#101 | 8 Ways Parents Can Support LGBTQ Youth Through Courageous Sexual Health Conversations (Expert Ally Guidance)

Heather Hester
00:00:05
Welcome back to Just Breathe.

Heather Hester
00:00:07
I am so happy you are here today, and I am really, really thrilled to bring you today's show because it is a little bit different than the interviews that I typically have.

Heather Hester
00:00:20
Today's guest is Dr.

Heather Hester
00:00:23
David Huebner, who has been here before, if you recall, or if you've been listening for a while.

Heather Hester
00:00:30
And David and I did a about 2 years ago talking about sex and why it is important to talk with our kids about sex and all the different ways that we can do it so that it is not weird and awkward and all of those things.

Heather Hester
00:00:45
So I was very thrilled when he reached back out to me a month or so ago, letting me know that some research that they had just been beginning when we talked two years ago, talking about HIV and how it is disproportionately showing up in our queer boys specifically, and really wanting to understand why that is what can be done in an intervention sense, in an educational sense.

Heather Hester
00:01:17
And they have come up with.

Heather Hester
00:01:19
He and his team have come up with this just really robust research, survey, toolbox education, all of the above that they are now working on.

Heather Hester
00:01:32
So I wanted to bring him back on today to talk about this work that they are doing and to talk about the ways that you all can help.

Heather Hester
00:01:42
I want to give a little bit of background his official bio background before we get started.

Heather Hester
00:01:48
I'm so thrilled to have Dr.

Heather Hester
00:01:50
Huebner back.

Heather Hester
00:01:51
He is a clinical psychologist and the professor of prevention and community health at George Washington University.

Heather Hester
00:02:00
He has spent 20 years researching how parents influence the health of LGBTQ youth, and he leads the team who creates and evaluates the resources for Parent with Love.

Heather Hester
00:02:13
And there are so, so much more for you to know about Dr.

Heather Hester
00:02:17
Huebner.

Heather Hester
00:02:17
You can go to the website, his bio, all of the information will be in the show notes at the end.

Heather Hester
00:02:25
But for now, I am just thrilled to bring you this convers.

Heather Hester 2
00:02:43
Welcome to Just Breathe Parenting, your LGBTQ team, the podcast transforming the conversation around loving and raising an LGBTQ child.

Heather Hester 2
00:02:55
My name is Heather Hester, and I am so grateful you are here.

Heather Hester 2
00:03:00
I want you to take a deep breath and know that for the time we are together, you are in the safety of the Just Breathe nest.

Heather Hester 2
00:03:10
Whether today's show is an amazing guest or me sharing stories, resources, strategies, or lessons I've learned along our journey, I want you to feel like we're just hanging out at a coffee shop, having a cozy chat.

Heather Hester 2
00:03:27
Most of all, I want you to remember that wherever you are on this journey right now, in this moment in time, you are not alone.

Heather Hester
00:03:44
David, I am so glad that you are here with me again today.

Heather Hester
00:03:49
And just a little reminder, even though I have already reminded you all of this, a few years ago, David and I got to have just an amazing conversation about sex and our LGBTQ kids.

Heather Hester
00:04:04
And it was so interesting, and I learned so much.

Heather Hester
00:04:08
So definitely make a note to go back and listen to that episode as well.

Heather Hester
00:04:12
But today we talk about some things that are a little more specific to where our kids are today, concerns that we have as parents, and some really interesting things that David and his team are up to.

Heather Hester
00:04:26
So, first of all, thank you for being here and welcome.

Dr. David Huebner
00:04:30
Thank you so much for having me again.

Dr. David Huebner
00:04:32
I had so much fun last time we chatted, and it's nice to be able to talk with you and with your listeners again about such important topics.

Dr. David Huebner
00:04:40
So thanks.

Heather Hester
00:04:42
Of course.

Heather Hester
00:04:43
Of course.

Heather Hester
00:04:44
Now, glad this came up.

Heather Hester
00:04:45
And I feel like things always come up when they're supposed to.

Heather Hester
00:04:49
And so super timely, you know, all of.

Heather Hester
00:04:54
All of the topics, really, that you kind of do your work around are extremely timely to things that my listeners and their kids are experiencing.

Heather Hester
00:05:06
So before we started recording, you and I were really, we were talking about the most recent annual report on youth mental health, and I'm blanking on the name of it.

Heather Hester
00:05:17
I know there's an official name for that, but I'd like to kind of start there and, you know, get your thoughts on what it says for 2023 in comparison to what it said past and kind of what we're seeing in trends and what that means for our kids.

Dr. David Huebner
00:05:35
Sure.

Dr. David Huebner
00:05:36
So the Centers for Disease Control cdc, which many people are familiar with now because of thanks to Covid and the pandemic, people think about the CDC now, yes, they don't only deal with physical health, but they also are in charge of helping to monitor the states of mental and physical health in the population and in youth.

Dr. David Huebner
00:05:58
And so one of the ways they do that for kids is they administer what's called the Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

Dr. David Huebner
00:06:04
And I do this at regular intervals.

Dr. David Huebner
00:06:06
And many of your listeners might have seen in the news a couple months ago that they issued the most recent sort of findings from that report because it made headlines all over the place.

Dr. David Huebner
00:06:17
And I think the biggest headline that people might have seen was simply that kids right now are reporting a lot of distress.

Dr. David Huebner
00:06:27
When we see that in terms of the numbers of kids that are reporting feeling persistently sad and hopeless, which are signs of depression, as well as the numbers of kids who are reporting other behavioral health challenges like substance use, suicidality, Things of that nature.

Dr. David Huebner
00:06:45
The headline was that the rates of these problems have been increasing in kids for many years, and importantly, that preceded the pandemic.

Dr. David Huebner
00:06:56
So that was a trend that we were seeing before COVID Now, certainly, Covid did not make things any better for kids.

Dr. David Huebner
00:07:03
But what's important is that we can't blame everything that happened just on Covid, because we've been seeing this trend of increasing distress in kids for a while.

Dr. David Huebner
00:07:13
So that was the headline that readers might have seen buried in.

Dr. David Huebner
00:07:17
That was also an important message for parents, for your audience.

