00:01What kind of friend and partner do you want to be?
00:05It's not English, maths or science, but there's another kind of life lesson underway.
00:10Youth educator Dan Principe spends his days talking to young boys about sex and relationships.
00:17Online content, group chats, memes, pornography.
00:21And this is obviously acting as default sex educators, relationship educators,
00:25well before we know that they've had their first kiss.
00:28Carmen and Hamish tried to give their two boys the best education possible, but it wasn't easy.
00:34I didn't really understand about wet dreams.
00:36You know, I didn't really understand if that was a gendered thing
00:39or how I was supposed to approach that or what sort of discussions I was supposed to have.
00:44Hamish struggled more than his wife to overcome the awkwardness.
00:48Often she would drag me in and I would just sit there stunned and nod and say,
00:52listen to your mother.
00:53Maybe being a dad and having boys may be made a little bit more confronting to have that conversation
00:59about what's going on in the house.
01:01New research from La Trobe University has found it's more likely mums will start these tough conversations.
01:07There were parents in our study that worried that boys were being left out.
01:13So on the whole, we found that mothers were more comfortable talking to their daughters.
01:17The Beyond the Talk report found many parents were somewhat too extremely worried
01:21that social media exposes their children to sexual content that's inappropriate.
01:26While less than half of parents have spoken to their kids about STIs and contraception,
01:31more were comfortable discussing body image, sexual safety and puberty.
01:36Kids generally know more than parents think.
01:38So I think parents should be able to trust themselves that they're going to get it right.
01:42These parents say it doesn't need to be so serious.
01:45I think it needs to be part of the primary conversation.
01:49It's just that sex is fun.
01:51It's funny.
01:52It's silly.
01:53It's weird.
01:54It's awkward.
01:55And that's kind of the joy of it.
01:56Looking back, I wasn't ready for it.
02:00I feel like maybe for my grandkids.
02:03If my kids can't do it, I'll be happy to have those conversations.
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