Speaker 1At Harmony Bank, we believe that better happens together. We're a locally owned bank built on relationships and personally committed to your success. Our community bankers are ready to make quick decisions. No big bank bureaucracy, just a custom approach to help you thrive. From business loans to mortgages and everyday banking needs, Harmony Bank provides a secure, modern experience with a touch of Texas hospitality. We're Harmony Bank, where better happens together. Hello and welcome to the How Not To
Speaker 2Screw Up Your Kids podcast. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation. This is episode 47, entitled Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll. When should we have those difficult conversations? So, I want to talk about difficult conversations. And when we should be having them. Now, let me give you some background. I have had a number of conversations this week with various friends. And without breaking any confidences, we're talking about friends whose children have either become very drunk, they've caught their children vaping, looking at porn, taking drugs, or sneaking downstairs to switch the Wi-Fi back on and grab their devices. Now, these are all incredible parents. Wonderful parents, in fact, who have a great, great relationship with their children. They talk a lot, and they thought they had several years yet before they had to have those difficult conversations. And then, bam. So, this is going to be a slightly different type of podcast. I'm still going to give you my top tips, and this week I've got six. But I want you to imagine I'm your friend. Well, I hope I am, in a way, anyway. But, that's beside. But I hope, I want you to imagine that I'm your friend. And we're sat together, having a cup of tea, coffee, herbal tea, or whatever your choice of tea is. And we are sharing our experiences and having a chat about what might be best. In fact, you can really genuinely kind of picture it because I am currently in my grungy, messy dog walking clothes. My hair is scrunched up and I look a right royal mess. So, I am perfect for that conversation that we're going to be having. So, let me talk you through what I feel are the kind of the top six things that we need to be mindful of. Some of them are strategies. But some of them aren't. Some of them are just things that we need to be mindful of when it comes to having some of these difficult conversations. Whatever those difficult conversations might be, whether it's sneaking downstairs to do things that you know you're not able to do and being dishonest. Whether it's even sneaking out of the house. Whether it's about sex, whether it's about drugs, whether it's about pornography. Whatever it might be, these are the difficult conversations. So, number one, and I guess it makes most sense, is get comfortable. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Now, these aren't my words. I can't take any credit for that particularly. But I read them in an article recently. And to me, it just absolutely resonated because it describes what we need to do and what we need to embody. Because a lot of the conversations that we are going to have to have with our children bring up a whole load of stuff for us too. And they can be really uncomfortable conversations. They can be conversations that we don't even know how to even start. So let's just start with the basics of we just need to get comfortable being uncomfortable. And as is the case with so many things, the imagining it is always far worse than once we actually get started. And the more comfortable we get with being uncomfortable, the less uncomfortable we feel once we get going. So that's the first thing. And maybe you can talk to your friends about it. You know, we're all parents. We're all having to have these difficult conversations. So maybe get comfortable being uncomfortable. Talking about it with your friends. So that's point number one. Point number two. And this is a really, really important one. And particularly for these friends that I've had these conversations with this week is we've got to begin having conversations very early by seeding age appropriate information. So the conversations that we're going to have to have with our children about various different things, sex, drugs and rock and roll are not going to be one hit. Conversations. And then they're done. Not like when we were younger. I'm sure our parents probably felt like few darling. I've had that terrible, that difficult conversation, that awkward conversation with little Sophie about sex. And thank goodness now I don't have to have that conversation ever again. Or maybe your parents didn't even have that conversation with you at all. Children today are curious. We parent differently in so many ways to our parents. Our children are curious. And they have questions. And I've said before on previous podcast episode when we talked about pornography, if we don't answer our children's curiosity and their questions, then they will look on social media, YouTube, their friends or wherever they can get information. And that information isn't always going to be reliable. It isn't always going to tell them the full facts. It isn't always going to paint that broader picture. So we need to begin those conversations early. And just to give you an example, 50%, over 50% of children will have seen some form of online pornography before they leave primary school. So before the age of 11 years old, half of children would have seen pornography online. So if we're thinking we shouldn't be having this conversation with our children until they're in their teens, our children have long gone seen it and formed their own opinion, which may not necessarily always be appropriate. We've not had those conversations. So my advice is don't have the, let's sit down, we need to have a talk. Oh my God, how does that feel? Pit of the stomach. Oh my goodness me, this is so serious. So awkward. You couldn't get more uncomfortable with those conversations. So instead of seeing it as this big, I need to talk to Sophie about her periods. I need to talk to David about pornography. I need to talk to Jack about drink. I need to talk to Harriet about drugs. Let's