Dr. David Huebner
00:07:22
Parents, parents of LGBTQ plus kids, and that's that we saw big differences between the queer kids and the straight kids in terms of these mental and behavioral health outcomes, with the queer kids faring worse.

Dr. David Huebner
00:07:37
So we saw, like, you know, almost twice the rate of certain problems in the gay kids compared to the straight kids.

Dr. David Huebner
00:07:46
So that was another piece that was reported on somewhat, but probably didn't get as much attention as the overall headline, which is just that kids have been struggling.

Dr. David Huebner
00:07:55
And so my team over the years has been thinking a lot about how do we try to make that better, how do we address that, and particularly how do we leverage parents to try to make some of those problems better.

Heather Hester
00:08:07
Right.

Heather Hester
00:08:07
So let's kind of break that down, because I think this is really, really important.

Heather Hester
00:08:13
These are questions that people have and often feel very helpless to be able to do anything about or to know what to recognize or to know what to say, even.

Heather Hester
00:08:26
I like the very simple things.

Heather Hester
00:08:27
Right.

Heather Hester
00:08:28
I think a lot of times we jump right to, like, the big actionable items instead of, like, here are the very simple statements that you can make so that your kid knows they're not alone or they are heard.

Heather Hester
00:08:41
So I would.

Heather Hester
00:08:42
I'd love to start kind of in that little nitty gritty place and then build out from there.

Dr. David Huebner
00:08:48
Sure.

Dr. David Huebner
00:08:48
Yeah.

Dr. David Huebner
00:08:49
So, I mean, when I think about what do we do to help.

Dr. David Huebner
00:08:53
Okay, kid, I'm just going to say, do you mind if I use the term queer to refer to that?

Dr. David Huebner
00:08:57
The acronym is so long for me to say it over and over again.

Heather Hester
00:09:02
Totally.

Heather Hester
00:09:02
Fine.

Heather Hester
00:09:03
Yes, absolutely.

Dr. David Huebner
00:09:04
So when I say queer, I mean all of the letters, all of our letters.

Heather Hester
00:09:09
Absolutely.

Dr. David Huebner
00:09:10
We.

Dr. David Huebner
00:09:11
What I always like to say is that, you know, queer kids are first kids.

Dr. David Huebner
00:09:17
And so there's a lot of science right now about what helps kids in general stay healthy.

Dr. David Huebner
00:09:24
And I think the first place that we should look when we're trying to keep queer kids healthy is what keeps kids healthy.

Dr. David Huebner
00:09:30
And so we need to remember that.

Dr. David Huebner
00:09:33
That we don't necessarily need to do anything different to support our gay kids relative to our straight kids.

Dr. David Huebner
00:09:40
So the things that we know keep kids healthy are having close relationships with their families, having close relationships with other norm enforcing institutions, things like schools.

Dr. David Huebner
00:09:54
If you have a supportive faith community, being a part of a supportive faith community can be helpful.

Dr. David Huebner
00:10:01
Having close relationships with peers who are pro social and not the peers who are doing bad things.

Dr. David Huebner
00:10:11
All of those things we know about kids in general tend to help kids stay healthy.

Dr. David Huebner
00:10:16
Those are also true for gay kids.

Dr. David Huebner
00:10:19
In addition, though, gay kids have some unique experiences that I think are important to think about and address.

Dr. David Huebner
00:10:28
The most prominent of those is that gay kids experience more minority stress.

Dr. David Huebner
00:10:32
What we call minority stress and what that looks like is discrimination from schools and teachers and families sometimes and communities internalizing that discrimination.

Dr. David Huebner
00:10:45
We call that internalized homophobia or internalized transphobia.

Dr. David Huebner
00:10:48
So when a gay kid believes the stuff that they hear in the media about gay people and comes to believe that they are less valuable or less worthy themselves, that's a form of stress that's unique that we have to think about.

Dr. David Huebner
00:11:01
Pressure to conceal when sexual orientation or gender identity is a unique stress that gay kids face.

Dr. David Huebner
00:11:08
And finally, expecting that one might be rejected, expectations of rejection.

Dr. David Huebner
00:11:14
Because you see what's happening, even if you haven't actually experienced rejection yourself, you see what's happening nationally, you hear stories from other kids and you start to worry that in your encounters with other people they might not go as well because of that.

Dr. David Huebner
00:11:31
And so we call that expectations and rejections.

Dr. David Huebner
00:11:33
And those are all forms of minority stress that are contributing to these problems for gay kids on top of the things that are helpful and difficult for heterosexual kids.

Dr. David Huebner
00:11:45
And so I think we need to think about those two buckets of things.

Dr. David Huebner
00:11:47
What helps kids generally and what can we do to help queer kids specifically.

Dr. David Huebner
00:11:53
And sometimes it's easier for parents to focus in one place or the other.

Dr. David Huebner
00:11:56
And I say, you know, wherever you have the energy, go for it.

Heather Hester
00:12:01
Right.

Dr. David Huebner
00:12:03
Because having a parent engaged is generally going to help.

Heather Hester
00:12:07
Absolutely.

Heather Hester
00:12:08
Well, and I think you could probably start in the place where you feel most comfortable while you're learning about the places that you don't feel as comfortable or don't feel quite as well equipped to be supportive, even though the likelihood is no matter how you show up, you're showing up.

Heather Hester
00:12:25
So just in showing up, you are well equipped.

Heather Hester
00:12:28
But I think there is that pressure to like, I need to know all the answers.

Heather Hester
00:12:31
I need to at least have one answer, right?

Heather Hester
00:12:34
So.

Heather Hester
00:12:35
And I think those, you know, Those fears come up for parents when they are, you know, parenting their, their queer kids specifically and thinking, well, this is what I know to be true, whether it's, you know, out in the larger world or in their own community or in their home.

Heather Hester
00:12:53
And I'm not quite sure how to combat that, which is a little bit scary.

Heather Hester
00:12:58
And I, so I wonder too, like I was thinking, so with that specific reaction there, as well as talking about the expectation for rejection, which I think is so fascinating, because there's definitely in both of those cases a raising of a boundary or a protective bubble that you may not necessarily need, but you're using it right, just because of, you know, you're using the information you have available to you.

