Things You Learn in Therapy
Things You Learn in Therapy
Ep 137: Birds, Bees, and Awkward Conversations: A Parent's Guide with Sierra Dator
Have you been putting off "the talk" with your child or teenager? You're not alone—and the consequences of that avoidance might be more significant than you realize. This eye-opening conversation between Dr. Beth Trammell and therapist Sierra Dator tackles the challenging but crucial topic of discussing sex, intimacy, and consent with teenagers.
The wisdom shared throughout this episode comes from a place of genuine understanding—both of adolescent development and parental hesitation. As Sierra poignantly notes, "If we're not talking to them about it, they're getting information from someone or somewhere, and probably likely on a device." This observation frames the entire conversation: parents must become trusted sources of information or risk having their teens learn from potentially problematic online content.
What makes this episode particularly valuable is its practical approach. Rather than suggesting a single "birds and bees" discussion, the experts advocate for ongoing conversations that evolve as children mature. They offer concrete strategies for initiating these discussions, including "working backward" by determining what values and information you want your teen to possess before leaving home, using media as conversation starters, and normalizing the awkwardness that often accompanies these talks.
The discussion on enthusiastic consent should be required listening for all parents of teenagers. Sierra explains the critical difference between reluctant agreement and genuine enthusiasm, noting that "if you can't talk about sex with your partner, it's probably a red flag that you're not ready." This framework gives parents language to help their teens navigate intimate relationships safely and respectfully.
Whether you're a parent feeling unsure about how to broach these topics or a clinician seeking to better support families, this episode provides the tools you need to have these essential conversations. Take the first step in becoming that askable adult your teenager needs by listening, reflecting, and then starting the conversation—even if it feels awkward at first.
www.bethtrammell.com
Hey listener, welcome back. I'm your host, dr Beth Tramiel. I'm a psychologist and a professor of psychology at Indiana University East, where I'm the director of the Master's Mental Health Counseling Program and I do a lot of training and consultation around adult child relationships. I love working with the early childhood age. I also love working with teens. I love working with parents.
Speaker 1:Mostly, I just love working with any adult or child or teenager who is interested in understanding how to make words matter for good, understand how to connect the things we say and the things we do and how to deepen relationship, and so that's kind of my philosophy and the work that I do, and I'm really excited because this topic is one that actually I think, sierra, maybe you'll, as we get into today, I bet you'll also share that I feel like this is a topic that a lot of parents don't know how to kind of talk about and they're uncomfortable talking about it and so they just kind of avoid talking about it, and so I'm so glad that you agreed to come on, and actually every time you've come on you are just unafraid to tackle the topics, the subjects that I think sometimes are hard to talk about, and so I'm glad that you said yes to being here again today, so Sierra Dater is here to come and talk about intimacy, consent, safety around sexual relationships, in particular in teenagers, and how do we help parents, and how do we help clinicians who work with teens or parents, and so we're going to dig into all of that, but before we do, tell us a little about you and then tell us something fun about what's happening in your world right now.
Speaker 2:Okay, Well, first, Beth, thanks for having me. So my practice I have a private practice in Northern California, north of San Francisco, which often, if you're not from here, then you think it's going to be like a city. But Petaluma is kind of it's actually the chicken capital of the world. So, yeah, I don't know that it still holds that weight, but there is a lot of agriculture here. So when people come up to Petaluma from the city, they're often surprised to find so much agriculture cows, to find so much agriculture cows, lambs, sheep, chickens. Obviously we are also the wrist wrestling capital of the world.
Speaker 1:I'll just throw that out there.
Speaker 2:Wrist wrestling. Wrist wrestling, I don't know much about it, I'm a transplant from Pennsylvania, so, but I've been here 20 years. So little fun facts about Petaluma. But in Petaluma I live on a strawberry farm. I have a small private practice where I work with youth, families, adults, using a variety of methods. That's the fun part about being a therapist for so long, picking up so many different modalities, and I also have a program for youth and parents called Wise Girl Workshops. So I run about three to five workshops a week for parents and girls of all different ages because I love human development and all the spans of what happens in those ages and stages.
