What Parents Need to Know About Today's Teens and Sex

Teens and sex are a scary topic for lots of parents. How can we impact our kids' decisions and what do we say? Join our conversation today with Dr. Debby Herbenick, a Provost Professor at the Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington, where she leads the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior. She is the author of Yes Your Kid: What Parents Need to Know About Today’s Teens and Sex.

In this episode, we cover:

• What do you believe a parent's role should be in sex education?
• How do you become an askable parent?
• How to talk with our kids about sex without sounding overly judgmental but also convey your values.
• 5 minutes a week conversations.
• The importance of having high-quality books on puberty and sexuality around the house.
• When to start talking about sex with kids?
• How to talk with young people about consent
• Impact of technology (internet, social media, ubiquitous cell phones, etc.) on sexual development.
• What are reasonable parental rules surrounding technology usage?
• Taking and sharing sexual images--how common?
  • How should parents even start talking with their child about nude images?
  • At what age should we start this conversation
  • How to share the downside
• Pornography or sexually explicit media
  • How common do kids access porn, and at what ages?
  • Is viewing porn bad for kids?
  • At what age should parents start talking with kids about pornography?
  • What should parents say about porn?
  • How to keep our kids from viewing porn?
  • How to respond if we catch our kid watching porn or know that they have viewed it?
• Having these discussions when we haven’t had a lifetime of raising this child?

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Dawn Davenport  0:00  
This is Creating a Family. Talk about foster, adoptive and kinship care. Welcome back to our regular listeners. We really appreciate how you have helped us grow. We are now in the top 10% of all podcasts actually in the world, believe it or not. And we also want to send out a special hello to our new listeners. We do want to grow and reach more families. So we really appreciate you joining us. I am Dawn Davenport. I am the host of the show as well as the director of the nonprofit creating a family.org Today we're going to be talking about what parents need to know about today's teens and sex, and stick around to the end, because we're going to be giving practical suggestions along the way, which I think is especially helpful. We will be talking today with Dr Debbie Herbinick. She is a provost professor at the Indiana University School of Public Health in Bloomington, where she leads the National Survey of Sexual health and behavior. She is an award winning sexuality educator and a researcher, and she is the author of the book, yes, your kid what parents need to know about today's teens and sex. Welcome, Dr Herbinick to Creating a Family. We're so glad to have you here.

Unknown Speaker  1:12  
Thank you. I'm very happy to be here.

Dawn Davenport  1:14  
So basically, part of your job, and I realize that God covers a whole lot more than just this, but part of your job is to help parents navigate the conversations with their child around bodies and sexuality. And it seems like this book was designed to say to parents talking about puberty and sexuality may feel awkward, but you can do it. You should do it. And here's how, and I particularly appreciated that, and here's how part, because that's, I think, what most of us really need as parents, and I'm a mom of four, so I know what have I speak about. What I particularly appreciated is that this book is up to date about what is really happening in the world of teens and sex, and I'm sure it's based on your work, both as a college professor, but also from the National Survey of Sexual Health and behaviors. Did that influence how you viewed what's actually happening? Because honestly, I think that some of us, and I'm raising my hand here, are naive as to what is really happening in the world, both exaggerating it and under that and both ways we cut both ways.

Speaker 1  2:16  
Yeah, I think most of us are really naive. It just so happens to be that I study sex, and of course, I do teach college students, and so I hear from them. I learn through my research, and so I get this inside view to what's really happening with teenagers and young adults. And that is exactly why I wanted to write, yes your kid, because I thought, You know what, what many of us as parents would otherwise be talking about are kind of a lot of the same old things that we thought kids needed when we were their age, about puberty and about some of the basics around sexuality and maybe STIs, you know, preventing pregnancy, things like that, and all of that's still really important, but it's Not enough in today's world where most kids have access to a smartphone, where there's widespread social media, where there is access to pornography and changing kinds of pornography, so we really need to understand what the real sexual landscape is, whether or not our kids are engaging in those behaviors. They're aware of them. They may be thinking about them. So it's important to step into those conversations.

Dawn Davenport  3:23  
Yeah, and I think that most parents believe, if asked, that their kids are not engaged, are not thinking, are not aware. So I think it's important to realize that even if our kids are not engaging in any of the things we're going to be talking about, it's still important for us as parents to be aware, because even if they aren't doing it, they probably know someone who is, and they're probably thinking about a lot more than we think they are thinking about. What do you believe a parent's role should be in sex education? I know that's an easy it's kind of a softball question, but it seems like it is a fundamental, kind of foundational to this discussion. It is,

Speaker 1  4:02  
you know, every parent has a role in sex education, whether or not they realize it, whether or not they're having active conversations. We all do we have a role in sex education in terms of how we model things for them, how we model things around gender or sexuality in our home, the kinds of music we listen to, the sorts of, you know, movies we might show and TV shows in the house. I mean, kids are learning from the earliest ages what the people and the family members around them think about sexuality. So even when we nervously sidestep conversations, if maybe there's a sexual scene that comes on a show and, you know you say, oh, change the station. Well, the child may learn from you, right, that that is something shameful or it's not right for them or something, but unless you really sort of expand on that as a teachable moment, they may not know why. So we always have a role anyway, but what I want to encourage parents to do is have a more active role. You. Talking with their kids about bodies, puberty, sexuality, because they're getting information from all sorts of sources around, whether it's friends, media, their school and so in terms of really talking about values, in terms of putting in the context of their lives, in terms of supporting your child, because you know your child better than anyone else you know, you have a really, really, really important role to support them in navigating what can be a very tricky space for most young people.

Dawn Davenport  5:28  
You talk about the value of becoming an askable parent. What do you mean by that?

