EP126: Here are 5 Tips To Make The Sex Ed Talk Easier

Interview with Jason Armishaw / Publisher of Start The Talk newsletter

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Your pre-teens and teens are getting messages about sex from their friends, from social media, from the school and community environment they're growing up in. To think differently is to be in denial - one that can be dangerous. Listen to 5 tips from Jason Armishaw, a sex educator focused on helping parents have the conversation at home. 

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Transcript

00;00;00;05 - 00;00;21;29
Jason Armishaw 
I went through this path of trying to figure out, well, what's the best way for the child to get educated? And there's all these ideas of like, schools teaching around sex education, but it's such a minefield in New Zealand, and it seems to be everywhere, including the US, where schools just have a particular curriculum. They've got a hit and parents either agree with it or don't, and they'll fight it or they go with it.

00;00;22;01 - 00;00;39;18
Jason Armishaw 
Parents should be leading the charge here and having that conversation with their kids. The pre-teen age is a perfect time frame for a parent to build up that trust. Putting those like coins in the piggy bank, so to speak.

00;00;39;21 - 00;01;00;19
Paul Sullivan
Welcome to the Company of Dads podcast. At 120 plus episodes, we're doing something different this season. I'm still your host, Paul Sullivan, and we're still focused on the dads working moms and how small changes at home or work can have a big impact on their lives. What's new is that each episode now promises to deliver actionable advice and some area of concern at home.

00;01;00;24 - 00;01;31;07
Paul Sullivan
Right. Work. Short. Direct. Again. Actionable. Five questions. Five answers. This week, our guest is Jason Armishaw, the founder of Start the Talk. It's a newsletter for parents of pre-teens. It provides tips how to's, and resources to make starting the talk about sex education easier. He came to this after a long career in sales. He's a father of two boys, ten and 13 and coming to us from Auckland, New Zealand.

00;01;31;09 - 00;01;45;17
Paul Sullivan
Today he's going to give you some actionable tips on that crucial but sometimes awkward thing that every parent has to do. And that's having the sex ed talk. Jason, welcome to the podcast.

00;01;45;19 - 00;01;47;13
Jason Armishaw 
Thanks for having me, Paul.

00;01;47;16 - 00;01;53;05
Paul Sullivan
You know what to do. Why did you get into this space? How did this come about? Why did you get into this space?

00;01;53;07 - 00;02;23;07
Jason Armishaw 
Out of frustration and a bit of fear. Really? I have a couple of kids, as you mentioned, and my experience with sex ed was really poor. I didn't really get any. I grew up in a very conservative household where sex wasn't discussed in any capacity. And so a lot of my education came from porn. And trial and error and just a lot of mistakes that I didn't want to see my kids repeat and didn't want to see continue throughout my own community.

00;02;23;09 - 00;02;34;16
Jason Armishaw 
So I side stepped out of my sales career last year and decided to focus full time on being a dad and focusing on helping other parents through the sex education journey.

00;02;34;18 - 00;02;48;04
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, I think I heard you say something there in a second question, you know, what were you doing? But before this and, you know, was there a moment when you said, okay, I'm going to leave my former career behind to do this?

00;02;48;07 - 00;03;11;15
Jason Armishaw 
Yeah, I was working in sales in software companies and it was just sucking my soul dry. I just didn't enjoy it anymore. The kind of grind that I was experiencing just didn't vibe with me. And I'd got to that point where I was looking for a change. I knew that I wanted to move more into this space, into six eight, and I had started training as a sexologist.

00;03;11;22 - 00;03;21;19
Jason Armishaw 
And so the natural step was for me just to hang it up and sales and go, right, I'm doubling down, diving full time into this and going to see what I can create and help.

00;03;21;21 - 00;03;26;04
Paul Sullivan
What does that term mean exactly? A sexologist. How do you define that term?

00;03;26;06 - 00;03;59;13
Jason Armishaw 
It's someone that works with people around their sexuality discussing sex and pleasure. And so that was an area for me that I wanted to learn about for myself. And it just seemed to tackle on quite nicely with my own interest around sex education, though the two are not necessarily connected. What I'm learning in one area is not necessarily what I'll be doing in the other, but the journey through six ology was quite relevant and important for me to kind of heal past wounds and kind of address some of my baggage from the past, really.

00;03;59;14 - 00;04;03;26
Jason Armishaw 
I want to just to lean into it and see what came up as I scratched it.

00;04;03;28 - 00;04;22;04
Paul Sullivan
All right. You know, I promised five questions. Five answers. We're going to call this question to be. You know, we're I'm a high minded guy. I don't go for for cheap jokes. It's taking all of my restraint right now. Not to go for a cheap joke, but I have to ask you. You've got two boys, ten and 13.

00;04;22;04 - 00;04;29;10
Paul Sullivan
What the hell did they say when they found out that this was dad's new career?