Speaker 1:I love this. I've learned some new things about you. You've been on a few times already and I didn't know that you lived on a strawberry farm. I didn't know about wrist wrestling. I've got so many things to look up now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know much about wrist wrestling either. I could tell you a tad about strawberry farming, but I actually don't farm it. I just live on the land where someone else farms it, which is really nice.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Yeah, farming is just such. I just respect farmers so much from even just the like tiny garden that I try to grow that it's like wow, like what a what a true labor of love growing things out of the ground, tending to it, loving it, protecting it. I mean, it's a real labor of love.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a battle with those gophers out here. It's no joke. When people drive up here back to my office they're like, oh, do you do this? So I live on 20 acres and it's all strawberry fields and I'm like there's no way. I don't think people understand. Which is okay, right, you just might not know about farming, like it is a full time job. So there's no way I could do a therapy practice, wise girl workshops and then farm 20 acres of strawberry. So I do have a little patch of my own which has the vegetables that I grow for my family, but no, I don't do this robbery.
Speaker 1:I mean, it really is. I love that. So, yeah, thanks for sharing that. So we're talking about sex today and, in particular, sex with teenagers, and in the past we've come to talk about sort of what what mental health things look like in teens, specifically depression. We've talked about suicide.
Speaker 1:I just love your expertise around working with kids and teens, and so I'm grateful that we're getting a chance to talk about this, even though I think it's probably, like I've said, just a topic that we sort of just like we're just going to stick our head in the sand and pretend like our kids aren't thinking about sex, that they're not engaging in any sort of sexual behavior in any way. And before we push record, one of the things that we both sort of were like well, if we're not talking to them about it, they're getting information from someone or somewhere, and probably likely on a device, from someone that if you were to ask yourself do I want to raise my child with that person who just was on the internet? Do you want to raise your kid with them? Because that's kind of what's happening if we're not going to have these conversations. So let's just sort of like start with how do you tend to approach this with parents, who might be a little bit nervous about this conversation.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a good question. I mean so when we look at the statistics of what's happening in the field in terms of the research. So there's this youth risk behavior survey that comes out every two years. So it came out in 2023, there'll be a 2025 coming out soon. I don't know when it actually gets released.
Speaker 2:So you know, when we, when we look at those statistics and share those with parents, parents might say, well, that might not, that's not my kid, potentially. But you know we're looking at about 32% of high school kids are saying that they're having sex, which is down 2% from 2021. So, if we can think, that's also like post-COVID times, but it's significantly down from 30 years ago, when about half of students were reported having sex. So you know, kids are definitely having it, according to the research, which is probably no surprise to parents, and you know it doesn't really, in some ways, matter if they're having it, so to speak, because it's information that we want them to have before they're having it yeah, oh, they're having it and when they're done having it, you know we want them to be, no matter where they are in terms of their sexual relationships. We want to make sure that they have really good information all the way through.
Speaker 1:So I think this is a question that I get a lot and I'm curious what your thoughts are too. People tend to think about chronological, age and when is the right time for this conversation, right? So if we're saying about a third of high schoolers maybe are engaging in sexual activity and that's probably that could be an underrepresentation of kids who are engaging in other kinds of sexual behavior, right? If you're thinking about answering that question like when is too young to start having this conversation, or when should we start this conversation, what would you? How would you answer that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it would be really child dependent, like some kids are just really not ready, even in junior high, late elementary school. So for just for reference, here in California, elementary school usually goes through sixth grade. Here I know that different area. Our junior high is seventh and eighth grade grade and then high school, nine through 12. So you know, if you have a kid that that's just they're gonna freak out about that. Maybe they got their kid with a lot of anxiety. So I think it's just really kid dependent.
