege to have that trust.
[00:36:12] Hunter: Yeah, I would feel amazing if that happened. Okay. I just want to like backtrack. So order of operations is, bodies, et cetera, when they're young, then sex, talk about the biology of how babies are made and sex. We want to then talk about people having love, making love for pleasure or having sex for pleasure and sex acts. We then want to think about different sex acts like masturbation, oral sex Things like that. We want to talk about anal sex. Yeah, we're going to talk about all the sexes.
[00:36:43] Amy Lang: Sorry, all the sexes. All the sexes. And, trot out vaginal intercourse. And then say, and PS, you don't need to do that in the same breath. One at a time. Yeah, one at a time. Because you remember we're paying away. We're like, when you say people, you're doing good. When you say people have this is intercourse, this is usually how babies are made, and then that moment you say, actually, most of the time when people do have sex, they're not trying to make babies. They're doing it because it feels good to their bodies. They have an agreement. They're maybe in a, they're in a relationship, in a loving relationship. So you're going to establish that they're doing it because it feels good. It's a way to connect. It's not for kids. Very clear. It's not for kids. So those other kinds of sex, you can get to a little bit later. So if you're. If you're kicking off with your 9 year old or your 10 year old, you're starting these conversations, then you're going to need to get to that oral anal sex quicker, like by 11 or so. You can also, after you start the conversation, you can say, have you heard of this? Let's see what they do with it, right? You need to be ready to, with an answer. So anytime you ask a question, you need to be ready for it with an answer of some kind. So review what Amy says and-
[00:37:49] Hunter: Read it over before you ask that question. Go ahead.
[00:37:53] Amy Lang: Okay, we're going to talk about blowjobs and then you can quote me. So the other thing too is puberty, right? We got to get that puberty thing handled. And so kids need, can have, kids should have a book about puberty when they're nine ish. Girls start their periods as young as nine. Everybody's on their own trajectory. And and everybody needs to know what's happening with everybody else's body. So all about being informed. If, yeah, so it's all about being informed and it takes the mystery away. And everybody struggles during puberty. There's nobody that sails through, I don't think.
[00:38:28] Hunter: Surprisingly, puberty has been like a positive thing with my second child because her hair is turning curly as she goes through puberty. And it's Amazing, because also curly hair is in, wavy hair is in, so she's like super it's like the hair product discussion far eclipses the sex conversation for us right now. But but so it's somehow become this sort of like randomly positive thing. Is that what happened to you? Did you get curly hair at puberty?
[00:38:58] Amy Lang: I did. I had straight hair and then I got a perm in 1980. And I got the first perm, so it was straight on top, like I look right now, and then curly on the bottom. And then I got the second one, and it never went away. Yes, I have all these curls. Wow. Everyone's Amy, let's hear about your styling. And yes, to the products. And this is the longest my hair has been since 1998. So anyway, so yeah so it can be a positive experience. And that's the other thing. Just say this is going to happen to your body. It's pretty damn cool, right? And so hang in there. And the more they know, the better. I thought I had breast cancer because I could feel the lumps of my mammary glands as my breasts were developing. Do you tell? I have not gotten to, as far as that goes. Yeah. So there are really good books for kiddos with female bodies. One's called Celebrate Your Body. Oh. They're just really great. It's positive. So yes, it can be a positive experience, but it's really hard, it's hard to describe. Positive span on periods.
[00:39:51] Hunter: It is hard. Yeah, actually. I know. Yeah. Hey, you're bleeding every month. Oh, sounds like fun. You can make life and have a little human being in your body. It's, that's possible, which is true. Pretty cool. But later, months later, if you want to. Very cool. Also, no, 35 might be too old though. Right? Like we're waiting so long that we're, it's not, biologically, isn't like biological peak age, like 16 basically? Like for, yeah, it's something awful. Like 18 or 19.
[00:40:27] Amy Lang: We don’t need that. No goals for that. In my world, no goals. No pregnancies. No unplanned pregnancies. It's not, it happens, but make sure your kiddos know that every step should be taken to prevent pregnancy. That it, and you're, this is another kind of controversial things. I know we keep talking about teenagers, but you need to consider having your, putting your daughter on birth control, when she's in high school. Cause people, we were all there. Did you use birth control the first time you had sex? Maybe not. Like most folks don't really plan it out. So if your daughter's already on birth control then if that happens, she's going to be informed. She's going to be empowered. And there's no evidence that it's like permission to get busy. They don't take it that way. In fact, they actually delay by about six months.
[00:41:11] Hunter: My worry would be just like the hormones messing with, just that piece. I know that it can like lower libido and have effects and things that way.