Speaker 1  5:34  
By an askable parent, it's a parent that kids can go to with questions, with concerns, with maybe even things that their friends need help with, with something they don't really understand that they saw or heard about. So being an askable parent is just somebody that you can go to that's not going to shut you down right away, that says, oh, like, that's a good question, you know, what have you heard about that? Or what do you know about that? But kind of keeps the conversation going so that you maintain a connection with your child at different ages and stages, and you can be that person that they come to. So

Dawn Davenport  6:07  
let's say you have a child, a teen. Let's say a 14 year old that comes to you and asks a question, and you're startled by the question. You haven't thought you weren't planning on having this conversation for another couple of years, if ever. Maybe we're hoping to pawn it off to your partner, if you have one. And so the kid comes and asks you a question. What are some responses that you can use in the heat of the moment? Have them tucked in your back pocket that will help you not shut down the conversation. Will help you learn a little more and maybe buy a little time while you think about how you want to handle

Speaker 1  6:42  
it absolutely. I mean, I think go tos are, huh? Like, that's a good question. I mean, really, just like, that's

Dawn Davenport  6:49  
a great one. You said it in the book, and I thought, Oh, that's a good one. Darn. I don't think I use that Yes.

Speaker 1  6:55  
Just a few seconds, they're like, Huh? You know, if you don't know the answer, you can be like, you know, I don't really know, what if? What have you heard about that? Where did this come up from? Sometimes the questions are actually really innocuous, and you're thinking they mean one thing and they mean something totally different. Yeah, that does buy you a little time, and it also gives you a little context of where they might have heard about this thing, you know, from. Because that happens to all of us, and that happens to the most seasoned sex educators and sex researchers like me, sometimes you get, I've gotten to where I think I didn't think I was going to get that for a few more years. And so, you know, so having that question, but I think really, again, supporting their curiosity, we wouldn't shut down their curiosity in other areas of life. So let's not do that in sexuality. So, you know, good question, like, I don't know what, have you heard? What do you think about that? You know, what's your best guess about that? Sort of depending on, you know, what the question is. But the main thing is, we don't want to shut it down. They are going to ask lots of questions, if we're lucky, like we want them to come to us with questions. If we're lucky, they are coming with questions. And, you know, we are sometimes going to shut it down, even when we don't mean to, and we're going to react in a way that later we think, Oh, I really wish I hadn't done that. And there we have an opportunity to repair and reconnect. And so we come back later and you say, you know, I really was surprised when you asked me that question, or when you mentioned this thing, you know that your friendsetter did. It brought up a lot of things for me, this was unfamiliar to me. I'm really sorry. Can we have a second chance at that conversation? And that models for your child how you deal with conflict, how you deal with like mistakes that you made, and it gives you a chance to start over. So that's the valuable lesson. But then you get to step back into that conversation, and maybe the way you wish you had done the first time, maybe you've now had chance to talk it through with a partner, if you have one, or good friend or family member, or you've looked it up and learned more about something that you had never heard about before, and you know now you have some more information to go into that conversation with. So it's also okay to come back into something that didn't go the way you wanted to initially, well.

Dawn Davenport  9:02  
And the other thing is, if you truly don't know the answer, admitting it and saying, you know, I don't know the answer, let's figure out how to find the answer. And that opens up an opportunity, particularly when you're looking up something online. There is so much we're going to talk about that in a minute, but there are so many obviously not reputable places that our kids could get answers. But there are ways internet literacy is something this is not the purpose of this show, but I think it's something that we as parents overlook so often we need to teach our kids to look@the.org.edu.gov sites and tell them that otherwise, chances are good. Most dot coms are trying to sell you something or getting you to come back to this site, and if you're really looking for answers, that's not what you're looking for. So let's look it up together. Yes, this is awkward, and yes, this can be embarrassing. What about admitting that up front about when you have conversations with your kids about because it is awkward, it's talking about naked bodies, and at some point they're going to connect it mom. Dad, if mom and dad were in the picture for this, did something that was like this, and they had to get naked, and it's uncomfortable. So what about just acknowledging the awkwardness?

Speaker 1  10:10  
You know, it can be awkward for some family, some of the time. It doesn't have to be, but it can be for some valid point. And so I think for people who are feeling awkwardness, especially over we all have certain topics that might feel more awkward or sensitive for us than others. So it's also okay to say things like, you know, this is kind of new for me. You know, it feels a little awkward because it's new for me, because maybe, like, when I grew up, my parents didn't talk with me about these things, and so these conversations are still kind of new for me, but they're also really important to me, because I want us to have an open conversation in our family, right? So it's okay to talk about this, or this is awkward for me, because this stuff wasn't going on when I was a kid, like none of us had smartphones, or none of us had access to some of these things, and

Dawn Davenport  10:53  
it might have been going on. You might not have known about it, known,

Speaker 1  10:56  
yeah, and so, so some of it is just kind of sharing. Why? Because, again, that gives practice and modeling for talking about your feelings, and also that even though you're feeling that discomfort, that you can get through it, that you have the confidence as a parent and a family member that you can get through this, because it's really important to you. I

Dawn Davenport  11:15  
think one of the challenges is how to talk with kids about sex without sounding overly judgmental, but also to convey your values, any suggestions there,

Speaker 1  11:25  
you know, I think that's where those time tested. I messages really come up, because you can share your values with like, how you feel by saying like, well, I feel this, or, in my view, whatever. So you talk about, you know, your own sense of it, but I would be really careful about blanket messages about this is always wrong, or this is always bad, because, again, you don't want to shut your child out of a future conversation with you. So acknowledging your discomfort, acknowledging how you feel, acknowledging where your perspectives come from, still make space for their perspectives they may end up landing in a few days or a few hours or a few weeks or years where you are, but they may not initially, and I think that can be really hard. You know, when sometimes people just say this is always terrible or always wrong. I know as a college professor, what I hear from my students is that they often stop talking with a person who just sort of paints such a broad swath that there's no room for them. Or they say, you know, I can't really talk to this person, so I just tell them I'm not having sex, right? Because they're just going to tell me, like it's wrong if I do. And so that's the side that I think I've you know, I've been a college professor now, I've been teaching college sexuality classes for 21 years, to many 1000s of students, and they write their first person accounts in their papers and talk about things in class. So, you know, I think it depends on what kind of, I guess, message you want to share with your child, if you just want them to know, well, you can, you can tell them, and that's your right. But I'll say, from the other side of things, what I see is, if they feel like they're only going to be judged or ashamed, they will stop telling that person the reality of their life. And that's really hard