Speaker 2:But you'll start to see things emerge in terms of maybe shows they're watching or they might start talking about crushes and so just like planting seeds, you don't have to like plant a big bomb, so to speak of like all right, now it's time for the talk. Yeah, it's an ongoing. Little bit of information here, a little bit of information there, not to say that you couldn't have a big talk. You know, especially if your kid, if you believe they're right there and you haven't said anything at that point. So I think knowing your kid, filtering information, planting seeds, is helpful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that you share this, because it's something that I also share and agree that it's less like one kind of main birds and bees and then we're never going to talk about it again, but more like a continuation of talking about our bodies and talking about healthy relationships and talking about pleasure and sexuality, right, like. I think all of those things are kind of a part of this conversation. And I find that parents, yeah, are sort of like they kind of want it to be like more concrete than that, right. So it's like, well, dr Beth said that I should have this conversation when they were 14. And so on their 14th birthday we're gonna come out and talk about peace and vaginas, you know, and it's like, well, okay, maybe depending on your kid and their level of curiosity and their level of kind of interest. And I have a great friend who talks about having hard conversations with kids and how you just continue to answer their question until their curiosity is appeased for that moment and you kind of answer honestly, as honestly as you think you can, and then, if that is still, you know, they're still curious.
Speaker 1:I sometimes reflect back questions. So I, you know the question of like how are babies born and I think some parents are like, I don't know, you're seven years old and I don't want to talk about penises and vaginas right now. And so sometimes I'm like, well, buddy, what do you, what do you want to know exactly, what do you mean? How are babies born? And they're like, well, I mean, how do grownups, like, bring their kids home from the hospital? It's like, well, they bring them in a car, in a car seat, just like you would think Right. And they're like, oh okay. Then you're like, oh okay. So, like, at seven years old, you can continue to have a conversation along the way. It doesn't have to just be as soon as they ask you one question that you think is you know the big moment, like you could ask them a clarifying question, like what they're really curious about right now, and that opens the door to having kind of a plant the seed, kind of conversation along the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I also think too, with older kids, beth, like they, they might start talking about things going on with their friends. So it can be really helpful to talk kind of third person, so to speak. You know, oh, my friend is dating and so you might ask like well, you know what is dating and what does that mean and what does that entail, and and be able to talk about someone else can be really helpful as well as like shows and things like that, because when it starts to turn personal sometimes that can really shut kids down.
Speaker 1:I love that. I also have learned with my own kids that sometimes texting them to kind of get the conversation going, or just sort of like planting a little seed and then see if they have more conversation, like, obviously there are lots of ways to communicate with our kids and I think that may just be one additional tool, that if it gets them to open up where they can text a little bit, that's great. You can meet them where they are. It doesn't have to be like, well, we're going to sit on the couch and we're going to look each other in their eyes and we're going to talk about you know. It's like if they want to text about it, it's okay to like just get the conversation going. And if you feel like, hey, this isn't going well, or they're not understanding, or I'm not understanding what they're saying, then let's have a real, let's have a conversation in the living room or on the way to practice or whatever, but texting is okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Whatever way can work for you as a parent and work for your kid, because we just want them to get the information, it doesn't really matter how, so to speak.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wonder too. So we're going to get to this idea of intimacy and consent, because I think that that is really critical to our conversation. But maybe one last sort of question that I'm curious about your take, because I created this little ebook it's like $5 download on my website about how to talk to your teens about sex, and one of the things that I encourage people to start with is to decide ahead of time what matters to you, right Like so, before you go into having this conversation, before you go into like texting or thinking, like like if your kid is six, kid is six or seven or eight, like now's the time to think about, like what is my parenting message around sex and intimacy, because you, you want to know that first, before they start asking questions, and then you are like, well, I don, I don't know, I just think no, you know. So what is your take on it? So, I don't know, what are your thoughts about that? Do you encourage that kind of thing?
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm a big fan of value-based parenting and, in fact, in one of my workshops I have a workshop called Raising Wise Teens. That's a group of moms that get together once a month. We do it virtually on Zoom, and I always present a topic for about 20 minutes that leads to discussion, and sometimes we just have agenda items that have nothing to do with that topic. We can spend some time on a particular topic, and so one of the things that we talked about this last year was working backwards.