Heather Hester
00:13:29
What can we do about that?

Dr. David Huebner
00:13:31
Yeah, so, I mean, I think the best thing the parents can do is try to forge a strong relationship with their child.

Dr. David Huebner
00:13:39
And I think one place that, that starts particularly for families, for your audience.

Dr. David Huebner
00:13:46
So if someone's coming to your, to your podcast, I think, you know, those are generally parents who are wanting to do the best that they can and parents who are maybe struggling a bit with the fact that they have a queer kid, but are also in a place of enough acceptance, at least to hear you and your messages.

Dr. David Huebner
00:14:02
And so when I think about speaking to that audience, it's a little different than speaking to sort of the general public who might not be in that same place.

Dr. David Huebner
00:14:10
But for your listeners, one of the things I think is focus on your relationship with your child.

Dr. David Huebner
00:14:15
And one place to start is to think about, are there ways that I'm contributing to the minority stress that my child experiences?

Dr. David Huebner
00:14:26
That's maybe a first thing to do is to just sort of take a gentle inventory of your behavior and see if there are some subtle ways that you might be contributing to this.

Dr. David Huebner
00:14:34
And not every parent does, but we see some fairly common things that even among well intentioned parents.

Dr. David Huebner
00:14:40
And so I'd like to kind of raise some awareness about those things sometimes.

Dr. David Huebner
00:14:45
So some examples of things that parents often don't realize their kids might experience as rejecting are suggesting that your child dress or act differently than they might want to because you're concerned it could elicit bullying or mistreatment.

Dr. David Huebner
00:15:04
So, you know, we see kids wanting to paint their nails or wear a shirt that feels a little more out there than a parent is comfortable with.

Dr. David Huebner
00:15:13
And, you know, lots of parents hate the way their kids dress.

Dr. David Huebner
00:15:17
But when you think that the way that your child is presenting themselves to the world might make them a target for bullying or victimization, that's really hard for a parent.

Dr. David Huebner
00:15:24
And so parents sometimes say, like, do you have to do that to their child?

Dr. David Huebner
00:15:29
Or suggest.

Dr. David Huebner
00:15:30
And what that ends up doing, though, although it comes from a place of wanting to protect your child, what it ends up doing is it communicates in a subtle way to your child that there's something wrong with them or the way that they're expressing themselves, and that if they do experience mistreatment, they are to blame for it because they chose to wear something or do something which was an expression of themselves.

Dr. David Huebner
00:15:53
And so that's one example of things that we ask parents to just sort of check themselves at and say, like, you know, it's wonderful that you're concerned about your child.

Dr. David Huebner
00:16:01
Of course you're concerned about your child.

Dr. David Huebner
00:16:03
But is there a different way that I can sort of help protect my child from those things besides asking my kid to be different?

Heather Hester
00:16:10
Right.

Heather Hester
00:16:11
Well.

Heather Hester
00:16:12
And could you, like, frame that into a conversation instead of just a statement or a question that, you know, ends up making your child feel like they are doing something wrong?

Heather Hester
00:16:25
Right.

Heather Hester
00:16:25
So in a way that it's a discussion about, you know, them being expressive and that you love how they're expressing themselves or how they're, you know, trying on new things.

Heather Hester
00:16:35
Right.

Heather Hester
00:16:36
Like, I just.

Heather Hester
00:16:37
I just.

Heather Hester
00:16:37
I'm thinking, as you were saying, that I'm thinking about, like, all of the different phases that my kids have gone through.

Heather Hester
00:16:42
All of the above, right?

Heather Hester
00:16:43
The painting of the nails, the hair, the piercings, the tattoos, the clothes.

Heather Hester
00:16:49
I mean, the whole nine yards.

Heather Hester
00:16:51
And I remember feeling that way very, very early on where I was like, right.

Heather Hester
00:16:59
Like this.

Heather Hester
00:17:00
Oh, not gonna be safe.

Heather Hester
00:17:03
Right.

Heather Hester
00:17:57
And then I was like, you know, they're being them.

Dr. David Huebner
00:18:01
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Dr. David Huebner
00:18:03
And.

Dr. David Huebner
00:18:04
And again, it's such a common thing, but I think if you can take inventory of your own behaviors, that's a great place to start.

Dr. David Huebner
00:18:12
And another thing to do is to sort of ask your child and to say, like, are there things that I do that make you feel more or less supportive about the fact that you're queer?

Dr. David Huebner
00:18:22
Like, are there things that I'm doing or things that our family is doing?

Dr. David Huebner
00:18:26
Sometimes parents don't want their kids to be out about their sexual orientation with certain friends or family members.

Dr. David Huebner
00:18:33
That's another thing that kids experience is rejecting.

Dr. David Huebner
00:18:36
Again, parents typically are doing that because they're trying to protect their child from something.

Dr. David Huebner
00:18:41
And at the same time, what it communicates is that there is something wrong with you or something shameful about you that I don't want other people to know.

Dr. David Huebner
00:18:49
So I Ask parents to sort of look in those corners of themselves and say, are these things that I'm doing to protect my child, might they be experienced as rejection?

Dr. David Huebner
00:19:00
And if they are, is there another way that I can protect my child?

Heather Hester
00:19:04
Right.

Dr. David Huebner
00:19:05
So that's, I think, a nice starting point.

Dr. David Huebner
00:19:09
Another thing I think parents can do is to, again, with their kids, permission, get involved in the places where they are experiencing minority stress.

Dr. David Huebner
00:19:18
So if school is a hard place for your child because they're queer, that's time to get involved in your school.

Dr. David Huebner
00:19:26
It's time to start having conversations with the principal, with the teachers.

Dr. David Huebner
00:19:30
And there are laws in place to protect kids from mistreatment in schools because of their identity.

Dr. David Huebner
00:19:38
And there are.

Dr. David Huebner
00:19:39
And it's important that schools know that you're aware of those laws and that you're going to take action if they're not doing enough to support and protect your child.

