Comprehensive Sex Education - Embrace your parenting role as a trusting resource for your kids! with Special Guest Andrea Brand

Jackie Finneman is a 30-year family counselor turned parenting coach with more than 40,000 hours of working with children and families. She is thrilled to share behavioral strategies, supportive resources, and parenting stories from her own real-life personal and professional experiences. Parenting is a roller coaster, not a merry-go-round. We can deal with and overcome the behavior challenges within our home and set ourselves and our kids up for a successful ride.

Has your roller coaster derailed? No problem. Listen in to get you and your family back on track. Hey parents, welcome back to another episode. So this is the month of February and February is known as the month of love. Acknowledging others, showing our appreciation and our love for each other. You know, in our first episode of the month, we were talking about work-life harmony and how to really do some self-care to make sure that you are able to show up for your kids and your family outside of work. And then the next episode we had that just aired this past weekend was all about raising good human beings. Starts with being mindful. So really being mindful of ourselves, but in our conversations that we have with our kids. And then today what we're going to do is we're going to go into how to talk about love, a different kind of love, with our kids.

And today's episode is all about comprehensive sex education and really being able to embrace your parenting role as a trusting resource for your kids so that they will come to you and have those conversations with you. And then let me just summarize the next few episodes that are coming up for you. We're going to have the author of a children's book coming up for you just as a little fun episode. And we've got Melissa Dealy coming up to talk about how health affects our behavior.

And so it's loving on your kids with nutrition. and then on Valentine's Day we're actually going to get real for all you adults and we're going to talk about intimacy in your relationship. I figured that would be a nice Valentine's Day bonus podcast. We've got so many coming up but I'd be remiss if I didn't also talk about what happens when there's heartbreak and so we're going to have a couple of episodes that discuss grief, how to talk to your kids about grief and also for you the parent that is experiencing grief and what you can do. So I I have a couple special guests coming up, Michelle Benyo to talk about kiddos and grief and Merelda Rodriguez to talk about grief massage and really how grief is held within our bodies.

It's not just in our minds, right? It's not just the mental part of grief that affects us. It's really harbored in our bodies. Guys, we have so many wonderful topics coming up.

we're going to end the month with more motivation, more options for movement and things that your kiddos can do to start gaining confidence in themselves. So we'll wrap up the month of February with how to teach kiddos to just really embrace and love themselves. And I have special guests from the 6570 Project, Nellie Harden, and also from Speak Feed Lead, which is Jackie Bailey's company. And again, that's all about empowering kids to become confident. Let's get into today's episode. Today is all about comprehensive sex education. And my special guest is Andrea Brand.

Andrea is a passionate proponent of comprehensive sex education and helping parents embrace their role as open, trusting resources for their kids. Her work as a life coach focuses on supporting women interested in trading in feelings of overwhelm for confidence and contentment. She worked for decades in public health, initially in direct care, and then as a research consultant to impact programs and policy. After exploring her own inner conflict that resulted from the competing demands of a fast-paced corporate culture and life outside of the office, she stepped away from her career to evaluate her priorities and focus on what matters most to her.

family, interpersonal connections, and living authentically. This reconnected Andrea back to work promoting sex education as well as helping others live more purposefully. Andrea holds an MSW and MPH degree from the University of Michigan and is also a certified life coach. Now an empty nester, she resides in Massachusetts with her husband and her dog. So welcome to the show, Andrea, I am so excited to have you here today to talk about this subject that I think, you know, we've been saying it for years. It's a sticky subject, a tricky subject to be talking to our kids about sex. And we may cover, you know, some of the stereotypical, you know, birds and the bees kinds of things, but there's more to it than that. And it doesn't have to be as scary as we make it out to be or as awkward or whatever. So I just want to thank you for spending the time with me today and welcome to the show. Thank you, Jackie. I'm so excited to be here and to share this information with people because there is such a great need for it. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm curious, I know there's a little bit in your bio about this, but I'm super curious about how you developed this passion for talking about sex ed and how you got to where you are today with your company. And we definitely want to talk about the book. So kind of take us on that journey.

Okay. So a couple of things. One of the big drivers for me about writing about sex ed is, I would say two major reasons. One that was a surprise to me when I started doing research is that sex ed in the country, in the United States public schools, is so variable. And you could have one school that has a comprehensive sex education curriculum, and you could have another school in a neighboring community that has nothing or abstinence only. And the reason for such variability is that there are no requirements, minimum requirements in the coming down from the national level. They just leave it to the states. They have guidelines.