Speaker 2:So when you're 16 and ready to leave the house. What do you want to have them? Have? Known experience. And it's you know. A lot of that is around your values for some parents as well. As I love your word about curiosity, like children's curiosity, right. So do I want my kid to know? Do I want them to have tried alcohol? If they're interested in it? Your value, or it may be like no way. They're not 21, not okay with it. We've got alcoholism in our family, whatever the reason might be where other families might say Well, you know, I want them to know what that experience feels like. If they want to, I'm not going to push alcohol on them. So, thinking about in terms of sex and intimacy and consent, what do I want when my kid leaves the house? To go to college or get an apartment or something? What do I want them to have known?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love working backwards. I love this advice in like a million ways, even if right. So, like we're thinking broadly, like what do I want my kids to know about these things? But even in like tiny moments, right, Like hey, I need to show up at the doctor's office at noon, so what do I need to do to prepare, you know, my kids to get to that point at noon?
Speaker 1:Like I think working backwards is something that can be really helpful in preparing us and helping us be more intentional and honestly help us like, meet and achieve you know, kind of achieve those things that we, that we want to do and in the way we want to do them. So, okay, let's talk about the difference between sex and intimacy and teenagers, because I think as we get older, we may have a slightly better understanding of the difference between sex and intimacy. But how do you kind of help parents understand that so they can teach their teens? Or, if you want to just kind of talk, like, well, this is how I explain it to my teenagers that I work with, and maybe we can draw some wisdom from that.
Speaker 2:Well, intimacy starts very young. I mean being having a parent, maybe an intimate experience right cuddling with your mom. So intimacy is a close and familiar and usually affectionate or loving personal relationship with another person. So we're going to see that oftentimes, hopefully early on, as soon as a baby's born, and that's going to continue to evolve. We definitely see it evolve when it comes to well, not definitely For many kids. We see that evolve in friendships. Kids will get to an age where they might start holding their friend's hands or they'll come home and they'll be like, oh, I just love hugging one of their friends, which is really. It's fun for them to move towards that sort of experience of feeling really close and physically affectionate with some of their friends. That for many people then moves into intimate experiences, close personal, affectionate relationships with somebody that they really like more than a friend.
Speaker 2:And sex you know sex can be defined in so many different ways. I mean we could look at a definition of deck in the dictionary. But it's really important for parents and kids to be on the same page in terms of what they're defining as sex. Right, because if you're like, oh, are you having sex and in your mind, parent, you're thinking like oral sex, vaginal sex, anal sex and your kid is just thinking vaginal sex, then they might say, well, no, I've never had sex before if you were to ask them, and that may be true by their definition, but but not by yours. So it's really important to like it when talking with your teenager, like defining what that is. So you guys are both on the same page.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I know some people were already like, wow, she just said those words. Yes, I mean and this is just the beginning of the conversation I love that you're starting with clarifying expectations around different experiences, and I think it expands into any of the non-intercourse sexual behaviors too masturbation, and you know, it's like how clearly should we be talking to our teens? And I think I know my answer. But what would you say? Yeah, I think, really clearly, really clearly. I mean you're coming out and you're saying these exact words, right, yeah, and I think we can normalize the awkwardness.
Speaker 2:I mean you're coming out and you're saying these exact words, right, yeah, and I think we can normalize the awkwardness. I mean one of the you know there's so many pros to sex and that's one of the things that we want to be talking about to kids, about which can feel really uncomfortable to parents that like, oh, if we talk about it then they're just going to go and do it. We want to give a real accurate depiction, right, there's lots of pros in terms of it can. There's health benefits, but there's also, you know, it boosts that emotional closeness that can feel really good.
Speaker 2:But there's also, you know, negative aspects to it around STIs, around pregnancy, around feelings not being mutual, that somebody might not want to have a relationship and you do that there can be a lot of miscommunication. So, irregardless, helping, normalizing the language, normalizing that it can be awkward to talk about and or like that is one of the cons, that sex can be awkward to talk about it, which leads into consent, because if we're so awkward to talk about it, then we might we might not approach consent, which is a really dangerous place to be. If you're somebody who's going to embark on a sexual experience, you need consent to be there in order to be healthy and also to prevent sexual assault and rape and things like that. So we need to know how to talk about it, even if it's awkward, and we can normalize that.