not talk about pornography. I need to talk to David about drugs. I need to talk to my children about pornography. I need to talk to my children about drugs. my baby or he's my baby and they're still so young and why do I need to start bringing them up into adulthood things adulthood topics they're just so not young and naive and actually what can also happen is we can be worried and feel uncomfortable that we're then suddenly going to build a certain level of curiosity within our child and open up a whole can of worms and I would really urge you just to sit with that because the reality is there will be 11 year olds who have already drank so much that they have made themselves sick with it there will be 11 year olds who have smoked there will be 11 year olds who have taken drugs and there will be 11 12 and 13 year olds embarking in some form of sexual behavior now that doesn't mean that their parents are terrible that they've failed in some way our children are just naturally more curious and have been exposed to so much more than we have and we have to stop being naive that we shouldn't be having these conversations with them because we don't need to it's so much more important that we have those lines of communication that we are talking about sex that we're talking about drugs with our young children we might not necessarily use the various different labels for different kinds of drugs when our children are eight or nine but we will be talking generally about why it's important to have those lines of communication with our children important to know what things we might consume what we might drink what we might eat and what we might take into our body because how important it is to nurture it as it's growing for example so those conversations can be had very very young and then it becomes tweaked refined and the language and the topic areas just develop as they get older so if the conversation feels uncomfortable you need to work out within yourself why is that so and how can i going back to number one get comfortable with being uncomfortable and begin to open up and have those conversations so number one is get comfortable being uncomfortable number two is begin having conversations very early by seeding age-appropriate information number three is if the conversation feels uncomfortable work out what it is about that that makes feel uncomfortable with you and deal with that first because if you feel uncomfortable with it your children are going to pick up on that if there's an element particularly i've talked about this in the episode about pornography if there's an element of shame that we feel around viewing pornography then we project that shame when we talk to our children about it and actually the whole concept of sex self-gratification masturbation sex and pornography they are all inherent natural normal human desires and children have no shame around that unless they see that shame projected from us so we need to be mindful of how it impacts us these conversations before we start having them with our children number four is educate yourself and i say that with a certain take that with a pinch of salt i mean educate yourself in terms of a certain element of understanding because i'll we'll look at this again it will it will pop up again in terms of number six but educate yourself enough to understand what are the likely things that your child is going to encounter so my eldest is 22 the drugs that would have been around available easily accessible used frequently in his teen years amongst his peers are very different in lots of ways to the drugs that may be more prevalent and around and being experimented with now that these sorts of things change quite dramatically so we don't need to be experts and we will be horrified if we read loads and loads of information about it but we just need to have an understanding of the various you know just being really educated around what around the things that our children are likely to encounter so quite you know understand vaping what does that look like how does it tend to show up and understand about smoking understand about alcohol understand about drugs understand about pornography have a little bit of an understanding about where our children may well be seeing this it's really having an understanding of that at
Speaker 1harmony bank we believe that better happens together we're a locally owned bank built on relationships and personally committed to your success our community bankers are ready to make quick decisions no big bank bureaucracy just a custom approach to help you thrive from business loans to mortgages and everyday banking needs harmony bank provides a secure modern experience with a touch of texas hospitality we're harmony bank where better happens together the
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Speaker 2different to when we were younger so we can't sort of draw on our own personal experience in the same way because our children are living a very they're living in a very different environment than we were so we need to educate ourselves but don't educate yourself so you're an encyclopedia because i think that that's not helpful either it's much more about just having a broad understanding of what's going on in our lives and what's going on in our lives and what's and that education is not just about the sex drugs and rock and roll but educate yourself around the pressures that our children are likely to be experiencing understand the social platforms that your child is using and if they're of that particular age if they're not then just understand that sort of educate yourself around the conversations they might be having in the playground and those sorts of things the games they might be playing how they consume information on their electronic devices it's really important that you're able to educate yourself around the that we educate ourselves in the areas that we do not know fully or do not understand but do not educate yourself to a point where you feel that you need to become an expert because that's not useful either so we've done how many we've done four so the first is get comfortable with being uncomfortable the second is begin having conversations