Dawn Davenport  13:13  
you talk in the book. And I really love this idea about five minute a week conversations. I thought that was such a good idea. It would have been a good idea for me. I didn't do it. I didn't know about it. Doggone it. Let's talk about, what do you mean by a five minute a week conversation? How does that apply? Obviously, every

Speaker 1  13:31  
family's got to find their way in, right? And so some families do these five minute a week conversations where they may say, you know, anyone can do anything for five minutes. So my kid and I can talk about whatever it is, sort of that this broader idea of, you know, bodies, puberty, sexuality, relationships for five minutes a week. So you say to your child, I know that sometimes this can be awkward, but it's really important to me that we talk about relationships and sexuality and bodies. So once a week for five minutes, I'm going to set a timer, and we're going to talk about something in the space. You can ask me a question, or I can bring something up, you know, we'll find a way, but we're just going to keep that conversation going for five minutes. When the timer goes off, it's done. And we can keep talking if you want, or you can go off and do whatever else you're doing with your day. And so it can be a little awkward the first time or two for some families, but it often really picks up, and sometimes, you know, you can use that space to share information that you want to share to just ask them if they have something on their mind. And I know families who sometimes say, you know, use as a time to ask their child something that they don't know about. Right? Teenagers have all kinds of terms these days that were not popular terms when we were growing up. So, you know, I have one friend, for example, who she decided to try this strategy with her family this year, and she said, You know, I've heard the term pansexual. I don't know what that means to her 13 year old. And her 13 year old educated her on what he's heard pansexual mean, and they had this whole conversation about gender and sexuality, where she. Learned about kind of the teenage perspective on these things.

Dawn Davenport  15:03  
And the thing about the five minute a week is that if you're committed to it, it forces the conversation to keep moving and keep growing. But it's time limited, because everybody you could say, and we can survive a five minutes. If this is an all and your your point's well taken. For not every family is this awkward. But for plenty of families, it is, and I would argue that from the vast majority of teenagers, it is. So anybody can survive five minutes. So they'll give you that five minutes, and then if it goes on, it goes on, but if it stops, they know that they're in control of it at that point, something that you brought up in the book. And I may say the title again, yes, your kid, something that you brought up in Yes, your kid is the importance of having high quality books on puberty and sexuality around the house. If parents are not doing that, it is such an easy and important thing that you can do just leaving them around. And there's so many good ones that exist. You list a number of them in the back of yes, your kids, so people can find them there. We've had conversations. We have a very large Facebook support group. You can come on facebook.com/groups, creating a family, and ask there, and you will get so many suggestions of really high quality books. And I certainly know that in our house, I would just have there was a place that we're just sitting, and I would notice that they were gone, and then they would come back, and that allowed my kids to explore, and I control the books that were there, and they were good and they were high quality. So anything you want to add to that,

Speaker 1  16:37  
well, I think that's the big thing, right. Like you get to make the choices about what books are there so you know that it's good information you have them available, and it also can help deter kids from so much internet searching. Not that they're not going to search on the internet for things or their their friends might, but now when they want to know, they can read a book, and the key is to keep them updated, right? Because the books that are really helpful when our kids are in elementary age are not going to be the same when they need more information around puberty or start having questions about sexuality later on. So just from time to time, check in. You know, that's a great idea to ask the Facebook group for tips. Look through the books yourself, see what you think, and then make them available and have them around. And if there are parts you really, really, really want your kids to know about, you know, you can even put a sticky note in some of the parts, or say, you know, as part of your five minutes a week. Hey, did you check out this piece? I think it's important. But have them available and update them as they grow older,

Dawn Davenport  17:32  
yeah, especially the updating them as they grow older part is such a good point. So when should parents start talking about sex, not puberty. Puberty is one that's puberty is happening. You have to start talking about it. It seems to me, puberty is the easier of the two to talk about for most parents, most people I know, and certainly probably for myself as well. But I'm talking about sex. When should you start talking about sex with kids, and what do we mean? We say talking about sex? Yeah,

Speaker 1  18:05  
talking about sex means lots of different things, but I think that you know, one of the earlier introductions is when kids get curious about how babies are made. So many, many families start talking with kids about at least reproductive aspects of sex around ages five or six, that's often when the questions come up, where in a more detailed way, but not all kids do. And so if some kids haven't asked those questions, and they're, you know, seven or eight, I would bring it up to them, and again, hopefully they've had a book by then, anyway, that would explain that a lot of the early books about bodies and different body parts and how babies are made. I mean, they do talk about that. They don't go into great detail, right? But, you know, they for so we're thinking for every topic we're thinking about what's age appropriate and developmentally appropriate, and those early books and those early questions from kids, I mean, when they ask how babies are made, you can kind of keep it really simple about eggs and sperm, right? And then at some point, when they're a little ready, sometimes kids will say, I mean, I get that there's egg and I get that there's sperm, but how does the egg? You know, the sperm get to each other. And then you have more of an opportunity for talking about sex and for talking about intercourse. And again, this is where you start to also bring in more to the story with your values as well. And so, you know, for some families, they're going to say, well, in the context of marriage or when people really love one another, and some people, you know, keep it very sciencey based about the egg and the sperm and intercourse. And so families will differ in how they deliver that message. But it does start to like make sense for kids, because otherwise it's just this completely unclear information. We don't want to keep things unclear where then they're asking everyone around or they get confused, you know, so go ahead and give them the information they are ready for. It at those ages, they may even ask a little bit younger if somebody in their family is pregnant or their teacher is pregnant. So questions change, but if they're not asking an elementary. At ages seven eight, I would more clearly give them that information, because they probably are getting it from someone, if it isn't you.