Dr. David Huebner
00:19:49
And again, with your child's permission, getting engaged in those places and helping them to advocate for themselves and you being an advocate for them in those spaces can really go a long way to improving their experience and reducing some of that minority stress that they, that they, that they have in their lives.

Heather Hester
00:20:07
Right.

Heather Hester
00:20:08
Oh, my goodness.

Heather Hester
00:20:09
Well, and I think that's.

Heather Hester
00:20:10
I love that you keep saying that, like, get their permission, talk to them, because I, I think that is one piece that oftentimes, especially if your child is in distress or if the parent is in distress in any way, you kind of forget that you have.

Heather Hester
00:20:23
Like, that's the very best option of all, is to actually have a conversation and check in and just like, where are they?

Heather Hester
00:20:30
And actually ask those questions and, you know, and think about where.

Heather Hester
00:20:34
Like, be really still and honest with yourself and figuring out where you are with all of this.

Heather Hester
00:20:43
But then the other piece of that, too, thank you for saying this, which is, you know, bringing up the laws.

Heather Hester
00:20:49
Like, I don't think a lot of people are aware of the laws that are in place in a lot of states to protect our kids.

Heather Hester
00:20:59
And when you're thinking of things that you want to do to get involved in what's going on nationwide, these are the laws that are being attacked.

Heather Hester
00:21:08
Right.

Heather Hester
00:21:09
So these are the laws that are being pulled apart and taken apart.

Heather Hester
00:21:12
They are still in place in most places, but get to know what your local laws are.

Heather Hester
00:21:18
So, you know, so you're prepared when you go in for these meetings.

Dr. David Huebner
00:21:23
And I think a lot of schools are doing great things now.

Dr. David Huebner
00:21:26
You know, there's a lot of variability in schools.

Dr. David Huebner
00:21:28
Certainly a lot of schools are doing wonderful things now.

Dr. David Huebner
00:21:32
And then there are schools that, you know can do better and are open to doing better.

Dr. David Huebner
00:21:37
They just need to be invited to or urged to, you know.

Dr. David Huebner
00:21:41
And then of course, there are schools in some very challenging places that are struggling, I think, on a number of fronts, including on this front.

Dr. David Huebner
00:21:49
And I also think keeping that perspective in mind is helpful, knowing that, like in some cases, schools aren't just struggling to do the right thing for queer kids.

Dr. David Huebner
00:21:58
They're struggling to do the right thing for kids in general because they're under resourced and underfunded and they've been tasked with doing, you know, bring everything to all kids.

Dr. David Huebner
00:22:06
And so I think approaching your school administration with some humility around some of those things is also sometimes a winning strategy.

Dr. David Huebner
00:22:16
There's a great organization called glissa, the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network.

Dr. David Huebner
00:22:21
And if you have concerns about school, they are the go to organization that's trying to make schools safer and more inclusive for sexual minority and gender diverse kids.

Dr. David Huebner
00:22:35
So I highly recommend if you have questions about the laws, if you have questions about what you can do or how you can be involved in a school, GLSEN is a great resource for parents.

Heather Hester
00:22:43
Yeah, they are amazing.

Heather Hester
00:22:46
Really, really good.

Heather Hester
00:22:47
And it's nice to be able to have those resources that you can, you know, kind of two clicks and you have a ton of information right there available to you.

Heather Hester
00:22:56
So that is a good one.

Dr. David Huebner
00:22:58
And then I think there are teams like mine who are trying to create other evidence based resources for parents and trying to help parents figure out the best ways that they can help protect their kids from some specific health risks that we know queer kids face.

Dr. David Huebner
00:23:17
So, for example, in addition to the risks that we talked about in terms of depression and suicide and substance use, queer kids are at higher risk for poor sexual health outcomes.

Dr. David Huebner
00:23:28
In particular, the boys and the transgender girls are at much higher risk for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections relative to their cisgender heterosexual peers.

Dr. David Huebner
00:23:41
And that's something that we had a bit of a conversation about last time.

Dr. David Huebner
00:23:46
And it's something that our team has been working hard at trying to figure out.

Dr. David Huebner
00:23:50
How can we create tools to help parents protect their kids from those risks?

Dr. David Huebner
00:23:56
And we have developed an online toolkit that we call paths Parents and Adolescents Talking about Healthy Sexuality.

Dr. David Huebner
00:24:05
It's a tortured acronym, I know, but what we did in between the time that you and I last spoke and our conversation today is that we did a small trial of this toolkit.

Dr. David Huebner
00:24:19
It lives online.

Dr. David Huebner
00:24:21
It takes about 45 minutes for a parent to go through.

Dr. David Huebner
00:24:23
So it's not super time consuming.

Dr. David Huebner
00:24:25
About the length of time it takes to listen to one of these podcasts.

Dr. David Huebner
00:24:29
And what it does is it teaches parents and gives parents options for how to communicate more effectively with their sons about sexual health and hiv.

Dr. David Huebner
00:24:41
And what we found since we last spoke is that the toolkit worked in terms of it got parents to communicate better with their kids.

Dr. David Huebner
00:24:50
And we found that when we asked asked the parents about how much communication they were doing after they engaged in the toolkit.

Dr. David Huebner
00:24:57
But what was interesting was we also separately asked the sons, and the sons we did not intervene with at all.

Dr. David Huebner
00:25:03
We were really just working with the parents.

Dr. David Huebner
00:25:05
It's just these parents who went through the toolkit.

Dr. David Huebner
00:25:07
We separately asked their sons what their parents were doing and the sons corroborated what the parents said.

Dr. David Huebner
00:25:12
That is, the son said, after going through the toolkit, my parents were more likely to talk to me about hiv.

Dr. David Huebner
00:25:17
They were more likely to help me get access to condoms and to show me how to use a condom.

Dr. David Huebner
00:25:22
They're more likely to help me get an HIV test.

Dr. David Huebner
00:25:25
So we showed that parents were doing more of the right things after they went through the toolkit.

Dr. David Huebner
00:25:32
And so that was a really important first step.

Dr. David Huebner
00:25:34
And what we're trying to do now is to see if those parents, when they do those things, doesn't matter actually for the kids.