very early much earlier than you think but we're seeding age appropriate information we are not launching into a full conversation with the six-year-old about sex drugs and rock and roll but we may well be seeding with that six-year-old conversations around consent in terms of using their voice to say yes or no and also in terms of drugs in terms of what they put in their body and how important is to nurture our bodies it's these sorts of things number three is if the conversation feels uncomfortable to you sit with it and work out why and work through it so that you can begin to get comfortable with being uncomfortable number four is educate yourself find out the information that you need to know on a broad level so that you understand the environment that your child is growing up in and obviously if you've got multiple children your eldest your middle your youngest or however many children you have they will have slightly different experiences slightly different pressures part of that is age but part of it is also peer related so what i often find is within certain kind of year groups you might have lots of older children in another group you might have lots of younger children so obviously and particularly when we talk about this having these conversations early is that you might have a child who's the youngest so their exposure to information around sex drugs and rock and roll will be significantly higher than the child in another family who is the oldest because if you're the youngest and you've got teen siblings you know you've sat around you've experienced a lot of information even if you haven't consumed anything digitally compared to a child who is the eldest who is the first to go through those rites of passage so just be aware of those aspects so educate yourself around your child and particularly for their for each of your children number five is be non-judgmental and oh my word is this really difficult if you have never smoked if you are somebody who's a moderate drinker or maybe you don't drink at all maybe you've never done drugs maybe your attitude to sex is very is much more reserved maybe you've never masturbated maybe you have never consumed pornography whatever that might be we must approach our children and conversations with our children in a non-judgmental way and that's non-judgmental for our children but also non-judgmental with other children now quite often our children will talk about what their friends might be doing as a way of seeding a bit of a conversation and one of the dangers that we have is that we then move into judgment mode well they're very silly they're they're too young to be doing that and we launch into this sort of judgment and we don't do that because we're horrible judgmental parents but we do that because we're thinking right i want to make send a clear message to my child that this is not good and i don't want them to put themselves in a position where they're at risk but what happens is we leave a trail for our child that thinks i can't really conversation with my parents about this because they will think bad of me so we must make sure that we are non-judgmental of course we want to keep our children safe and we will look at this in point number six but we need to be non-judgmental our children's experiences the choices that they make are their choices and we must not project our judgment of things on them now that does not mean we just say well off you go let's go have sex go have drugs go rock and roll and i'm just going to stand by and say nothing that isn't the case but what we want to do is we want our child to feel valued validated and loved no matter what choices they make because let's face it we all make poor choices we all succumb to peer pressure at some point some more than others but all of these things are not the case we all succumb to peer pressure at some point some more than others are important when we want to create an environment and a space that our child feels able to come and talk to us no matter what so it's really important that we're non-judgmental and i can say that i have found that very tricky at times particularly in realms of aspects of sex drugs and rock and roll that i have not done i was a very compliant no i wasn't at all i was a middle child i was a never took drugs i have no judgment of anyone who did but i being a control enthusiast that i am never felt that that was something i wanted to go down now you could very easily argue that smoking is a drug it absolutely is and that alcohol is a drug so it's really important that we don't pass judgment just because i didn't experience it just because i don't understand it does not mean that then it's appropriate for me to be judgmental of that when i'm talking to my children about sex drugs and rock and roll so let's approach it from that perspective of being non-judgmental but remembering to do that not only for our children but when our children tell us stories about their friends too because we're setting a tone we're setting an expectation and the groundwork that our child is thinking about right is my parent somebody that i can go and talk to because if this is their view when i talk to them about my friend doing something then actually if i go and talk to them about me then this might happen so be really really aware of that being non-judgmental so we've got get comfortable with being uncomfortable begin having conversations early and again it's about seeding things if the conversation feels uncomfortable work out why it feels uncomfortable to you and what you might need to do who might you need to with it a little bit and inquire why but do that before you then begin to have the conversation with your children educate yourself to a level that you understand what is going on for your child and the environment in which they're being brought up and the challenges that they are facing be non-judgmental when you're having conversations with your child about things just generally but also choices that their friends may have made and then number six and this is a really really important one in fact they all are but i think this one's particularly important is focus on what they need to do to keep safe and