The national level has guidelines, which are basically recommendations, but each state really has complete autonomy. And then within each state, school districts have even further autonomy. So it is just across the board varied. In addition to that is that things like if you were to look at I'm a researcher by trade, so that will explain why I might be getting into some numbers.

But I don't want to get into too many numbers here. But just to give you a couple of high-level things is that when you look at things like teen pregnancy, the United States has been doing much better in the last three decades. There's been a trend downward. So, yay, let's celebrate that.

That's wonderful. On the flip side of that, though, is the rates of STIs, sexually transmitted infections, in that young group of, I think it's 15 to 24-year-olds, is high, really high. And that group, that population accounts for 25% of the population, but accounts for 50% of all STIs annually. So there's a disconnect there, and that's very interesting.

So what are youth or young adults not getting, right? And that's one of the things. So the sex ed in the U.S. is not great.

And I'm trying to be very polite about that. Another part is that another reason that really inspired me to do this book is that a long time ago, well, not that long ago, within the last decade, I was talking with a group of my friends and it became apparent. We all had adolescents, young adolescents. They were tweens at the time, just on the cusp of 13. And we were all talking. These are all, you know, educated women who understand the importance of sex ed as empowering and so forth.

and this group of my women friends admitted that yeah they're not talking with their kids about sex and no reason they just were uncomfortable and I said well how about if I do it and I just sort of it was very very spontaneous that I threw that out there uh they said would you and that was the beginning of a group that I hosted for a group of adolescent girls that they were all the daughters of my friends. And the premise of the group was to have, you know, sex education and empowerment. And there's a lot more that goes into sex ed other than sort of the reproductive nuts and bolts. There's so many other subtopics and we can get into that later.

And that group, which was going to last a few weeks, lasted five years. And people- Wow, really? Yeah. It just kept going because they love, everybody loved it. The girls were getting what they needed. The parents were grateful that the kids were getting stuff. I loved it because I was just having a wonderful time with this group of girls. And one of the other parts of it for me is getting kids and parents to talk. So I would always encourage whatever we talk about, bring it back home and talk to your parents about it. I would always encourage this group of my adult friends, ask your kids, what did they learn today? And like, let's keep, we got to open these channels. I'm here just to fill a gap, but this isn't the answer. Let's keep going. What else can we do to help open that? Everyone should be getting comfortable. And a lot of people got wind of this and asked if I could host more groups. And the answer to me was I would love to and no, because life was happening and I didn't have the time. But I thought, how else can I get,

spread the word so that people can get a good source if it's not happening in the schools reliably. How can I encourage parents to be more involved if they're having fears? Because it's common. It's very common. And I want to put people at ease and say, you know, folks, it's totally normal to be uncomfortable talking to your kids about sex. And I want to help you get through it because you can. Let's get, let's dispel the myths around what's getting in the way and make it easier for you. And the result will be empowered kids who are making healthy, intentional choices, not just going off on a, you know, making decisions without understanding what's going on. I mean, knowledge can't hurt, right? Facts are useful for them to incorporate into their behaviors.

And so I thought, well, I'm going to help people at least create the model. They can replicate these little dining room chats. And so that was originally going to be my book. And in fact, that is a part of my book. It's a third of my book, but there's so many other parts that I, in the book to help really coach parents through what's in the way and let's knock down those barriers and make this an easy, everyday, normal conversation you can have with your kids.

That is so cool. And so, yeah, I have a lot of questions about that because you said that group went on for five years. I'm still trying to figure out what you talk about with for five years. You just go through all the different stages, I suppose. And I mean, how did it form and how did it continue for five years? Yeah, well, as I said, it was very spontaneous that it formed.