Dawn Davenport  20:08  
I was told, actually, it was at a seminar at our church. Said this is my kids were little that if you haven't spoken to your child about the basics, we're not talking about getting graphic here. By the ages of seven or eight, they chances are extremely good that they have heard from someone else. So if you want to be the first one to talk to them about it, you have to initiate the conversation. And it took me by surprise. I thought, oh my gosh, six, seven or eight, but does that fly with what you hear as well?

Speaker 1  20:37  
Absolutely. I mean, if they have an aspect, then they're almost certainly getting that information from somebody incorrectly, probably. But yeah, could, could be good information could not be. And you don't know, but you have no idea, and you don't know the context. And so again, if you want to give the context and your values in those conversations, be part of it, and that's for any conversation, whether it's sexuality or puberty or really specific parts of sex, if you know something is coming down the pike, try to be the first person who you know a year or two earlier. I mean, with puberty, we say talk at least two years before you think you're going to need it. Because first of all, puberty is unpredictable. No one knows when you know all these good points down. But the other thing is, you want your child to be prepared and have enough time to digest it and to kind of understand what's happening, so that when those changes start happening to themselves or their peers, they're not really surprised or scared or worried about their body and their health. So

Dawn Davenport  21:29  
you would say for the puberty discussion, 910,

Speaker 1  21:32  
I mean, I started talking to my kids at even younger ages about the basics, because they would wonder why my body was different than theirs. Yeah. And I would say something as simple as, oh, well, it's because, you know, you go through puberty around, you know, ages like 1011, 12, 1314, and, you know, and these different things happen. And they were too young to soak in much, but they took it a little bit, and it would come up every now and then. And as I got older, I gave them more information, and we talked more about what they could expect and when? So that, you know, by the time those changes happened with their classmates, it wasn't surprising or scary. Some of my college students, if no one ever talked with them, they worried that they were hemorrhaging when they got their first period, or they worried that they broke their you know, their body like their penis when they had their first ejaculation. And they really lived with shame and worry sometimes that they were dying. I mean, for months they worried like, what did I do to myself? And so, so let's talk well in advance, you know, with them, because not all schools do, but we can at least sort of give them some information so they know what to expect.

Dawn Davenport  22:34  
And that follows for all big topics that we have to bring up with our kids, or that we as parents have an obligation, or I believe we have an obligation, to talk with our kids about is to start small. And we say age appropriate doesn't have to be much information, but if anything, when you start when they're very little, it's helping you, because you're getting over some of the awkwardness, and you're not giving much information, but you're just laying the groundwork. And then each time you it comes back up, and oftentimes some kids ask questions, but truthfully, some kids don't. And so next time you have to bring it up or they ask a question, they've got something that you've given them the information about. So you're just adding context as they get older, as opposed to having the conversation. It should be a series, and you talk about this in the book, it's a series of multiple conversations, with the first ones being just very simplistic, very

Speaker 1  23:29  
because they don't need a lot of information when they're they're really little. I mean, like I said, I would say, Oh, it's just because I've gone through puberty already, right? And these changes happen. That's it. And you build and you build, so you set that foundation and you grow it over time. And you know, along with keeping things simple, when kids ask a question, we always say, as sexuality educators, just answer the question you were asked. You don't have to go into a long monolog about it. They really, if they want to know how babies are made at young ages, they're really pretty happy with like egg and sperm, and you don't need more until they ask more. If they want to know more, they'll ask more, but usually they move on to some other question or some other comment, or they go back and playing, or they go back to hanging out with their friends. So just answer the question you're asked and

Dawn Davenport  24:13  
keep it simple and let them know that this goes back to being the askable parent. Check in with them and say, Did I answer your question? You know? And yeah, let me pause here for a moment to tell you about new podcasts. It's actually not new. We've done it for almost a year. It's called weekend wisdom. The important part is that this podcast weekend wisdom is where we answer your questions, so we need you to send us your questions. We have gotten some really great questions lately. Send them in it's a short podcast, 10 minutes, five minutes where we answer the questions you send to us. We take one question per week in wisdom, send your questions to info at creating a family.org now. I want to move into as our children are getting older, and one of the things that seems that our society has shifted, and I'm not sure that it's clear, and that is how to talk with our young people about consent. There was a period of time where some university was saying that before ever you had to say, Is this okay? Do I have your consent for everything like, okay, now I want to kiss you on the lips. Do I have your consent? Now I want to stroke your hair. Do I have your consent? And I'm thinking that is just simply unrealistic. That is not how romance works. But we all know consent is important, so how do we talk with both our sons and our daughters about consent now,