Dr. David Huebner
00:25:45
So it's one thing to get parents to do these behaviors, to teach their kids to use condoms, to get their kids access to condoms, to talk about hiv.

Dr. David Huebner
00:25:53
That's important first step.

Dr. David Huebner
00:25:54
But the next step is to say, well, does that matter for the kids?

Dr. David Huebner
00:25:57
Do the kids then have better sexual health outcomes down the road?

Dr. David Huebner
00:26:00
And that's really what we're trying to show in this next large study that we've done.

Dr. David Huebner
00:26:06
The National Institute of Mental Health has invested heavily in this research and we are currently recruiting 350 parents and their sons into a trial.

Dr. David Huebner
00:26:21
Every family will get access to all the resources that we've created.

Dr. David Huebner
00:26:25
They just get access to them at different times during the course of the trial.

Dr. David Huebner
00:26:29
And then what we do is we compare families before they get the resources after to see if it matters both for the parent behaviors, are we still able to change those parents behaviors and when the parents behaviors change, then are their kids healthier?

Dr. David Huebner
00:26:42
So that's really what we're trying to do with this study.

Dr. David Huebner
00:26:44
So we're enrolling 350 parents and their sons and we follow them all for a year.

Dr. David Huebner
00:26:49
We pay them to thank them for their time because we know that families are busy and nobody wants to complete a survey.

Dr. David Huebner
00:26:57
So we pay them to do that, to thank them.

Dr. David Huebner
00:27:00
Parents can make, I think, something like $350 over the course of the year.

Dr. David Huebner
00:27:04
So it's not like we're, you know, we're supplementing your income fully, but it's just a way to thank, thank you for your time.

Dr. David Huebner
00:27:10
And the kids can make, I think up to $175.

Dr. David Huebner
00:27:13
They do everything.

Dr. David Huebner
00:27:15
And then we're going to see whether these things matter for the kids.

Dr. David Huebner
00:27:19
And of course we think they will, but it's important to prove it.

Heather Hester
00:27:22
Absolutely.

Dr. David Huebner
00:27:24
And so that's what we're doing currently.

Dr. David Huebner
00:27:27
So if you want to know what parents can do to help their kids, they can produce studies, not just ours, but other studies too.

Dr. David Huebner
00:27:34
I'm making a shameless plug for what we're doing right now.

Dr. David Huebner
00:27:37
But there are other researchers out there that are trying to understand and help families.

Dr. David Huebner
00:27:42
And if you have the time to engage, you can help science.

Dr. David Huebner
00:27:49
And in many cases you get access to really cutting edge resources like the ones that we've created to support families.

Heather Hester
00:27:55
Right, right.

Heather Hester
00:27:57
Well, that's what I was just going to say.

Heather Hester
00:27:58
I mean, this isn't just like sit online and take, do a survey.

Heather Hester
00:28:01
This is like really access to what you have been working on already and proven to be helpful and useful.

Heather Hester
00:28:10
And it works.

Dr. David Huebner
00:28:13
If parents are interested, I'll just, I imagine you'll probably put this on your site too.

Dr. David Huebner
00:28:18
But you can find us@parentwithlove.org yes, that's where we sort of have kept all of our resources.

Dr. David Huebner
00:28:27
That's where you can see if you qualify for the research.

Dr. David Huebner
00:28:30
If you don't qualify for the research, there are other resources that we have for you.

Dr. David Huebner
00:28:34
So I encourage parents to check that out.

Dr. David Huebner
00:28:36
Parent with love.org 100%.

Heather Hester
00:28:41
Yeah.

Heather Hester
00:28:41
So this will all be not only in the show notes, this is going to live on my website for quite some time until you get all the people that you need.

Heather Hester
00:28:52
And so, yeah, so.

Heather Hester
00:28:54
And if you cannot find it on my website, email me and I'll get you connected.

Heather Hester
00:28:59
I wanted to ask a couple of clarifying questions because I'm sure they're questions that people are wondering.

Heather Hester
00:29:05
So first of all, boys, why just boys?

Heather Hester
00:29:08
Why not boys and girls?

Dr. David Huebner
00:29:09
It's a great question.

Dr. David Huebner
00:29:11
The messages that we need to give our sons are slightly different than the messages we need to give our daughters.

Dr. David Huebner
00:29:17
So that's the first thing.

Dr. David Huebner
00:29:18
And so we're trying to like take one chunk at a time, one chunk of families at a time.

Dr. David Huebner
00:29:23
And we find that when we Overwhelm parents with information that's not relevant to them, it becomes harder for them to take the steps.

Dr. David Huebner
00:29:31
And, you know, that 45 minute toolkit becomes an hour and a half toolkit.

Dr. David Huebner
00:29:36
And so we've started with parents of boys because their sexual health outcomes are the poorest of all groups of teenagers right now.

Dr. David Huebner
00:29:48
So currently in the United States, among kids who get HIV, among teenagers who get HIV, 8 out of 10 of them, 80% of them are gay or bisexual boys.

Dr. David Huebner
00:29:59
So when we think about who most needs this particular resource, it's the parents of the boys.

Dr. David Huebner
00:30:08
And so that's why we started there.

Dr. David Huebner
00:30:11
What we're asking NIH for more money to do, we'll be asking them in just a month or two, is to create a similar toolkit for parents of trans kids, because after the boys, the trans kids have the next worst sexual health outcomes.

Dr. David Huebner
00:30:28
And so.

Dr. David Huebner
00:30:29
And again, the messages that parents need to give to their trans kids are in some ways very similar, but they need to be delivered differently because trans kids speak about their bodies differently and they partner with people differently.

Dr. David Huebner
00:30:41
We want to make sure that we're guiding parents specifically to do the right thing for those kids so that their kids can hear the messages.

Dr. David Huebner
00:30:48
If we told parents of trans kids to say the same things that we're telling parents of gay boys to say, their kids wouldn't necessarily listen, and they wouldn't hear it the same way because we wouldn't be giving them the same guidance.

Dr. David Huebner
00:31:01
So we're doing it one step at a time, basically.

Dr. David Huebner
00:31:03
That's a long winded answer to your question.