And honestly, the way one of the advantages that I had is that I have a cohort of friends who all had they all have daughters ironically they're I have sons and I think I was craving also female energy and that was a win-win so they all had daughters and when I offered it and they said yes it was originally just to start with the sex ed that was not happening in my local school district where we live and the other advantage is that these girls knew each other and also and had a friendship with each other. So I feel like I already had an advantage that not everybody will have if they want to go ahead and start their own group. I do make suggestions in the book about, I walk through details. I almost offer, it is a blueprint of if you want to start a group,

here are the things to do, how you can do it. And I make strong recommendations just to give guidelines, but people have flexibility. One of the things is if kids know each other, that can be really helpful. I also did it happen to be all female. One can absolutely argue why there are advantages both in having, you know, one gender or mixed. There's really arguments for both. And so mine just happened to be an all female group. And the reason it lasted is because the girls didn't want it to end. And that just filled my heart. I loved it. We didn't meet weekly. We probably started meeting every couple of weeks. And it was only during the school year because in summers, people were off doing different things. But as they got older, this is what's also really interesting. And their schedules became busier because as they got into high school, everyone has extracurricular activities and sports jobs and so forth that we would meet less frequently. However, they still insisted on meeting and I was in full support.

So we would meet eventually only once a month. And by senior year in high school, probably we only met three or four times. However, we did. I mean, we still met and it was wonderful to get people around the table again. It was so rewarding for me. I feel I got so much out of it. And I know that they got some good information out of it. Yeah. And I'm still in touch with them today. And they're now they're seniors and in university now. That is so cool.

That's awesome. And so did you just naturally kind of create a flow to the topics that you were bringing up? Like how did how does that work? And what do you suggest?

Yeah, well, originally, so here's an example where you don't have to reinvent the wheel. I, I, because I'm a public health researcher in my background, and this is a topic that I have been involved in for a long time, I knew about different curricula and I would read them and decide and pick and choose what I thought were important topics that were missing. And I would offer them and say, this is what we're going to talk about next week. What do you feel? I also wanted them to have a lot of say in what we talked about. And so occasionally I would say, guys here, take a index card and I want you to write down some topics that are of interest to you that I will make sure we incorporate in future meetings. And so that way that gave them a voice, that gave them choice, and we would talk about what those things were. So things around sex ed go well beyond what is just reproduction, puberty. It encompasses also things like consent, which is a big issue.

which starts that topic is something i actually recommend parents start talking about when kids are really little and we can come back to what that looks like because obviously discussions you have with a two or three year old are not the same discussions that you have with your 15 year old however you're building everything is building to get them ready for the future discussions other things we would have talked about though in girls group could be body image healthy eating stress reduction, managing time. So it really evolved. And it would often though, come back to something that was related to bodies, health, and some way connected to sexual development and education in a broader realm that way. And you go through all of that in your book, Stop Sweating, Start Talking,

how to make sex chats with your kids easier than you think. And so you do make, you lay this all out and I just absolutely love it. You, it's really kind of like you said, a blueprint or almost a step-by-step, but of course you can tailor it to work for what you need in your family and with your kids. Right. Totally. And, or if you're doing it with a group of kids, you don't have to do this in a group setting, right? You can just have, you're teaching parents how to have conversations with their kids just in general. Right. In fact, yes. In fact, the majority of the book is really intended for parents working through their own stuff so they can have discussions with their own kids and it can stop there and then I just offer the blueprint in the end of the book in case people are interested in getting a group going in their own community if they feel that there are not a lot of options either within school or within their other you know within the community because there are sometimes community organizations it It could be through places of worship.

It could be through youth groups or organizations, sports even, that are centered around sports. There's a lot of places where there could be options for some education. But this isn't an either or. It really is an and, honestly.

And this is a point that I feel resonates with a lot of people. No matter what the kids are learning in a more formal setting, parents have a unique opportunity to be able to talk with their kids and infuse their own values. So that's a really special opportunity, right? Because we, as parents, want our kids to grow up and make healthy choices in life, make smart decisions as they're going through.

We're always giving them our values, whether we're overt about it or they're just observing our behaviors and they're picking up on our values. So this is another fantastic place where we get to say, here's all the information. And again, it's not in one major talk. It's going to be throughout life as they're growing up.

But you can also add your feelings about something, right? So even if you're talking to your child about something, I wish I could give you a concrete example here. I know a lot of people who would prefer that their teens don't date in high school or until they get to a certain age. So let's use that.

So while you're teaching your kids about various aspects of sex ed, you can also then say, and you know, while you may have feelings for someone, And my hope is that really you're going to postpone dating until you're X number of years old. And this is my feelings why, you know, the more you can back up something, the more we can explain it, the better. And not, you know, not just having it rooted in, well, just because that's what I, you know, we really want to give them good information and backup.