Speaker 1  25:43  
yeah, I mean, consent is something that is much more common in schools these days. I mean, just completely apart from sexuality, making sure you know you have your permission, you know your friend's permission to go through their backpack and their cubby. I mean, even at young ages like you didn't give your permission. So so I think, you know, many schools are trying to sort of broaden consent. And again, I think at those early ages, we can even do that in homes. And so, you know, like, is it all right if I give you a hug? Because not all kids feel like a hug. First of all, some have sensory issues and don't always want to hug, or they might want to hug, but not a really tight, squeezy hug. Or they might not feel like one if they're really upset right then, right and they might need one a little space for a minute. So it's not taking things too far to sometimes just say, like, do you feel like a hug right now? And that can become really normalized in families, but as they get older, and we really start thinking in more detailed ways and start connecting it to sexuality in their early teens. I mean, we really want them to know early on, and probably even before your early teens, but middle school age and so on that you asked before you kiss somebody, there's a great book. Oh, it's one of the Kelly Yang books. And I can't remember which one it is now, but you follow the characters at different ages. She's this great New York Times best selling author of these Kid books, these elementary age kiss books, but in one of them, the boy character ends up kissing the girl character without talking about it, and she's upset because she thought they were just friends, you know, for a few years, and she gets this kiss. And so that, I mean that book is a kid's book, an older kids book, you know, fifth, sixth grade. But I think it does a really nice job about talking about the feelings involved about that from both sides, and then also how to talk with somebody when it hasn't gone the way that you thought it would right and what it means. So talking about permission, talking about consent as they get older, making sure that they know that consent is not enough. Where we see a lot of things go wrong in the teen years and with college students too, is they say no, it was fine, like you know she or he said yes, or she or theater was okay. But did they seem like they wanted you to? Did they seem like they liked it? Right? So we do talk about like, meaningful consent or enthusiastic consent, versus just consent, because people, when they're pressured into something, will say yes, but it doesn't mean they want to be doing that thing. And so we really want to make sure that our that we're talking about that as well. One saying that we've had in our house that actually started in relation to, like, how we manage the family pets, you know, is like, like carrying the capital around is letting, is not liking. Just because someone lets you do something doesn't mean they like it. So we would say, with our cats, right, like ears, like to their ears tell you that they want to be. You know how that way right now, if not, you put them down. And as a college professor, I ended up using that cat phrase at home with my students. But it's great, because you can look right at body languaging, because I do think do they do they really look happy right now? Do they look like they're into this, if not? Step back, you know, you don't have to do the next thing.

Dawn Davenport  28:50  
So one difference for a lot of people who are raising children now, particularly teens, is that when they were teens, technology was totally different, and now we've got the internet. We have social media, so many I mean, it's almost ubiquitous. Now everybody's got a cell phone. So how has technology, in general, impacted, let's say sexual development of our kids? Wow.

Speaker 1  29:18  
I mean, I think nothing else in history, right? I mean, it's, it's really something and so, you know, with technology, we have, of course, not only access to finding out information, which we've talked a little bit about, that, you know, people will search the internet for information about bodies and sexuality, but also for how you flirt with each other, how you meet partners. So it brings up all kinds of issues around, you know, taking and sharing of nude images, what we sometimes call sexting, or, of course, access to pornography as well. We're going

Dawn Davenport  29:48  
to talk about that in a minute. You're right, because I want to spend some time on both of those. Yeah, so, yes, both getting information, but also just viewing images. All of that is. Yes, it is so different now from when. So what are some reasonable parental rules surrounding technology use?

Speaker 1  30:07  
Yeah, you know, they really vary by age like anything else. And I think at the youngest ages, a lot of parents just try to keep their kids away from the internet and away from connected devices when they start to spend time on them, parents commonly say, you know, sure, you know, you can be on the tablet or on my phone, but you need a grown up in the room, you know, I need to be able to have the device in view. And then you sort of build things up over time. And that's, I would say, the more common strategy, you know, I think we're seeing some changes these days, even around access to devices, because there is a lot more research than we had, you know, even five years ago that shows some real challenges with mental health and distractibility for young people. So most kids do have access to a smartphone or a connected device by age 12, but many more families are realizing maybe there's some wisdom in delaying access to those devices. That's

Dawn Davenport  31:00  
interesting. And you're seeing that in your survey, that parents are man interesting. And

Speaker 1  31:05  
many schools right now we're starting to see many more phone free schools. So I think, you know, we are starting to see a change in reaction to what a lot of my college students will describe themselves as, feeling like their generation was the guinea pig. There were these things. Were just widespread access. And you know, my 22 year old college students will say things like, gosh, when we were 12, all these things happened. And when I have kids, I'm not gonna give them the same access that I had. Interesting

Dawn Davenport  31:33  
that is fascinating and, and they're right, they were the guinea pigs. Yeah, you are probably learning a lot in this podcast. I know that I am, especially today, learning a lot. In addition, we want you to know however, that we have a new training that we're offering for prenatal substance exposure. A lot of our kids have been exposed to alcohol and drugs during pregnancy. It impacts their behavior. It impacts their learning. We have a workshop for parents. It is a great resource for you. It's four and a half hours. It's over three sessions. It's broken out by age of the child. It's just terrific. You can get more information at Bitly slash prenatal dash exposure, dash training. That's Bitly, B, i, t, dot, l, y, slash prenatal dash exposure, dash training. Now I want to talk specifically about taking and sharing sexual images. How common is that, where kids will take a picture of themselves and send it to a boyfriend or a friend or somebody they want to be a boyfriend or whomever, or girl or girlfriend or whatever.

Speaker 1  32:44  
Yeah, you know, as teenagers, it's not terribly common. You know, the data varies, but around like 15, 25% you know, you often get in surveys, sometimes a little more. But as they get older, it gets much more common, right? So older teens, and then for, you know, early 20s, it becomes very, very common that people are taking and sharing nudes. And so if we think about this developmentally, it's like with anything else. Again, we have to sort of scaffold those skills. So at the youngest ages, if they are using your phone, make sure that they know, you know, sure you can use my phone to take pictures, but we don't take pictures of nude bodies. And so, you know, you sort of get or we don't take pictures of people without asking them first, and we don't share people's pictures without asking them first, and then you build those skills. But the the taking and sharing of nude images in adolescence and young adulthood does increase with age, and we also know that, not surprisingly, girls are much more often pressured to share nude images as teenagers.