Speaker 1:I couldn't love what you said more, that I think my work with teenagers, my relationship with my own teenagers, it's almost like it just opens the door even wider if I can just admit what we know is happening right now.
Speaker 1:You know, it's like if I'm kind of pretending like, oh, I'm cool, I've got it all together, I can have this conversation.
Speaker 1:It's like, well, look, hey, I've talked about something that I have kind of been putting off for a few days because I'm and I'm I also am one who probably kind of shares like I try to out loud share my parenting philosophy, like with my kids as they get older, where it's like, you know, it's hard for me to figure out how to say exactly what I want to say, because I don't want to encourage you to do things that I'm not sure you're ready to do, but I also don't want for you to have this broken relationship with sex, because it is an important part of your future relationships, and so I'm trying to balance what my message is for you and that might feel awkward, and it might feel awkward for you to admit that you're interested in these kinds of things, but this is so important to me that we're going to push through the awkwardness.
Speaker 1:I just find that teenagers are. They are attracted to genuineness because that feels real to them and I think once it's real to them, they can begin to trust. Now, that might not be true for every teenager, but that has been true in my experiences with teenagers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely a genuine approach, saying that you feel awkward and you know, I know I had said earlier about like asking your kid if they're having sex, like it's okay to not ask. The goal is to get them information. So if you're not ready to hear those things, it's not necessarily something that you have to ask, but we want them to have good information. With that said, I would encourage parents to keep the door open, like there's things that you want to talk to me about. If there's things that you want to share with me, I'm open. But you know, asking, sometimes directly, might even shut that door to conversation because it's awkward for them. It can be awkward for you. It's okay that it's awkward. We just need to make sure that the door is open to get this information and talking about it.
Speaker 1:I think it's amazing, yeah, to also then clarify what being open looks like. So I hear a lot of parents that are like well, I'm open to hearing what ideas you have, and then every idea I share they're like no, that's dumb, I don't want to do that. So you know, I think how do you kind of train parents and their responses that send the message to teenagers that they are open and that they are that askable parent that we kind of want them to be? But I think sometimes it takes a little bit of training. Like fix your face, you know, like when you're a teenager is like hey, I have a boner, what am I going to do about it? And you're like fix my face, I'm open to talking about whatever it is that's happening, you know. So how do you help parents like keep that open mind and like train them on what that actually looks like when kids say things?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this is a whole other podcast talk, but around that emotional regulation piece, like parents, teens, kids, I'm teaching them to take a deep breath, which I know is like the simplest tool in the world. Sometimes when our kids say things, we're holding our breath. So really like slowing down, doing the head nod right, like the deep breath of the head nod, like slowing the moment down, that you don't have to have the answer right away, as well as giving yourself permission if you don't have the answer to something, giving yourself permission to be like to extend some appreciation, like I really appreciate that you could say that to me. I'm really grateful that you're talking to me about this. You know I'm not really sure how to answer that in this moment, but I'm going to get back to you about it. So sometimes we just need to table things if we're really not sure how to respond and then making sure we get back to it.
Speaker 1:I love that in my training of graduate students who are training me to become therapists. You know, we have kind of a similar sort of conversation around when clients say things that like kind of shock us and how we have to develop some tools to like allow our brains and our bodies to respond. And you know, I am like the queen of being like hmm, you know, and I'm just like, hmm, you know, that's interesting. You say that I love your idea of being like. I'm really grateful that you shared that. I'm going to need a minute to think about it.