Heather Hester
00:31:05
Oh, that's good.

Heather Hester
00:31:06
Because I think, you know, people need.

Heather Hester
00:31:08
This is something that people are trying to figure out, right?

Heather Hester
00:31:10
Like, is this right for me?

Heather Hester
00:31:11
Do I even, you know, look into this and why or why not?

Heather Hester
00:31:15
So as you bring up, the way that parents would, you know, speak and teach their transgender children is different than they would teach their, you know, queer kids, their gay kids, they're, you know, daughters.

Heather Hester
00:31:30
You understand what I'm trying to say here in the toolbox or in these discussions, do you give kind of like, here's how you talk about sex with your gay son, or here is how you talk about sex with your bisexual son, or here are the tools that your son needs to know.

Heather Hester
00:31:50
How do you go about educating the parent and how to have these conversations?

Heather Hester
00:31:56
Because one of the things I remember vividly about our first conversation.

Heather Hester
00:31:59
Conversation and that we laughed about a lot was that the whole talk, right?

Heather Hester
00:32:03
Having the sex talk, right.

Heather Hester
00:32:04
And we, I mean, I still like giggle about this because it was such a, you know, funny.

Heather Hester
00:32:08
But like, also like, wow, like we're not supposed to just say this once.

Heather Hester
00:32:13
Like we're supposed to talk about this all the time.

Heather Hester
00:32:15
So is this a piece of how you're educating and the information that you're offering?

Dr. David Huebner
00:32:22
Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. David Huebner
00:32:23
So we're asking parents to do like, we basically break it down into, we have a cut, there are a couple of modules.

Dr. David Huebner
00:32:30
And so the things that we try to do is we try to one, get parents to have a conversation with their sons about hiv.

Dr. David Huebner
00:32:36
And we talk and we give parents a number of choices for how to do that so you can have a direct conversation with your kid if you think your child's going to be mortified by that.

Dr. David Huebner
00:32:46
We also have a way for you to send them like a PDF, email or text them a PDF of a fact sheet that can be like a conversation starter.

Dr. David Huebner
00:32:55
Or if you think like, I can't even begin to have any sort of conversation, just getting that fact sheet alone from you via email or text sends your child up the message that you care about this stuff and that you want them to hear about it, even if your family's not the kind of family that's ever going to have like a deep conversation about it.

Dr. David Huebner
00:33:12
So we give parents in each case choices for how they think that they can accomplish a given task, given who their family is, because parents are the experts on their families, we're the experts on HIV and sexual health, but you're the expert on your family.

Dr. David Huebner
00:33:28
And so what we try to do is give you a menu of options for each of the things that we want parents to do so that they can choose what's going to work for their family.

Dr. David Huebner
00:33:36
And in many cases it's send your child a video that demonstrates how to put a condom on.

Heather Hester
00:33:41
Right?

Dr. David Huebner
00:33:42
If you are more comfortable than that, if you're capable of more than that, then we ask you to do more.

Dr. David Huebner
00:33:48
If you're able to bring home condoms and a banana and are willing to have your child do a demonstration and teach them how to do it physically, that's probably the best thing you can do for your child.

Dr. David Huebner
00:33:57
But that's not going to work for every family, right?

Dr. David Huebner
00:34:00
Give parents choices for how to do each of these things.

Dr. David Huebner
00:34:03
And you are correct, you have great memory from years ago.

Dr. David Huebner
00:34:07
One of the things we encourage parents is to have ongoing conversations about these topics with their, with their kids.

Dr. David Huebner
00:34:14
Everyone always talks about the talk and this should not be a one time event by any means.

Dr. David Huebner
00:34:22
And the reason for that is that Kids are getting messages about sex, some of them healthy, some of them unhealthy, all the time, every single day of their lives.

Dr. David Huebner
00:34:32
Your child is hearing about sex from advertisers in movies, from their friends, from society at large, every single day.

Dr. David Huebner
00:34:42
Do you only want to be a voice in that conversation one time when your child is 13 or 14 years old?

Dr. David Huebner
00:34:49
Like, I think parents want to be engaged in that conversation throughout their child's lives.

Dr. David Huebner
00:34:55
Because if you're not engaged, somebody else is engaged all the time.

Heather Hester
00:35:00
100%.

Heather Hester
00:35:01
Yeah.

Dr. David Huebner
00:35:02
That's why we encourage parents to do it.

Dr. David Huebner
00:35:04
And we know it's just more effective when it's an ongoing conversation, because sometimes kids hear a little bit at one point and they digest a little bit, but then when you have the conversation again a month or two months later, they'll digest a little bit more.

Dr. David Huebner
00:35:17
You know, it's interesting.

Dr. David Huebner
00:35:18
I'm the parent of a teenager now.

Dr. David Huebner
00:35:20
My son just turned 13, and I don't know what his sexual orientation is going to be.

Dr. David Huebner
00:35:25
So I don't know whether my work applies specifically to him.

Dr. David Huebner
00:35:29
But we have very open.

Dr. David Huebner
00:35:30
Have always had very open conversations about sex, partly because during the pandemic, his little office was next to mine, and I do this work all day long.

Dr. David Huebner
00:36:33
And so he'd be in class and he'd be like, dad, I'm in math class.

Dr. David Huebner
00:36:37
Will you stop talking about sex?

Dr. David Huebner
00:36:41
But what happened was it's really opened the door for us to have ongoing conversations.

Dr. David Huebner
00:36:47
And now my son will come to me and say, dad, you've talked about condoms.

Dr. David Huebner
00:36:51
Can I see a condom?

Dr. David Huebner
00:36:52
Like, he'll ask me if he can see what a condom looks like.

Dr. David Huebner
00:36:55
And I had no idea it would work so well.

Dr. David Huebner
00:37:01
But again, now we have the capacity to have ongoing, open conversations about these things.

Dr. David Huebner
00:37:07
And I think that's really what we are trying to get other parents to do as well.

Heather Hester
00:37:12
Yes.

Heather Hester
00:37:13
Yes.

Dr. David Huebner
00:37:13
It's kind of an accident in our case.

Heather Hester
00:37:19
Oh, my gosh.