Yeah. And I think oftentimes when we say, oh, you can't date until you're 17 or you can't date until you're out of this house or you're, you know, 15 or whatever it is. if it's just like this rule, kids are going to challenge it. I mean, that's their job to do that, in some ways. Absolutely. Tell us a little bit about what can go wrong if we don't educate our kids on sex, or as you call it, sexucate your kids at home. Yeah. Yeah. So, well, that's a great question. And the reason I would love to address that is because there are a lot of places that kids can be getting information about sex that without having other facts, other concrete reliable sources of information can lead them down a road of inaccuracies. For example,

I mean, this is one that I love, is that you may have a very innocent search. You could have a young a younger boy who i don't know let's say 11 year old boy who looks wants to find out something because he's had a spontaneous erection and he's embarrassed so he looks up erection okay maybe he has that word because it's been thrown around in wherever whether it's been used in the household as part of the developmentally appropriate education or it's something he's heard from his friends somewhere. So he looks it up. Well, all I can imagine is if you just look that up, where does that get you? So you may land on, or your child in this case, some, I call them unsavory sites. And I know that a lot of parents put on parental controls, which I, that's great if that works. I support all of that. I just also realize that a lot of kids are one step ahead of the parental controls. And if there's something that they want to find out that they can't access,

they will find their way around it. So consequences are your kids are going to get information that they are not prepared for, that is inaccurate, that is unrealistic, that leads them to unfortunate, then low self-esteem. That's one example. Another thing is if you don't have kids with good information, then they're just going through life and don't know about what behaviors might lead to, I don't want to use consequences, but outcomes.

Let's say outcomes. And so it's basic, useful information for living your life as they are becoming sexual beings. Really, that's what it is. And people are sexual really from birth on.

And so even though parents, we want to bury our heads in the sand and not like want to believe this or feel that our kids could have sexual feelings or thoughts. They do. And you know what? And that's healthy.

So if that is what's the reality, what can we do so that we are ensuring their best, healthiest outcomes knowing that? Yeah, I love that. It's step three of my no problem parenting is to change the conversation. And so step one is seek first to understand why is my child behaving the way they are?

Why am I responding or reacting the way I am? Step two is prepare for the worst. And that doesn't mean like it means your worst, like your worst feeling or your fears that you have either around a behavior. Maybe it's a sexual behavior or it's dating or it's whatever. But how do you prepare for that so that you can change the conversation?

You can actually feel empowered and confident about talking to your kids, you know, in a different way, in a way that's going to help them keep communication open with you, want to talk with you. And that's really what I believe your book does a couple of things. It actually does all three of those things but helps parents kind of prepare for the quote unquote worst, you know, like, how am I going to talk to my kid about this it's going to be uncomfortable I don't know what I'm going to say am I. If I do talk about it, am I pushing them to am I making them more curious and, you know, kind of giving them this permission that it's okay to experiment or, you know, whatever I mean like all those kind of natural worries or fears that we have as parents, but then you're giving the, you're giving this blueprint or these ideas or those ways of making things very matter of fact, when it comes to talking about sexuality, just the sex talk,

right? We make it so much harder than it needs to be. And it can just be very matter of fact, and it doesn't have to be a therapy session, right? But it can just be really matter of fact kind of stuff with our kids because it is normal. Totally. And I love what you just said, because I think I may mention this in my book. It doesn't matter if I don't. One, there's been a couple of examples that stand out for me. I remember when one of my kids was maybe four years old. He pulls out a tampon from my drawer and he thinks it's candy. So he's like starting to unwrap it.

And then he's disappointed. He's like, ew, what's this? And so it's both comical and a great entree into what it is in very simple terms, because truth, truth be told, he's not interested in understanding or capable of understanding a woman's menstrual cycle. Right. Right. So, you know, in the briefest, simplest way, I tell him what it is. He's already bored, tossed it and is off doing something else, but perfect entree into the conversation. Right.

Yep. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, and so if, what are some, um, what are some fears that you think parents have about approaching the subject just in general? Like what, why do you think it's so scary or taboo? Not having all the answers or not knowing what to say is actually a conversation stopper. Sometimes we're just stunned and we, whether it's because the question comes out of the blue or because we truly don't know an answer, we might just find ourselves frozen.