Speaker 1:I know that I and my mothering have been like hmm, I did not think you were going to say that, and so I need a second to think about how I feel about that and how I might respond to that and all of that. It's okay to have an immediate reaction. And then I love your calling back to regulation first, so that I'm not just like spewing what all of my emotions in that moment, like all the words that come with those emotions, because those are only temporary Like I want to be able to pause and thread like my response through my, my values as a parent to kind of what you were saying earlier, but the pause has to happen first.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as well as Beth I want to throw in there. You know, the topic of sex really ignites people's past. Your own parental relationship, not parental relationship, your own relationship as a parent, yes, who had sexual experiences, whatever those might be, and so sometimes parents can take their child sexual experiences really kind of personally, yeah, have anything to do with you, necessarily as a parent. You know, were you a parent that was really sheltered? Were you a parent? Or yourself as a parent? Were you a kid who was really sheltered? Maybe you were really promiscuous? You know we have a lot of a reaction sometimes is dependent on our own experiences. So giving ourselves some pause to to really like work through like what's my stuff and what's my kids stuff, can be really beneficial and very beneficial, like more than just 10 minutes before this conversation happens.
Speaker 1:You know it's like if you haven't had this conversation with your kids. Now is your moment, now is your time to talk with somebody, to have conversations with, whether it's friends or it's a therapist or somebody around. What is my past, what is what I want my kids to understand about sex and intimacy? Because if you come into this conversation with brokenness, it's unlikely that the conversation is going to go the way you want it to go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you're going to get potentially really activated. Yeah, you're going to get really upset or feel really hurt or disappointed or angry. But that's a lot of times where we get our values from is based on our own past sexual experiences, values, and there's reasons for them Again, maybe being over sheltered or being promiscuous, or maybe you had just you know kind of just right sexual experiences, which is great, and you can come forth with that sort of information with your kid, not necessarily having to disclose your own personal sexual relationships unless you want to and that's your parenting style but coming forth with the values and kind of your life lessons.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the topic of consent is obviously critical in kind of every way, and I want to just start with kind of having you share with listeners, like by consent. What do we mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So again, I'm not sure about the textbook or dictionary, but when I'm talking about consent, it's about really agreeing something, so agreeing that I want to do this particular thing, I want to kiss, I want to do more. Do this particular thing, I want to kiss, I want to do more. I like to take consent with teenagers, though a bit further, because when we, when kids are, I mean we can just consent to lots of things like well, I guess you can touch my boobs. Like that doesn't sound very great, like that's not the kind of experience I want. I wouldn't want people to have in terms of what else.
Speaker 2:So you know, being able to have what we call enthusiastic consent. Where you're like I'm interested, I'm down.
Speaker 2:I want this because otherwise the consent might be consent under pressure yeah which is true consent, right, like well, I want this person to really like me, or I don't know how to say no, or I guess I'm okay with this experience. I just I want more for everyone to really that their yes is kind of a whole-bodied, wholehearted yes. With that said, it doesn't mean you might not feel nervous, you might not feel awkward, like those feelings still might be there, because sex and sexual acts are. They are awkward, especially at first when we have no idea what we're doing. But really being in a place of really wanting to try something and having both people consenting enthusiastically that they both really want to do this particular thing.
Speaker 1:So I love this idea of enthusiastic yes versus consent under pressure and consent as we're describing it right. Enthusiastic consent must include some conversation, right? So it's like we can't really enthusiastically consent unless we're like talking about hey, is this okay, or hey, is this something that you are open to trying together today or right now, or whatever. There's verbal conversation that must happen for enthusiastic consent to occur, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean there's also nonverbal cues, but I really encourage people to not rely solely on nonverbal cues because we can misread those. It's hard to misread a yes or a no yeah. So while if you have a partner that you've been with for a while and you really know each other, you may be able to just have nonverbal and really know. But I'm always encouraging verbal, because it is really clear whether or not you're giving permission to do something, and the idea that we can withdraw consent at any point in time. So just because you said yes yesterday doesn't mean that we're saying yes today and making sure that both people understand that you can withdraw consent at any after the second you've said yes or the next day.