[00:41:23] Amy Lang: No, don't worry about that. That's old data. Cause when initially birth control pills, they were so strong, they messed with everything and now there are a bazillion different kinds. And yeah, people can have issues with the hormonal stuff, but at the end of the day, it's not most people do fine. And there's a birth control method for just about everybody. They spermicide inside the end of the tip of a condom, it is almost 100 percent effective because it kills the little ones. When I get down there. Anyways, should we go back to-
[00:41:52] Hunter: tweens? I feel like we're just, yeah, let's go back to tweens. What are the things we want to, we have missed when we think, oh, gender and sexual orientation and things like that. Yes. Oh my goodness. I know.
[00:42:04] Amy Lang: So I think the most important thing to do is to understand that right now we're in this kind of incredible space in the world where there's lots of expansiveness in terms of people's sexual orientations and genders. And this is a good thing. And it can also be confusing to those of us who grew up with the, the binary, you're gay, you're straight, you might be bi, you're a guy, you're a gal, maybe you're transgender, right? It's not like that. It's just so much more fluid and there's so many more, I'm going to say, options, and so what's happening is our kids are growing up in this world where this is their kind of. Children and Sexuality. And adolescence is a time of exploration and curiosity, and so the first thing is that understand that they have this opportunity that we didn't have to really think about themselves in a lot of different ways. And that's a great opportunity. It can be challenging. So the first rule of thumb is if your child tells you they've changed their pronouns to they, them, or they tell you they are pansexual or asexual. So pansexual means you're attracted to just the person. It doesn't matter what their physical body or gender is. Asexual means that they have not, no interest in sexuality at all, which, I'm down with 12 year olds being asexual. So they're just exploring. And so your job is to say, thanks for telling me, what does that mean? And use the correct, use their new pronouns. If they change their name, you're going to need to roll with that.
And the reason for this is that you, because this is about their fundamentalness as a human it's not that they're being a punker, right? I was a punk rock new wave person, right? That was exploring myself in a way. It was not fundamental to who I am as a human being. So LGBTQ kids have a, their suicide rate is four times higher than the general population. So the one thing that keeps them on par, which is terrible, anyway, is parental support. So your responsibility is to be supportive, believe your child, hold it lightly, wait, and do your f out on your own time. Because you just can't necessarily know. So they may be trying it on, they may be exploring. I hope I haven't said experimenting. So we're thinking about this in terms of exploration, not experimentation. Because experimentation is judgy and You hear the difference, so they're exploring. And you may have all kinds of feelings. You may be really confused. That's your job to take care of that offline. And you can say, I don't understand this. Can you explain it to me? Right now what we're seeing in these sort of, and maybe you're experiencing this with your kiddos friend group, like between 10 and 12 and 13, there's lots of gender changing, pronoun changing, talking about their sexual orientation it oftentimes bops around and it's very common. It doesn't, it isn't a bad thing. It isn't a bad thing. It's a good thing. But it's, because you want your child to be healthy and happy, and they're doing something that seems screwy, right? And so what do you do? You don't want your child to get hurt, right? You don't want your child to get stigmatized, right? There's so many things that are happening.
[00:45:09] Hunter: It’s rough but you gotta wait. You have to be their supporter, yeah, and you need to process. My children have a number of friends, quite a number of friends, who've changed their names and changed their pronouns, and it's confusing for me, but they have not, at least as of yet, and I can't imagine I would feel grief. If they rejected the name, I gave them and, in a lot of ways, like there, there would be a lot of processing to go through.
[00:45:34] Amy Lang: Yeah, that would be hard, right? That would be hard. And also it's probably highly likely it's not forever, right? It's highly likely that it is a temporary, again, exploration.
[00:45:47] Hunter: And so be the supporter, be on their team. Hold it lightly. Don't necessarily jump in and say, okay, let's schedule, your hormones and your surgery. But just let's be a supporter and a grounding force in this.
[00:46:08] Amy Lang: Yeah, there's some rules of thumb, like if a child inconsistently, persistently insists they're another gender or sexual orientation, or, I would say it would need to go over a year at least with moratoria heading into adolescence. Then you need therapy. Then they need therapy. Then they need to be really sure, especially if they're trans. Like the trans, being trans is a really big deal. The other things can be a bigger deal, but if your child is I am absolutely not in the, I am in the wrong body for my, I am not a guy. If I were, I'm not a guy, I'm not a guy, I'm not a guy, I'm not a gal, I'm not a gal, I'm not a gal. They're very insistent about it. Then that may mean that they are trans. So again, we're back to this hold it lightly thing, and it's a big deal to go through the hormones and all that stuff, and one of the things about hormone blockers is that they're instantly reversible. So if, if your kiddo is on hormone blockers, if that makes sense for them and then they move through their adolescence and into their adulthood and they think, okay, this actually isn't who I am, they're instantly reversible. But most kids don't go, don't do that. Most kids don't. And the good news is there's tons and tons of support for families and kids who are actively More serious Mamie, or, that's a terrible way to talk about it, but, it's like a bigger deal for some kids and there's tons of support.