not just the scary reasons why they should not do it let me explain a little bit more when we talk to our children often around sex for example a lot of the conversations we will have and i how many friends i've spoken to that the parents had the same sort of conversation is that sex should be with someone that you love in a long-term relationship yeah so we talk about what they should you know it's this idea of you should not have sex unless you are in a relationship a loving relationship so we focus on the nots you should not do you remember the campaign just say no about drugs it was all about you should not take drugs you should not smoke because look at these images of what it does to your lungs you should not take drugs you should not have sex so it's all of these things that we tend to focus on the should nots and actually what i'm saying is that you should not have sex you should not have sex you should not have sex so it's all of these things that we tend to focus on the should nots and actually what i'm saying is let's shift the focus let's talk about the risks should we make those choices but what we should also do is talk to our children about if you were to make this choice how might you keep yourself safe because then we're giving our children information now some of you might be listening to this and shouting at the your headphones or whatever it is you're listening to to this episode on and saying oh my god mary hann you are opening up a massive minefield i'm giving my child information and i'm giving my child information and i'm giving my child information as to how they should be doing it i don't think that's the case i think what you're doing is you're providing a information for your child as to what they might need to do to make sure that they are safe because let's face it even for the conversations that i've had with my friends children are going to go out and they are going to drink they are going to vape and smoke they're going to take drugs they're going to watch porn they're going to sneak around and do things in a dishonest way if we know that this is part of our society we're going to have to whether you call it teenage rebellion whether you talk about puberty whether it's just a rites of passage whether it's just their goddamn given right to do these things they are going to do them if we do not equip them with how they might keep themselves safe should they drink should they vape should they take drugs and they do it anyway we risk the worst case scenario happening so we're talking about information about keeping themselves safe and we're talking about information about keeping ourselves safe so don't go off don't walk home on your own make sure if you are drinking that there is someone with you these sorts of conversations if you're going to take drugs you need to know where it has come from don't take a drug that you don't have information or do not take drugs when you haven't got people around you that you know you can rely on to keep you safe so it's those types of conversations and those will be different for different children at different ages at different stages but if you're going to take drugs you need to know where it has gone but it's having those conversations and helping our children so that they know what they need to do to keep themselves safe as well as the risks that they face should they make those choices these are all about choices and we have to recognize that our children are at times going to succumb to peer pressure that they may do something that they either don't want to or maybe they do want to because they're desperate to fit in or maybe they're desperate to to try but we need to make sure that we also help them understand how they keep themselves safe rather than focusing things from that perspective of you should not do this so let me recap on these so the first is get comfortable with being uncomfortable number two is begin having conversations very early much earlier than you think but doing it by seeding age appropriate information number three is to be comfortable with being uncomfortable with being uncomfortable number three is if the conversation feels uncomfortable work out what it is that makes it feel uncomfortable for you work through that and then you're able to get comfortable being uncomfortable number four educate yourself what do you need to know because times are very different to when we were growing up and what do you need to know at each age and stage for each of your children because it will change number five be non-judgmental be open listen acknowledge try to understand from their perspective without passing judgment and six focus on what they need to know to keep themselves safe and not just the scary why they should not do it my give this week is my usual checklist with these six strategies and some space so that you can reflect underneath the idea by doing this is that i really want you to kind of sit with it for a little bit so you know certainly in my experience i think when we sit with things a little bit rather than jumping in and taking action which is tricky for someone like me who likes to jump in and take action but if you can sit with it for a bit it is a really helpful exercise to start what's coming up for me with this you know why does point number five really jar with me why does this non-judgmental thing why do i find that really difficult why am i finding a conversation about that really easy to have but this conversation really difficult so the idea is that that the checklist serves as a reminder but it also it's supposed to be a practical tool for you to use so as usual head over to my free resource library drmaryhand.com forward slash library where you will find the link to download this resource all you need to do is pop in your email address and you'll get instant access not only to this week's resource but all the other free resources across all my podcast episodes as ever if you have enjoyed this episode i would love it if you could follow and review this podcast so that others can find us and we can spread the love so until next time at harmony bank we believe that better happens
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