Heather Hester
00:37:20
I love that, though.

Heather Hester
00:37:20
And I think that is such a.

Heather Hester
00:37:22
It's actually quite refreshing because the first time.

Heather Hester
00:37:28
Well, at least in my experience, the first time with each of my kids talking about it, it's uncomfortable.

Heather Hester
00:37:34
Like, nobody wants to talk about it.

Heather Hester
00:37:36
But the more you bring it up and you kind of feel you.

Heather Hester
00:37:39
You feel out your kids and you figure out, like, what they're like, you know, who they are, who they're growing up to be, how they.

Heather Hester
00:37:45
How they are in this world as teenagers, as opposed to how they were as small children, which are too very different things.

Heather Hester
00:37:53
And.

Heather Hester
00:37:54
And Just their communication styles.

Heather Hester
00:37:55
It becomes, like, almost fun, weirdly.

Dr. David Huebner
00:38:00
Yeah, I really think it can be.

Dr. David Huebner
00:38:02
And you have to start somewhere, you.

Heather Hester
00:38:05
Know, and just rip the band aid off.

Heather Hester
00:38:08
Like, just know that it's going to feel weird the first time you do it.

Heather Hester
00:38:11
And then, you know.

Dr. David Huebner
00:38:13
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Dr. David Huebner
00:38:15
And, you know, what's interesting is when we were starting this work, I wasn't sure what was going to happen.

Dr. David Huebner
00:38:22
You know, we started interviewing families, and we would interview.

Dr. David Huebner
00:38:24
Before we created the toolkit, we interviewed parents and kids together and we asked them questions about, how do you talk about sex?

Dr. David Huebner
00:38:31
Do you talk about sex?

Dr. David Huebner
00:38:33
And for many dyads, this was the very first time that they had ever, like, really had such an explicit conversation because it was happening in the context of our.

Dr. David Huebner
00:38:42
These interviews where we were trying to learn from them.

Heather Hester
00:38:45
Right.

Dr. David Huebner
00:38:46
But what was fascinating was oftentimes parents and kids started having the conversations for the first time just right in front of us.

Dr. David Huebner
00:38:54
And all it took was the invitation.

Dr. David Huebner
00:38:56
All it took was somebody giving them permission or asking them to talk about it.

Dr. David Huebner
00:39:01
And, you know, we thought we were just interviewing them, but it turned out that the interview itself was an intervention, and that just.

Dr. David Huebner
00:39:07
It didn't take very much.

Dr. David Huebner
00:39:10
And suddenly, like, families were often having conversations, and parents started asking their kids questions that they'd never asked them before.

Dr. David Huebner
00:39:16
And kids started asking their parents questions that they had never asked them before.

Dr. David Huebner
00:39:20
And what people realized, I think in those moments was like, the world didn't end, you know.

Dr. David Huebner
00:39:26
Yeah, it was a little bit uncomfortable at first, but everyone felt so much better after they had sort of like created a space to have this conversation and were able to experience it.

Dr. David Huebner
00:39:40
Like, it wasn't.

Dr. David Huebner
00:39:41
It wasn't that hard.

Dr. David Huebner
00:39:44
So I encourage people to give it a try.

Dr. David Huebner
00:39:46
Yes.

Heather Hester
00:39:46
I mean, you have try it at least one time because I think you'll be very, very surprised.

Heather Hester
00:39:56
I was just remembering this funny story.

Heather Hester
00:39:58
A friend of mine who has kids that are similar to my older kids aged, and she has two boys and.

Heather Hester
00:40:05
And they're both heterosexual, but she always was, like, from when they were little, little, having wherever they would go, she would bring up sex.

Heather Hester
00:40:14
We're going to talk about sex.

Heather Hester
00:40:15
So when these kids, you know, she's telling these stories to all of us.

Heather Hester
00:40:18
You know, they're 10 and she's.

Heather Hester
00:40:19
She's teaching them this and telling them this, and, you know, as they get older and older, and I remember her telling the story of, you know, once they got into high school, she just kept a bowl of condoms in the front of their house.

Heather Hester
00:40:29
So Anybody that came into their house could just grab a handful of condoms.

Heather Hester
00:40:32
And I was like, well, that's kind of brilliant.

Heather Hester
00:40:35
Like, you know, there are no more juice boxes.

Heather Hester
00:40:37
Now it's condoms.

Heather Hester
00:40:38
I mean, you just kind of roll and.

Heather Hester
00:40:42
But she is kind of, you know, a little bit ahead of the curve, I would say, for at least our generation of parents.

Heather Hester
00:40:49
Right.

Heather Hester
00:40:50
I think that this is now something that we're getting more comfortable talking about.

Heather Hester
00:40:56
And certainly I think the next generation is going to be that much better at doing this.

Dr. David Huebner
00:41:01
And one of the things, you know, it's interesting, that condom example, I think, is a good one.

Dr. David Huebner
00:41:04
One of the things we really try to do in our toolkit is help parents reframe some of these things.

Dr. David Huebner
00:41:09
So I think, you know, I'm sure some of your listeners hear that and think, like, oh, my God, I could never put a bowl of condoms out because that would be, you know, it seems.

Dr. David Huebner
00:41:16
It seems so far out there.

Dr. David Huebner
00:41:18
And one of the biggest things parents are afraid of doing is that they're going to.

Dr. David Huebner
00:41:21
By having these conversations or offering condoms, they're encouraging their kids to have sex.

Dr. David Huebner
00:41:27
And that's one of the things that we do in this toolkit, too, is try to reeducate parents around the science of this.

Dr. David Huebner
00:41:32
And what happens is actually, the more you talk to your kid about sex, the less interested they are, which is not surprising.

Heather Hester
00:41:41
Right.

Dr. David Huebner
00:41:42
When you really think about it, having more conversations with your kids about these things does not make it more exciting.

Dr. David Huebner
00:41:47
It makes it just seem more, like, dull and clinical and something the mom is involved with or dad is involved with.

Dr. David Huebner
00:41:53
And, you know, so, for example, when it comes to giving your kids phones, we sort of try to make parents aware of the fact that it's just like any other safety device that you have around the house.