Dawn Davenport  33:44  
And you're saying that what age we start this conversation? We start this conversation explicitly telling our kids we don't take pictures without permission, we don't take pictures of people without their clothes on, and you don't share. And we start that when they're asking to use our phones. Yeah, and

Speaker 1  34:00  
we model consent here as well. I mean, I know I often advise people ask your child before you send a picture to the grandparents, and it's not, you know, some people think, oh, that's overkill. I should be able to send pictures to the grandparents, but what does it hurt to ask them? And it models something for them. And I know in my family, I found that there are some pictures that they say, No, not that one. Or other times they might say not that one, but send this one, you know, to grandma. And so it just involves them a little bit. And then I saw, as they got older, they would sometimes, you know, say about things like, oh, you know, that person didn't ask somebody you know, or I didn't like that my picture wound up somewhere without me being asked. So, you know, you can integrate consent into these conversations too, because what you want them to know is that when they get into those middle school ages, when sometimes this stuff starts happening, that you want them to know that if one of their friends is sending pictures or posting things online without somebody's permission, that they can say no, you should ask them first, because we start. To see a lot of that happening around. I mean, for some kids, fifth, sixth grade and up even around 10% of elementary age, like older elementary age kids have been sending pictures, non consensually, like nude ish pictures, to other kids. So, I mean, sometimes that startles people to hear that this is even happening with like, you know, 910, 11 year olds, but it does on a much smaller scale, so we should be talking about that with them, so they know not to do it. And

Dawn Davenport  35:28  
as parents, we know some of the real downsides of doing this. And without terrifying our kids, I think we have the obligation to say that once it's out there, you don't control it.

Speaker 1  35:40  
Yeah, we have obligations to let them know that right is out there. We can't fix everything once it's out there on the internet. We can't just down. But also, some research has found that just again, not in a scare tactic type of way, but in a very plain, you know, information type of way. We have also the obligation to say, look, it is illegal for people to take these nude images of minors, and if that happens, like schools have policies against these. So you talk with your kids about that, and you say there are laws in the community, and there's also policies at school. And if people are sending and taking sharing nude images, they can be suspended from school. They may have, like the police come and talk with them and so on. And that can really be uncomfortable. So if you see people doing this, or you're, you know, go ahead and let me know. Speak up if you are being pressured. Come and talk with me and let me know. Because nobody should be pressuring you for a nude image, even if they're like your same age. No one should be pressuring you, but let them know. Because, you know, in many US states, even the you know, the transmission of nude images of minors can be treated in the law as child pornography, and that is really a very difficult thing for many families to hear when their child gets caught up in this. And in other states, it's treated more of a developmental issue where there's still conversations with the family. You know, they may remove device access for a kid, they may have them go through an education program, but it's really different than police involvement. So in the US states vary widely on that, but we need to be real with our teenagers about what may happen, so that they're not surprised or get caught up in something that they thought was maybe just harmless exploration, you

Dawn Davenport  37:20  
know. And it seems, and I could be wrong on this, but it seems to me that most kids would respond even more strongly to the message of once you send this picture, it can be resent to everyone. It can be resent over and over again. And even though you trust this person that you sent it to if you break up, you don't know what's going to happen. Or if somebody gets their phone, you don't know what's going to happen. So if you don't want your principal to see it, if you don't want your teachers, if you don't want you know people in their actual lives now to see this picture, don't put it out there, because you have no control once it's out there. Yeah,

Speaker 1  38:02  
don't put it out there. And also don't ask for it, right? Especially, what we find is a lot of good point. You know, it could be people with any gender, but especially boys, tend to ask for sometimes they get more attention from their friends if they get pictures, so they may ask for it. There's some encouragement for schools to look at their policies. So it's not just about the sharing of images, which was more often getting girls in trouble, but the upstream behavior, which was the asking and nagging for the picture. So such a good point to say, like, you know, if this is your friend or you care about this person, don't put them in that position, you know, like, don't put them in a position where they feel pressured or they have to make choices around this. Just don't ask people for nude images, you know? Yeah,

Dawn Davenport  38:44  
yeah, that's such a good point. I was focusing on the girls, but you're so it's both. And I'm so glad you said that, because we need to be raising our sons as well, and not all boys are. It can be reversed. This is not just gender stereotyped, but generally speaking, it is boys who are asking or girls who are providing.

Speaker 1  39:03  
Yeah, and I think you know, we do want them to know that once the pictures are out there, we can't necessarily get them back and they can be widely shared. But we also want to want to say it in a way, so that they know that if they do take and share an image, because again, many will, and if something it seems to spiral out of control, like you can still come to me for help. You know, I'm going to ask you not to do it. I don't think it's a good idea. Here's what can happen. But at the same time, we really don't want our kids to feel like there's no way out, because there is this. It's less likely, but it does happen to I mean, even at the middle school age, about 5% of kids, and the numbers increase at the high school age, what we call sextortion, which is where somebody says, Well, you know, if you don't send me more pictures, I'm going to share this with your parents, and then what's going to happen, or I'm going to share this around school, I'm going to show your ex or your best friends, or I'm going to post it on the internet, and so then they use that as a way to get more pictures. Or strangers on the internet will use that as a way to get more money. Sometimes kids make a mistake and they send a picture to some stranger on the internet. Maybe they thought it was a boyfriend or girlfriend or friend or somebody their same age, and it turned out to be an adult. So we still want to tell our kids to exercise caution in these spaces, but look, if something happens, I will always be here to support you. I never want you to get caught in a situation where you feel like you've got to send more pictures or even like give money to keep something from happening. I will help you with this.