00;04;29;12 - 00;04;54;14
Jason Armishaw 
I probably rub it in their face a little bit. So they were they weren't too surprised. And their mum actually works as a psychotherapist and does a lot of work in sexuality anyway, so it wasn't completely new territory for them. Although having me move into the space as well was probably a little bit like, oh, I'm not going to be able escape it from anywhere now, which is exactly what's happened, right?

00;04;54;14 - 00;05;18;29
Jason Armishaw 
They get hit from both ends. But they went to bed. Although I do wonder, like now that both me and their mum, in the space and me in particular on the sex education piece with kids of their age, I'm wondering if it's going to have them lean in and become more interested in talking to me or actually pull away, right?

00;05;19;00 - 00;05;36;29
Jason Armishaw 
Because I've seen that happen. Where I mean, that was that TV show on Netflix, Sex Education. What the son just doesn't want anything to do with what the mum's talking about. And I'm wondering if that vibe might come a play. Come out with me and my boys hasn't yet. But, you know, maybe we'll see.

00;05;37;01 - 00;05;52;27
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, maybe it'll be different coming from their dad. I don't know. I, you know, I think we as parents said that the thing that we often want to do the most in the hobby, we have whatever the thing that we can impart on our children if we try too hard, their natural reaction is, is to, to, to go the other way.

00;05;52;27 - 00;06;14;17
Paul Sullivan
Of of course, what you're talking about is something, you know, more important than, you know, picking up mom or dad's. Mom and dad's hobby, you know, and that. No. Question three. You know, when you've gotten into this field, you're studying to be a psychologist. Who are you ultimately looking to help? The kids, the parents? Somebody else? Who are you looking to help with with your work?

00;06;14;19 - 00;06;39;00
Jason Armishaw 
Well, ultimately, the end result is that the child gets the education they need. But through the parent. I went through this path of trying to figure out, well, what's the best way for the child to get educated. And there's all these ideas of like, schools teaching around sex education, but it's such a minefield in New Zealand, and it seems to be everywhere, including the US, where schools just have a particular curriculum.

00;06;39;00 - 00;06;59;09
Jason Armishaw 
They've got a hit and parents either agree with it or don't, and they'll fight it or they go with it. For me, parents should be leading the charge here and having that conversation with their kids, building that trust with them to open up a level of relationship where at a pre-teen age, you know, the questions aren't going to be that intense.

00;06;59;09 - 00;07;23;02
Jason Armishaw 
They're not going to be that serious. But you're laying the foundation for when it becomes more serious, when your child might talk to you about stakes or something's happening, or I'm interested in this and they need to talk around condoms or whatever it may be. The pre-teen age is a perfect time frame for a parent to build up that trust, putting those like coins in the piggy bank, so to speak.

00;07;23;04 - 00;07;42;13
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, yeah, we you know, we mentioned question four here. We mentioned your newsletter at the top. But you know, how do you go about helping people sort of, you know, give us the strategies, the tips. You know, what are you doing to to look to give, you know, parents of preteens and teens, you know, actionable advice. How do you go about people?

00;07;42;15 - 00;08;14;02
Jason Armishaw 
Well, the first thing that I did was I started my newsletter for exactly that reason. I wanted a resource that I could send out every couple of weeks where the whole premise was taking one particular topic and then breaking it up, where each section of the newsletter has exactly that actionable items. So one of the parts that I put in there is called messy action, and it's conversation starters specific to that topic that the parent can literally run with with their child.

00;08;14;05 - 00;08;40;01
Jason Armishaw 
And so I'm trying to give them things to start the actual conversation, because that seems to be the hardest part. From all the conversations I have with parents, it's like, I want to do this, but honestly, I don't know where to begin. And so I'm like, well, here's your framework, try this. And in that newsletter, there's a few other resources that they can pull on that will give them a bit more of a deep dive on their particular topic.

00;08;40;03 - 00;09;01;01
Jason Armishaw 
And so I'd use it. It went out today and it was on boundaries. And whether or not we need to be going into that was three teens. And if so, how can we practice that? And one of the examples I give is a role playing example that a parent can do with their child, and it's purely around a project that they might be doing at school.

00;09;01;01 - 00;09;17;29
Jason Armishaw 
You know, like a child can say, I want to work on this project on my own. And the parents like, well, I want to help on that. And then the child needs to push back and go, actually, I want to do this on my setting for myself. It's important for me and the parent to push a little further, just role playing and practicing what it's like to set boundaries.

00;09;18;02 - 00;09;35;22
Jason Armishaw 
And I provide similar examples across different topics depending on what the newsletter was about. And so for me, I wanted the newsletter to be actionable. You come away reading it, going, right, I've got something that I could do right now if I wanted to with my kids.

00;09;35;24 - 00;09;46;14
Paul Sullivan
You know, for those who missed some earlier editions of the newsletter, if somebody were to have read the one on and just starting the talk, the basics of starting the talk give us a framework for that.