Dr. David Huebner
00:42:04
Like, because you have a fire extinguisher in your home, does that mean that your child.

Dr. David Huebner
00:42:08
Does that encourage your child to light fires?

Dr. David Huebner
00:42:11
It just means that if there's a fire, your child can put it out.

Dr. David Huebner
00:42:14
Having a life jacket in the garage, does that, like, encourage your child to swim in a dangerous way?

Dr. David Huebner
00:42:21
No, it's just something that you have in case you need it.

Heather Hester
00:42:25
Right.

Dr. David Huebner
00:42:26
The same thing goes for condoms.

Dr. David Huebner
00:42:27
Having condoms around the house does not encourage your child to have sex.

Dr. David Huebner
00:42:31
It just means that if they are in a situation or one of their friends are in a situation where they need it, they're more likely to be able to be safe.

Heather Hester
00:42:39
Right.

Dr. David Huebner
00:42:39
So we're trying to get parents to understand, and so we share these sorts of comparisons with parents in a way to help them get more comfortable with some of these things that might feel a little bit more advanced than they're ready for.

Dr. David Huebner
00:42:50
It turns out when you think about it like a fire extinguisher, it feels a lot less threatening.

Heather Hester
00:42:54
Right?

Heather Hester
00:42:55
100%.

Heather Hester
00:42:57
100%.

Heather Hester
00:42:58
And I think too, it kind of makes those.

Heather Hester
00:43:00
Weirdly makes those conversations a little bit easier to have by doing something that is just a.

Heather Hester
00:43:08
Almost a gesture.

Heather Hester
00:43:10
Right.

Heather Hester
00:43:10
But then it kind of opens the door for other questions and other conversations.

Heather Hester
00:43:15
So not that I'm suggesting that everyone put bowls of condoms in the front of their house, but I just think that that's, you know, it's.

Heather Hester
00:43:23
It's one thing that I've always remembered is, wow, that's.

Heather Hester
00:43:26
That's such a, you know, interesting way to handle that and a possibility, an option so, you know, can keep them in a drawer in the bathroom.

Dr. David Huebner
00:43:39
Exactly.

Dr. David Huebner
00:43:39
You know, what, what we ask in the toolkit is that parents, you know, find some way to make sure that their child has access to condoms.

Dr. David Huebner
00:43:47
And that does not mean saying like, oh, I know they have them at school.

Heather Hester
00:43:51
Right.

Dr. David Huebner
00:43:53
Bring them into your home.

Heather Hester
00:43:55
Yes.

Dr. David Huebner
00:43:56
Have them somewhere where your child can access them.

Dr. David Huebner
00:43:59
That's all we.

Dr. David Huebner
00:43:59
That, you know, that's one of the things that we ask parents to find a way to do.

Heather Hester
00:44:03
Y.

Dr. David Huebner
00:44:04
And there's absolutely no evidence that doing that will encourage your child to have sex.

Dr. David Huebner
00:44:12
In fact, if there is any evidence is that it's sort of.

Dr. David Huebner
00:44:14
It's a deterrence.

Dr. David Huebner
00:44:17
You just made something that seemed really titillating, interesting, way less interesting for your child.

Heather Hester
00:44:23
I mean, just by the mere fact of talking about it.

Heather Hester
00:44:27
Right.

Dr. David Huebner
00:44:29
Exactly.

Heather Hester
00:44:31
So.

Heather Hester
00:44:31
Oh, my goodness, that is so.

Heather Hester
00:44:34
I'm just thrilled that this is where your work has taken you from.

Heather Hester
00:44:40
When we, you know, we spoke a couple of years ago, and I cannot wait to hear a year or two down the road what you've learned from this study.

Heather Hester
00:44:49
Because I think this will be.

Heather Hester
00:44:51
This is just a really amazing step in not just educating, you know, parents, but really helping our kids.

Heather Hester
00:45:02
You know, not.

Heather Hester
00:45:04
Not just educationally, but safety wise.

Heather Hester
00:45:07
Right.

Heather Hester
00:45:07
And.

Heather Hester
00:45:08
And, you know, hopefully this will be one of the pieces that helps get those HIV numbers to start coming down and to, you know, really build some understanding around that.

Heather Hester
00:45:21
So thank you for all of the work.

Dr. David Huebner
00:45:24
Thank you.

Dr. David Huebner
00:45:25
You are doing spread the word about these things.

Dr. David Huebner
00:45:28
It takes folks like you to get the science out there.

Dr. David Huebner
00:45:32
You know, we're good at writing papers, but we're not always great scientists are not always great at getting the message out to people who are on the front lines and parents are on the front lines with this issue right now.

Dr. David Huebner
00:45:43
Yes, with a lot of issues.

Dr. David Huebner
00:45:45
And so I really appreciate the opportunity to talk to your audience of parents about these things and we'll be happy to come back and share more in a year or two.

Dr. David Huebner
00:45:55
More.

Heather Hester
00:45:56
Well, there are just, yes, there are so many things that I wish we would have had time to get to.

Heather Hester
00:46:00
So we'll we will definitely do a round three on on this discussion and an update and all of that.

Heather Hester
00:46:06
But just a recap for everyone.

Heather Hester
00:46:09
This all of this information will be in the Show Notes as well as on my website so you can take a look in either place.

Heather Hester
00:46:17
But I will make it as easy as possible for you to be able to contact David and his team to see if you are eligible for this survey and to be able to help and really putting together and finding, finding out some valuable, valuable research that you're doing.

Heather Hester
00:46:35
So thank you so much.

Dr. David Huebner
00:46:38
Of course.

Dr. David Huebner
00:46:38
Thank you for having me.

Heather Hester 2
00:46:41
Thanks so much for joining me today.

Heather Hester 2
00:46:44
If you enjoyed today's episode, I would be so grateful for a rating or a review.

Heather Hester 2
00:46:51
Click on the link in the Show Notes or go to my website chrysalismama.com to stay up to date on my latest resources as well as to learn how you can work with me.

Heather Hester 2
00:47:04
Please share this podcast with anyone who needs to know that they are not alone and remember to just breathe until next time.