Dawn Davenport  40:32  
Yeah, you're not in this alone, because I would just break my heart to think of of a kid trying to and this even goes up to college age kids. You know that absolutely, if they're dealing with it alone, that's a terrifying position to be in, and nobody should have to try to navigate that alone, even if you, as parents, can't get the pictures back, which you can't, you could at least be there to support them and to say, Okay, your worth is not tied up in this. This speaks more to the other person, and you can support them, and, you know, by a pint of Ben and Jerry's and you know, and talk bad about the person

Unknown Speaker  41:04  
Exactly, yeah.

Dawn Davenport  41:08  
Let me interrupt this interview just one more time to thank the jockey being Family Foundation for their support both of this podcast all these years, but also for their support for our free courses that we offer. There are 12 courses. They are excellent. They're really focused on parenting, not pre parenting, not to prepare you so much, but as once you're in the trenches of actually parenting, that's the focus of these courses. You can get them at Bitly slash JBf, support. That's B, i, t, dot, l, y, slash, JBf, support. All right, let's move on to pornography or sexually explicit media. Because if anything has changed so dramatically with technology, it feels like the access now. I think most of us growing up, regardless of our age, had access to Playboy or playgirl or even, you know, National Geographic. I mean, we found ways of finding because we're curious and we were looking, but it's different now, the access is different now. So how common do kids access porn and At what ages? Yeah,

Speaker 1  42:20  
so the average age these days, according to the Common Sense Media report, which I had some involvement in, and as did other researchers about a year ago, found that the average age of first seeing pornography was 12. And again, that's an average, and it absolutely squares with what I hear from my college students. So we do know that some are seeing it at really young ages. You know, 789, 1011, others are seeing pornography for the first time in their teens, but the average is age 12, whether that's accidental or on purpose. And

Dawn Davenport  42:51  
what do you mean by accidental? Well, maybe

Speaker 1  42:53  
they were looking to learn about puberty, and, you know, they were searching for some term, or they were searching for some phrase that they heard about at school or among their friends, and they didn't know what it meant, and they didn't know it was a sexual term. They Googled it, and then they found some pornographic images or explicit images, or other times, sometimes kids will tell us these things that they did. My students, you know, often tell me these, these things that weren't around their middle school when they were growing up. They'll sometimes say, Oh, well, you know, like years ago, some of them said, Oh, it was kind of like Penn Island. And I said, What was Penn Island? And then a few of them were laughing and say, Oh, well, back when we were in middle school, you know, it was a joke that people would say, like, go to Penn island.com, and Penn Island is actually stands for penis land. And I guess that, you know, at some point, this was now a million years ago, right, that there was some website where penis land actually had these, you know, like pornographic types of images. So sometimes they have these, like coded ways, or they'll tell somebody kind of like Rick rolling with like that Rick Astley song. But like you might say, like it's a link to something else, but it's actually a link to porn. So sometimes kids find themselves on a pornography site because their friends were playing a little prank on them, and other times, because they stumbled while looking for other information. And other times, they are looking for sexual content because they've heard about it and they are curious and they want to, they want to see about it. So that's what I mean about kind of accidentally versus on purpose.

Dawn Davenport  44:17  
Yeah, that makes sense. I think that we all know as parents or as adults that porn is bad for kids. That's an obvious statement, but you included some stats in the book. Yes, your kid that I thought were, of course, anybody who listens to the show knows that I am a researcher. I am a research geek. Information is power in my world. So it probably speaks to partly why this was, I thought so interesting, and I I can't help but think it would be helpful for kids. And this is on page 177 of the book, yes, your kid. I'm going to read this because it really stuck out for me, whereas 90% of Americans had kissed one another during their most recent sexual experience, just 25% Of porn scenes show kissing. And the thing that we had told our kids was, one of the things about porn is it's not real. But I would have loved to have had been able to say, most people kiss when they're having sex, and that's not shown in porn. And here's another one, although one in four young adults use a condom the last time they had sex, just two to 3% of pornographic scenes showed condom use. Here's another one. Two thirds of women experienced orgasm last time they had sex, but women's orgasms were shown in just 12% of porn scenes. And here's another one, while 28% of adults engage in oral sex on the penis. The last time they had sex, 66% of porn scenes showed this, and this will be the last one. But although just 4% of young adults had anal sex during their last sexual encounter, more than four times as many porn scenes showed anal sex between men and women. I think that's powerful for kids to realize just it gives evidence to the fact that porn is not real. And if you are watching it, you're going to be thinking that this and it could be intimidating, if nothing else, because it's so performative, if nothing else, it

Speaker 1  46:13  
is it's not real. And they really need to know that, because my college students, many of them, do think that porn shows how sex is and what they should be doing. They cut. Some of them will use it kind of as a script. And you know, when I first started teaching human sexuality courses, you know, 21 years ago now, I would get certain questions, mainly about female sexuality and pleasure. How do I have an orgasm in my normal things like that. But just a few years into that, when we started having smartphones and the very widely accessible pornography, much more so, even than just a few years earlier, I started getting all these questions about, like, anal sex, and just as and I would say, Well, where do you get this expectation that you should be having anal sex? And overwhelming like, well, that's what we see in pornography, right? And so, so we see that with lots of different behaviors, and it really helps, at least with my college students, it really helps them to see just what you described from the book, the differences from our research, between what you actually see when you watch pornography versus the realities of people's sexual lives. And there's some things that the research has never even looked at. I wish somebody would, but I would suspect, for example, if we looked at the realities of like, you know, real sex versus pornography. In real sex, we also generally see people looking in each other's eyes, you know, and it's more personal. It's more intimate for the most part. And silly things happen sometimes, and funny things happen, and awkward moments and porn does not show those realities. And, you know, and it's not meant to, you know, people will say, Oh, it's not, it's just entertainment. It's arousal stuff, and that is the case. But when we think about where our kids are getting information about sexuality, many of them are turning toward pornography, or their friends are, or their partners are. So I often say, you know, even if your kid has never watched pornography, there's a very good chance that their present or future partners will have, and their friends may have, some portion of their friends may have. And then when they talk about sort of what sex is and what you do when you're, you know, when you're sexual with somebody, what becomes the norm for them, often, is what they have seen from pornography or what they've heard about in social media videos as well, and it's usually not reality.