Speaker 1:So how do we help parents, help teenagers understand that this idea of consent isn't finite, it isn't right, it's like it's an ongoing process. It's not just like, oh yes, I said yes and so now I'm saying yes to everything that's going to happen today? There are, to your point, like, at any point I can be like, actually I don't want to do this anymore. So how do we help teenagers right, like, how do we help parents who have to walk our teenagers down this path of like in this moment, even like in the moment where they've said yes and now you're in the heat of the moment and things are happening, and then all of a sudden, you get this sense that, like, maybe they're not in the enthusiastic consent boat anymore. It means you have to probably have another conversation, even in the heat of the moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, really giving kids permission, teens permission, to say no. So I run this. It's been a little while since I've run it, but I ran an intimacy, consent and safety workshop for teen girls a while back and we did this activity where we broke them up and made it into a little game where they put down all the ways to say no, which was super fun in terms of you know, the polite like no, thank you to that, no to the, you know, being able to say I got to go check on my friend. You know just all the different ways that that people can say no, but the fact is is that you have, you have to say no. You can use body language, of course, like you can stop someone's hand or back up or whatever, but again, having the ability to say no and really hold your boundaries that that can be hard. So normalizing that for teens as well, but how important it is to be able to say no if it's not something that you want to do, but backing up a little bit. Beth, you know something for parents to be talking to their kids about, like before you're even really getting to consent is, like you know, do I feel ready for whatever it is that they're thinking about? Do they feel desire for their partner?
Speaker 2:Normalizing that not everyone that we like in a romantic or sexual way is going to be a good fit, that sometimes you just don't fit in that particular way.
Speaker 2:We want to look at if desire is mutual. Do both people want particular things? Somebody might be ready and someone might not, and that's totally okay. We want to be on the lookout for power differentials. If there's someone, for example, like who's older and somebody's younger sometimes that age difference, for example having a boss at work and you're an employee those power differentials can impact consent about whether we feel like we can speak up about things. We want to make sure that teens are knowing about direct communication, like kind of like what we're talking already, versus like assumptions or inferences that we might assume and you know being able. I often tell teens because I'll see in my office sometimes it's hard to talk about sex and intimacy that you know if you can't talk about this with your partner it's probably a red flag that you're not ready and that's okay. You can get there when you are ready and want to, but you need to be able to talk about it.
Speaker 1:I love that as sort of a barometer for teams to be like hey, if you're not open to having kind of an open conversation with your partner, then probably you shouldn't do the things that you're thinking about if you can't say my love.
Speaker 2:Because it's really going to be hard to say no if things are going too far. If you can't speak up and talk to your partner about sex or whatever intimate acts that you are interested in, it's going to be really hard to say no intimate acts that you are interested in.
Speaker 1:it's going to be really hard to say no If there's a clinician who's listening, who is like I don't feel comfortable having any of these conversations with teenagers. How do we encourage them kind of being able to have some of these therapeutic conversations in a session?
Speaker 2:Well, you might do your own practice with your own partner If there's someone around that you can have these sorts of conversations with. You might do the empty chair technique, where you're talking to a routine client who isn't really there but just practicing saying these things. I mean that is the catch and, I think, one of the benefits to the therapeutic relationship I mean there's so many, but having that practice on how to talk about sex with your therapist this person who's non judgmental, who is there to really help support you it's a great therapy, such a great environment to be able to try to talk about these things. And so I'm trying to think about where I'm going here. Lost my train of thought, beth.
Speaker 1:Other things. You encourage young clinicians, or maybe newer clinicians, practice on their own empty chair. Say some of the words out loud.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, those are the things that are really coming to mind in terms of how to practice, as well as I was going to say books, but I don't have any book that really comes to mind necessarily no, I'm not sure I have any great recommendations either, except maybe the resources that you and I have both created on our websites.
Speaker 1:Probably those, but okay. So one thing that just came to mind obviously saying no is a critical skill and it is sort of a part of this idea of safety around sexual behavior and sexual relationships. What other messages do you have around safety, around this?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean often with teens even before we get to the sex piece, depending on what their treatment goals might be and why they're in therapy, but having them look at that like power and control wheel of red flag behaviors, helping teens understand what is healthy versus unhealthy.