[00:47:27] Hunter: Yeah, there's a spectrum from exploration to, et cetera. And so this is good, important for us to, regardless of what, even if our kids remain, This gender, right? The gender that they were at birth and, heterosexual, or even if they are that way, it's really important for us to have to practice a language and a mindset of openness and inclusiveness. You, so that then, when we can approach to without judgment, then they're less, then they're more likely to come talk to us about the various things they need to talk to us about.
[00:48:03] Amy Lang: Yeah. And it all trickles down, right? And it's hard not to be judgmental, but that's why you have friends. You could vent, right? And talk about how crazy it's making you and, what the heck with the they, them pronouns and, like trying to sort all that out and it's going to be rich. Bring back, it's going to become normal, right? This will become a normal part of adolescence, it won't feel so outrageous or whatever people are feeling.
And again, you have to take it seriously because who we are as a sexual person, our sex, sexuality, our gender are fundamental to being human. Yes. Like I said. That was a new wave of punker not fundamental to my the time it was, but not, that's all right. It was so important that I showed up like that. So anyway and I think maybe just to circle back to the tween piece. So I just, the good news is with tweens is that you can get a lot more information into them more quickly than if you're starting at five, you have this long trajectory, which is nice. But they learn more quickly. They understand things more quickly. The problem is the pushback, but the pushback, you expect the pushback. You have a response to the pushback. We didn't talk about little tip things to help them be more engaged listening.
[00:49:12] Hunter: Yeah. Yeah. Give us those as we close out. That would be fabulous.
[00:49:15] Amy Lang: Yeah. Don't look them in the eye, make it really casual. Like you said, conversations in the car, right? That's a really good time to have, don't abuse it, but that's a good time to talk with them. When you're doing the dishes, folding laundry, walking the dog they do better when they're involved in an activity and you just hey, and you can do these things like, hey, I was just thinking, I don't want blowjob. They're not gonna be like, Okay, she's nuts. Do we care? We don't care. So finding those times, paying attention as they're into puberty, I call it being lucid to when they're lucid, right? They work. They have to keep their poop in a group all day long. And so when they come home from school and you're like, so let's talk about intercourse.
No. And usually, unfortunately, as y'all know, it's they're all hot to trot at nine o'clock at night and you're like, people, it is bedtime. So paying attention to their moods and thinking about, like, when is this going to be a good time to talk about this watching media, TV, shows, movies, music, lyrics, friends. So if you hear on the radio, you can say, oh, hey, I loved that moment between the two of them. And then, okay, they got that little thing in there. I love “Never Have I Ever” because it's just got some great adolescent moments. It's teenager y, but it's fine for tweens to watch. And then just doing things like leaving post it notes. Your children should not have a phone. Until they are in the 7th grade or 8th grade, but if they do have a phone, you can text them little things if you want to that's better for older kids. And then the last thing is this, you cannot hurt them, cannot hurt them, you can only help them by talking openly about this.
So don't worry about giving them too much information. It is virtually impossible for us to do that. So your goal is sweaty upper lip. If you have a sweaty upper lip, you're rocking. And again, you say, I'm uncomfortable. I haven't talked about that. Do that. It's fine. It's fine. It's helpful to them. It's helpful to them. And then the other thing too is it's okay to plan. So my book, leaf through, and you're like, God, we haven't really talked about periods. And you have a person who isn't going to have a period. You have a person with a penis. It's So you can say, all right, I want to get this stuff in here. How am I going to do this? Oh, I know when I go to the grocery store, I'm going to buy a box of pads or tampons or something, right? And then you can say, Hey, do you know what these are? And then you go, right? So it's okay to plan. Don't, I know some people make notes in their phone or put it on their calendar, right? And just Oh, we actually have a little sex talk. So it's fine to do that. It don't, we don't know what we're doing, but you can do it. .
[00:51:49] Hunter: Yeah. Yeah. Amy, your book is so great. I really have to tell you now that I've been forced to look through it. I am just like, there's so many dogeared pieces and I'm just like, okay, what is the script in here that I am going to think about so that I can have a folding laundry moment and I will actually know what to say. But, dear listener, I highly recommend Aimee's book, Sex Talks with Tweens, What to Say and How to Say It. It's gonna be invaluable to you. You should definitely get it. I highly recommend it.