Dawn Davenport  48:28  
So at what age should parents start talking with their kids about porn? You

Speaker 1  48:33  
know, when I started as a sex educator and researcher, we had an older age for this. These days we say eight or nine. And we say eight or nine because most kids are seeing it by 12, and also because lots of kids are on the internet. Now, we don't say go into detail at these ages. Here's again, where we get into little bits of information that are age and developmentally appropriate. And so for eight or nine year olds who might be starting to spend a little more time on the internet, you know, again, like, for me, I would say adult supervision if they're on the internet, but I will tell you, some of their friends will not have adult supervision if they don't. They may see some stuff at a play date or a sleepover, or their friends just may tell them stuff that they've seen at school. So even some information at ages eight or nine might be. We can even say, like, the reason I want to be in the room when you're on the internet or being here is because, just like, there are some shows or movies maybe that have sometimes been for older kids or for adults, and maybe you've seen them and you felt scared by them or had a nightmare from them. Well, there's also stuff in the internet that that's by adults, for adults, and sometimes kids wind up on those things accidentally. So I just want to be here to make sure that you're on the sites that are safe for kids. You maybe even you have some filters in your home to keep things safe for kids, and you just explain things right? And like you might say, you know some of these things, for example, you might hear about from friends. We've talked about sexuality before. We've talked about how babies are. Made. Well, believe it or not, some people actually make some things on the internet that show like nude bodies and stuff, but it's really for other adults. And if you were to ever see these kinds of things at a friend's house, you know, you can cover your eyes, you can walk out of the room. If you see these pictures of nude bodies or sexuality, I'm not going to be mad at you. I don't think they're what kids should be watching, but you can come to me with any questions that you have, and we can talk about that. So at those ages of eight, 910, I mean, those are conversations that some families start to have, just to let them know that it's out there. Many people think their kids aren't going to stumble upon but again, the average age is 12, so some kids will as they get older, then you have more explicit conversations about pornography and about the kinds of sex that it shows around age 11 and 12, especially if you have boys. Boys more often see this younger than girls do. It's not perfect any gender. Can see it at any age, but overall, the research shows that, and we really want them to know that it's not real, that pornography shows impersonal sex, it doesn't show protected sex. And this is a great spot to bring in your values about what you think sexuality and intimacy are like or should be like, versus what you see there. We regularly hear from families. I regularly hear from families who, again, are so surprised that their kids saw what they saw at the age that they saw but if you can be the first one to let them know that this exists, and to let them know that they can come to you and also do what you can as a grown up to keep those images out of their view by being thoughtful about device access, for example, then those are the best ways that we can delay their access to pornography, and we do now speak in our field about delaying access, because it is unlikely for the vast majority of kids that you will prevent access to pornography throughout their adolescence.

Dawn Davenport  52:00  
All right, so a lot in our audience are foster parents or adoptive parents or kinship parents, who are raising grandparents, raising a grandchild. So kids are coming into our families. I mean, some are adopted at birth or fostering at birth, but very often, kids are coming into our families at an older age, we haven't had a lifetime of raising this child and building the relationship with this child, and very often, these kids have come from environments where there wasn't parental supervision. There were, in fact, always that's the case. If there's their functioning families, don't end up with kids who are in the child welfare system. So how does that change how we discuss sex when it's already potentially an often an awkward conversation. How do we do that when we've got a child who may have been exposed to more than we would have liked and we haven't had them forever? Yeah? Yeah,

Speaker 1  52:55  
absolutely. So I think again, thinking about technology access is always going to be a big thing. We see this with a lot of I work sometimes with grandparents and talk about grandparents as sexuality educators. Some of them are raising the kids either entirely or primarily. And grandparents will often say that they could use, especially some extra tips around technology and how to get support for having some apps that like bark is one example Common Sense Media is it has some great information about what apps and filters are available. There are some apps that can be on people's devices that will let you know what types of sites they're going to or what types of you know, images are being transmitted whatever the situation is, whatever the type of parent or a caregiver or guardian, have an open conversation about technology and try to co create rules, you know, because a lot of kids, right? If, especially when they have moved from home to home, and they have been subjected to different kinds of rules, well, part of it is deciding, like, what, what is this family environment going to be like for you, and not just springing things on them where they they can't be trusted, or they feel like people are spying on them, having high quality books like you talked about as well.

Dawn Davenport  54:07  
Oh, that's a yes, and that's one that doesn't require you to have conversations, per se, although I always think it's good to follow up, yeah,

Speaker 1  54:15  
for all kids, we recommend, like working on the rules together, but also letting them know, like you know what is or isn't going to be acceptable in the home, especially if there's younger kids in the home. For anyone who has some older kids or teens in there, or kids who have just seen a lot, been through a lot, but we still have to have conversations about how we're going to keep everybody in the home safe and protected too

Dawn Davenport  54:39  
well. Thank you so much. Dr Debbie herbenik, the author of yes your kids, what parents need to know about today's teens and sex. Thank you so much for being our guest today. This has been enlightening, and I truly I enjoyed the book, and I highly recommend it.

Unknown Speaker  54:55  
Thank you so much for having me

Dawn Davenport  54:58  
before you leave. I. Have one more thing I want to tell you, and that is our partner announcement. We have partners who have supported us, and this particular partner has been a long, long, long term supporter of creating a family, the nonprofit and our mission and of this podcast, they are children's connection. They are an adoption agency providing services for domestic infant adoption, placing babies throughout the US. They also do home studies and post adoption support for families in Texas. Thank you, children's connection for your long term support of creating a family. You.