00;09;46;17 - 00;10;05;08
Jason Armishaw 
Yeah. Well, that's actually what I'm producing a webinar on at the moment. I'm just in the process of going through that because it's the key piece that I think lays the foundation for all of the rest of the conversations, which is right. And it's not just a conversation starter, but how do I get to that point of that first conversation?

00;10;05;10 - 00;10;28;00
Jason Armishaw 
So I'm actually working on that webinar now. But for me, the piece that we need to address as parents is a quick check back on what was our experience like, what did we actually learn our selves like where do we sit currently with it? And that's not necessarily an actionable tip, but to move forward, you've almost got to take a step back first.

00;10;28;02 - 00;10;51;10
Jason Armishaw 
And I think that's a big part of where people get caught up with sex education, because there is a lot of noise as to what you can do and what you should do. But where are you at right now and what did you learn and how was that steering either your steer or your what's the word I'm looking for in action on this topic?

00;10;51;12 - 00;11;00;20
Paul Sullivan
Question number five what's your goal? What's your goal in creating this newsletter and all the other stuff that's going to come after that?

00;11;00;22 - 00;11;33;25
Jason Armishaw 
I'd love to see 100,000 families doing sex education at home with a number that just kind of came to me. And I think that the impact of parents taking control of this particular topic and running with it just ripples in so many other areas. And so for me, I'd love to be able to get a larger number of families coming through webinars, the newsletter, and just seeing these conversations become more natural and normal at home.

00;11;33;28 - 00;11;58;08
Jason Armishaw 
And so what I've got planned is a few different courses all around, all online, like digital assets and so forth. But but the premise all been around the how do we start the talk? And there might just be different versions of that. So one might be an email course and the other is going to be a webinar, and then it's going to be maybe cohort training with other parents.

00;11;58;10 - 00;12;02;23
Jason Armishaw 
So these types of things that are in motion at the moment.

00;12;02;25 - 00;12;14;03
Paul Sullivan
Jason, it's been great. Talking to tell me, how do people go about finding the start to talk news or how do they find it and how do they sign up for it?

00;12;14;05 - 00;12;37;00
Jason Armishaw 
They can do that at my website, which is Jason armature.com that will lead you straight to my landing page. You can pop your details in there and you will be in on the newsletter. And once you're on the newsletter, you'll get updates as to other, activities and courses and things that I'm producing and working through.

00;12;37;02 - 00;12;58;14
Paul Sullivan
Jason, it's been great. We always end with one final question. Sort of a bonus question specific to our guests. And I guess as I think about this, mine for you is what's holding people back from starting the sex ed talk with their preteens and teens.

00;12;58;17 - 00;13;02;19
Jason Armishaw 
Shame.

00;13;02;21 - 00;13;20;29
Jason Armishaw 
A lot of embarrassment, stair stigma. I mean, these are all cliches, I guess, but they're they're all they all ring true to, which is it's such a heated topic, sex. And it's got so many layers, depending on who you're talking to.

00;13;21;01 - 00;13;53;19
Jason Armishaw 
That people just step away from it and just assume that it's going to be covered somewhere else. And that's where a lot of people default to the schools going to do it. But the problem is the school's messaging may not align with yours. And if we're not teaching our kids about sex ed, they are learning it somewhere. And what we know now is that a lot of kids as young as 19 are getting educated through porn and through their mates, who are probably just as uneducated about it as them.

00;13;53;21 - 00;14;01;01
Jason Armishaw 
And that's a really worrying place to be. And it's not somewhere that I want to sit back and be okay with. So.

00;14;01;04 - 00;14;14;22
Jason Armishaw 
Yeah, it's for me, it's fear and shame that lead people not to actually just leaning into it and giving it a go because it is going to be a bit messy, but it's also okay.

00;14;14;24 - 00;14;42;24
Paul Sullivan
It's been fantastic. Again, we've been talking to Jason Ahmad Shah. His website is Jason Irish Army s h a w seed in the Nerd for this podcast. He's a sexologist, founder of Start The Talk, a newsletter for parents of pre-teens, provides tips, how tos and resources. Start having a talk about sex ed. Again, Jason, thank you so much for being my guest today on the Company Dads podcast.

00;14;42;26 - 00;14;45;25
Jason Armishaw 
Thanks very much for having me. Great to be here.

00;14;45;28 - 00;15;14;20
Paul Sullivan
Thank you for listening to the Company of Dads podcast. I also want to thank the people who make this podcast and everything else that we do at the Company of Dads. Possible. Helder Mira, who is our audio producer Lynsey Decker, handles all of our social media. Terry Brennan, who's helping us with the newsletter and audience acquisition. Emily Servin, who is our web maestro, and of course Evan Roosevelt, who is working side by side with me on many things that we do here at the Company of Dads.

00;15;14;20 - 00;15;28;28
Paul Sullivan
It's a great team. And we're just trying to bring you the best in fatherhood. Remember, the one stop shop for everything is our newsletter, the dad. Sign up at the Company of dads.com backslash. The dad. Thank you again for listening.