Speaker 2:I mean, this is the first time for everyone where they're you know where they're trying these relationships on. It's not like they're 50 years old and didn't have been through lots of relationships. This is their very first experience that they're learning from each other. They're learning from parents, they're learning from TV shows. So it's really important, though, that they understand what some of those safety factors are in terms of like pressure and coercion. You know what's verbal abuse, what's physical abuse, what's what's emotional abuse. The red flags because that's also I'm not sure statistically speaking, but in my mind that's a red flag of those things can lead to really unhealthy sexual behaviors and practices, and so helping kids understand what is a healthy relationship, normalizing that all relationships you know no relationship is perfect, but if we're checking lots of boxes of unhealthy relationship behaviors, then that's something really to be concerned about.
Speaker 1:I love that as a recommendation to kind of start with understanding healthy relationships aren't happiness all the time. I think it's dangerous for teenagers to think that they're never going to be in an argument with a partner, they're never going to have a disagreement. I think that just leads to just lots of unhealthy patterns. But also, if there are red flags that we're seeing and kind of perpetual unhealthy patterns in our relationship, then we probably need to seek help for finding a way out perhaps, or just seek help for figuring out whether we need it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think that's a really important tool for anyone who's working with teens to really pull out, helping kids understand that, having a visual because oftentimes you have teens that are like, oh, like, I know someone, maybe their friend and their relationship, or maybe for themselves it's very eye opening and if you don't know any different, then you think it's normal. You think it's normal for your significant other to always be checking your phone or to know where your location is, and I know, you know, that that might be what a lot of teens do kind of in general. But in the context of a romantic relationship or sexual relationship, there's some things that we might want to question. That's great.
Speaker 1:All right, as we wrap up, anything else you wanted to share today? Yes.
Speaker 2:The last thing I there's lots to share, but you know that youth risk behavior survey. One of the things that came out of it was that use of condoms and hormonal birth control is way down about. Contraception is really really, really important. I see it in my practice. I will also say that another reason for parents to be talking to their kid about this particular topic is your kid might have a sex education class.
Speaker 2:In my town we call it human interactions. It's generally a multi-gender class with everyone in it, and so if somebody I don't know, if I was a kid in high school and I had a question about syphilis, I probably wouldn't raise my hand in in this classroom, definitely not. It's really important that, even though your kid is getting this information, if if you're opting into those that class, it's their number one, sometimes they're not listening. Number two they're too overwhelmed or too embarrassed, so it's really you cannot. I encourage parents to not rely on that class as the sole form of education. I see kids all the time, teens that roll into my practice that share misinformation with me, that I'm used confused that they have shared it with me so that I can offer them some factual information to help them have healthy, happy sexual relationships.
Speaker 1:So it's really important for parents just more incentive to be talking about sex consent safety so good, and we probably could have talked for a whole nother hour on this very topic, because we didn't even get to like the emotional impact. And how do we help kids understand whether they're ready or not? Or how do we help parents go through sort of their you know sexual past, which obviously can't happen in just a podcast episode, but so many great conversations around this and I hope that folks were just encouraged to kind of step into this conversation with their own child If they want to learn more about you and the work that you do. How do people find you?
Speaker 2:So I have a sex intimacy, intimacy, consent and safety talk that you can purchase on my wisegirlworkshopscom website. You can purchase stuff there. There's more information at wise girl workshops and then in my therapy practice it's my name, sierra datercom that you can find more information about my therapy.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for coming to have this conversation about this topic, and I hope that it prompts folks to even say hey, team, I was listening to this podcast today and I want to talk to you about something that maybe we've never talked about before, or maybe we just haven't had a chance to talk as much as I would like to. I hope that this can be the reason. This can be the catalyst for you to have this conversation, listener. So thank you for tuning in Sierra. As, as always, it's lovely to see you, lovely to share space with you and get to chat with you and share this information. Thanks for saying yes to being here today.
Speaker 2:Thanks Beth, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:It's amazing. All right, listener, have a good rest of your day and stay safe. Stay well, ciao.