[00:52:27] Amy Lang: Thank you. I’m glad you found it helpful. It's nothing like a real life person. I just think, okay, I'm doing it.
[00:52:29] Hunter: I'm gonna do it. Actually, I have to go pick up my tween- she's still a tween- in 20 minutes, but she is going to be protected by the fact that her seven year old neighbor is also being picked up in the car with her, so I will maul the gung ho ness I feel at this moment, will be tempered, which is, that's probably a good thing.
[00:52:50] Amy Lang: Rumble. Huh. Compete. Thinking they have cards, and, fire hose her. Yeah. We can just end now, right? You got a little plan. There's probably something we talked about that you're like, I need to do this. So later on tonight, take the opportunity when you see it, keep it short and sweet and no one's going to die. No one's going to throw up. Promise.
[00:53:05] Hunter: Thank you. Thank you so much for coming back on the Mindful Mama podcast. I always love talking to you, even if it makes me slightly anxious. And I really appreciate you taking the time and sharing what you have to share with us because it's so important.
Thank you so much, Amy.
[00:53:22] Amy Lang: Thank you. And thank you for trusting me with your people. I just really feel so honored. So thanks so much for that.
[00:53:33] Hunter: Thank you so much for listening to this episode. So I have to give you an update since I have had this conversation with Amy. That afternoon, it turns out my younger neighbor did not need a ride home to that day, so I had time in the car with my 12 year old and I brought some subjects up right away. And she said to me- she's going on 13, so she said basically, “Mom, you're too late .I know about all this stuff”, but she's cool. And so I've been bringing up different things all throughout the week since then, here and there. And you know what? It's not that hard. Once you just say it, you just say it and it's okay. And in fact, we had a conversation after our first initial conversation. We had a conversation about preventing pregnancy and how, Contraceptives and things like that. And she asked questions, so it can be done even if you're nervous. I was so nervous, and I have to let you know that it was helpful, and we're having conversations, and it's opened things up, so that's exciting.
And I even had some conversations with my 15 year old, who is often openly very hostile about these kind of conversations. And we've had some more things. I said, “I'm sorry I should have talked to you”, but I've totally apologized and said, “I should have talked to you about this earlier”. And she was funny, though, because she identifies as gay and she said- I went out and I got condoms and I got Plan B. And I have them now in my bathroom, and she's “there's no way I'm ever going to need that”. She was laughing at me, but I said, “okay, it's fine. It's even, just if your friends ever need it, just, it's a source for you to have it here”. And so it's opening up conversations. So that's my update since my conversation with Amy, it kicked me in the pants, and we've opened things up since then. Ifeel really good about it. So you can do it too. Let this podcast episode be your kick in the pants to have your own conversations, get her talk, sex talks with tweens. I think it's incredibly valuable, but, get it before your kid's a tween so you can read up. And even if you have a teenager, it was very helpful for me to realize all the things that we need to talk about. And anyway, I just, Can't say enough about it. So helpful. Ah, I know you have friends who feel squeamish about this because, I feel like I'm a pretty open person and I felt really squeamish about this. So if you know you have some squeamish friends, share this episode. Share this episode on your social media, text it to your friends, and let them know and let it start a conversation between you.
And then we're going to keep kids safer. It's all for the good. We can get over squeamishness for the good of our kids. We can do it. If I can do it, you can do it. Okay. All right. That's it. Thank you so much for listening. I'm wishing you a fabulous week. I'm wishing you peace and ease and some uncomfortable conversations. And I can't wait to talk to you again next week. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. I wish you well. Namaste
[00:56:58] Mindful Mama Member: I'd say definitely do it. It's really helpful. It will change your relationship with your kids for the better It will help you communicate better And just I'd say communicate better as a person as a wife as a spouse. It's been really a positive influence in our lives So definitely do it I'd say definitely do it. It's so worth it. The money really is inconsequential when you get so much benefit from being a better parent to your children and feeling like you're connecting more with them and not feeling like you're yelling all the time or you're like, why isn't things working? I would say definitely do it. It's so worth it. It'll change you. No matter what age someone's child is, it's a great opportunity for personal growth and it's a great investment in someone's life. You can continue in your old habits that aren't working, or you can learn some new tools and gain some perspective to shift everything in your parenting.
[00:58:01] Hunter: Are you frustrated by parenting? Do you listen to the experts and try all the tips and strategies, but you're just not seeing the results that you want? Or are you lost as to where to start? Does it all seem so overwhelming with too much to learn? Are you yearning for community people who get it, who also don't want to threaten and punish to create cooperation?
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