And one of the things that I like to say to parents is that's okay. You don't have to have all the answers. Who does? None of us have all the answers. And one of, you know, one of my favorite go-tos when I've encountered that is to say, you know what, I don't think I have the information you're looking for. Why don't we either A, look it up together, or B, you know, the A and B are in my head. They're not what I say out loud. But I will either offer that we look it up together, or I'll say, I don't have the answer, but that is such a wonderful question. And I am so glad you asked. Let me look that up and I'm going to come back to you and get that to you. Let's finish this discussion later. And then what's really important about that is to circle back. We really, in that,

in that example, A, I acknowledged them and I, and I basically want to make the kid feel, yay thank you for coming to me and celebrating and not shocked no matter what question it is they're asking try to if you are shocked that's not going to do anyone any good so if you can put on that mask and just say thank you for asking that question if you are shocked you might say what's making you bring that up now in a calm way like just to probe about where that's coming from because it could be a surprise if you're getting a question from left field and it's about something that you didn't even know was on your kid's radar.

So never making them feel shame for a question they ask, never making them feel diminished, rewarding them for coming. Thank you for asking that question. And then normalizing and getting back to them with information once you do figure out what your answer is. We can always buy ourselves time.

And I recommend even if you know the answer, but you are shocked about the question, you can still buy yourself time and say, that is great. Let me let me get back to you on that because I don't want to mess up the answer or something to that effect. Right. And that's in change the conversation.

It's delay that just like we would delay a consequence if we were really upset by a behavior. you know you don't want to give because otherwise if you're really upset you're probably going to give a consequence that really doesn't fit the crime or the situation right and so we want to delay that you can delay any conversation when you're uncomfortable when you feel pressured when you feel nervous about it you know all of that stuff and just it's like I'll get back to you later and this is really important we need to talk about it and you said something really important important there too when we're shocked sometimes I mean I think you can agree with us too we get thrown off, we get curve balls from our kids and we might overreact or underreact or just react not well. And that's okay. Cause we can't be on a hundred percent of the time we have that fight or flight that triggers us based on our experiences, right. Or whatever. So if we do screw up and overreact or be shocked or whatever, that's okay. Just later, you can say things like that really threw me off or that caught me by surprise. And we can have those honest conversations with their kids that I didn't know how to handle that. And I needed a minute. And that is so cool when you can do that. And your kids appreciate and respect that so much. I just, I absolutely love all of it. This really will sum it up wherever you are on your parenting journey. It's not too late

to begin talking about sex with your kids. And if you think your kids are too young, no you can start right now and you can find developmental ways to have simple easy short conversations where it makes sense and keep them ongoing so it's many conversations over the development of our children's growth their youth so that it is comfortable easy both sides as this as the parent and as the kid listening and that it just becomes so normalized. So never too late to begin, never too early, and just keep the conversation going and the channels of communication open. It's not just about sexual intercourse. It's also, it's about body image and self-esteem. And there's so many, there's just so many good, great topics. And when we can be confident as parents talking about the subject and these varying subjects, lots of subjects, we raise confident kids. And when we have confident kids, their self-esteem, their self-regard, all of that increases. So I'm just so happy to have been connected with you, Andrea, and I appreciate you coming on the show so much today. Thank you, Jackie. It was my pleasure. I really love speaking about this and I'm very passionate about it. And I really hope that your listeners will get something out of this too. Yes, absolutely. They will. We're going to put a link in for your book,

a link in to talk with you one-to-one. You do one-on-one coaching, you do coaching for women. And so all the links are going to be in there for parents to reach out. And I hope, and I hope they, I hope they do. Thank you. All right. That's a wrap for today. Be sure to subscribe or follow this podcast, you guys, so that you can get alerted immediately when an episode drops. As I said, I have all these wonderful guests coming up, lots of podcasts this month more than normal. Usually it's just a once a week or but we're behind schedule because of that couple of months hiatus at the end of the year and we're getting back on track. For now, hugs and high fives parents. You got this. Thank you for tuning in to the No Problem Parenting Podcast. Join Jackie next time for more tips, tools, and resources that will help you become the confident leader your kids crave you to be. Who do you know that we could support on their parenting journey. Like this podcast, subscribe, share, or leave a review of the show. Your support of the No Problem Parenting podcast pays it forward and helps us help more families.