S8 E9: Sleep & Sexual Health: Preparing Adolescents for College
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Johanna Fierman Snyder, M.A. is a certified child sleep consultant and former educator with 15 years of classroom experience, including as a first- and fourth-grade teacher and learning specialist in New York City. Certified through the Family Sleep Institute, Johanna combines her educational background with science-backed, personalized sleep coaching to help families thrive. A member of the International Association of Child Sleep Consultants with additional training in SIDS risk reduction and lactation management, she empowers parents with the tools and confidence to support their child’s healthy, restorative sleep. Johanna holds a B.A. from Bates College and an M.A. in Curriculum and Teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University.
Abby Fierman, MSN RN, is a Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner and Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner with over 20 years of experience in sexual health. Recognizing that traditional healthcare models often lack the time for comprehensive education, and that young people often turn to unreliable social media sources, Abby founded The Bare Facts. Her mission is to partner with medical providers to offer teens and young adults the essential education, open communication, and compassionate care needed to make informed decisions about their sexual health. Abby is dedicated to filling the critical gaps in sexual health literacy, empowering young people of all identities to navigate their development with confidence.
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Medical doctors during check-ups rarely have enough time to adequately address topics relevant to sleep and sexual health given the appointments are so short, sometimes even 15 minutes.
These topics are very sensitive and nuanced and often lend themselves to more extensive dialogue, including questioning and answering that may be uncomfortable especially if the visit feels rushed or impersonal.
There is a plethora of information online and on social media and much of it can be misleading, inaccurate, and/or be a sales pitch to sell some product.
Young people’s frontal lobes are not fully developed, meaning they may lack the executive function skills needed to filter information, prioritize information, and critically think about complex topics like sexual and sleep health.
There can be so much information out there it can be difficult to discern what makes the most sense for the particular individual hearing about the information.
The way these topics are talked about may require a different approach and style depending on the age of the child.
The conversation should not be considered a ‘checkbox’ conversation that is had and then left alone. It should be considered an ongoing process. There are often unsaid statements and unasked questions, especially if there requires more trust and comfort to be built within the conversation itself. What a young person holds onto after a conversation or exposure to information may be limited or even misinterpreted. The provider may even share information that lacks context or a more full conceptualization of what is going on; for example, if a young person is struggling to sleep there can be a myriad of reasons for that to explore rather than simply suggesting melatonin, which, by the way, can be mislabeled in terms of the dosage and should not used immediately before sleep as it can lead to grogginess in the morning.
There are different approaches to talking about these topics, even something as simple as waiting for a car ride or while going for a walk where direct eye contact can be avoided in order to improve comfort.
Young people are often exposed to pornography, sometimes in extreme ways, and even at very young ages, which can skew their understanding and perception of sexual health.
The terms young people use for sexual experiences can change over time.
While parents often have questions for the provider, the young person may also have questions they feel uncomfortable asking in front of their parent.
College students can struggle with sleep as they are in a confined space with at least one, if not, multiple roommates. They are often surrounded by peers throughout the entire day and may lack private personal space. It is imperative that they figure out a way to create their own space that is conducive for sleep, including a wind-down routine that reduces stimulation and finding a way to maintain darkness and a lack of light that would otherwise stimulate awakeness.
Sleep schedule is important, meaning being consistent with when you go to sleep and when you wake up contributes to how your body adapts to sleep. Sleeping and awakening at different times day after day interferes with the bodie’s natural rhythms that allow you to fall asleep and wake up more seamlessly. For instance, staying up late and sleeping in until the afternoon creates a ‘jet lag’ like effect where your body feels like it is now in a new timezone.
The brain refiles memories when we sleep, so sleep is important for memory and retrieval, which is important for college students.
Sleep also helps to regulate emotions. Lack of sleep and/or irregular sleep schedules can lead to irritability and hormonal imbalances.
College students may be tempted to stay up late because they have the freedom to have fun with peers and friends in ways they may not have been allowed to in high school. However, it’s a short-term enjoyment with a long-term cost, as the effects of poor sleep can last several days until the sleep schedule becomes more consistent again.
Setting an alarm for falling asleep is as important as setting an alarm to wake up to keep consistency.
Young people can have so much on their mind that stresses them and makes them anxious throughout the day and especially by the end of the day when they are not distracted by their routines. It can be important to have ways to feel more grounded, safe, and secure and not become dysregulated by worry and anxiety at the end of the day before sleep.
It is advised that one’s bed is only meant for rest, sleep, and intimacy so that it does not become associated with stress by doing things like homework in your bed.
College students may lose their judgment when intoxicated or under the influence of substances, which can contribute to unhealthy sexual experiences. If a situation feels at all uncomfortable, one can simply label it as an uncomfortable situation rather than contemplating it. It is okay to feel empowered to leave a situation and for friends to support one another by checking in and identifying needs of one another while out or at a party.
Consent may come from a litigious background, but consent is simply about both people are feeling safe in a given situation and interaction. It’s about trust and that each person is enjoying the situation.
Intimacy is not just a physical experience, it is an emotional experience. Young people are exceedingly socially anxious, which can interfere with having conversations relative to consent and checking in with one another. Young people rely so heavily on online and social media interactions that the face to face interactions may be avoided, uncomfortable, and/or overwhelming, which can contribute to ambivalence, confusion, and misunderstandings from both individuals. Additionally, emotional intimacy, which leads to trust and open communication, requires connection, which can be impeded upon by social anxiety. Emotional intimacy allows a person to say what they want to and need to say.
Young people come into college with such a diverse range of experiences, influences, and messages about sexual experiences and sexual health.
Sexual assaults tend to be highest in the first semester of college. This may be due to increased vulnerability, lack of education, and factors that interfere with decision making.
College students may be using substances to decrease their social anxiety, which is quite common; however, the substances can make them more vulnerable to questionable decision making and unhealthy sexual experiences.
Young people may not register the gravity of a situation or their behaviors. It is important they have discussions about these sensitive topics so they can notice when things get out of hand.
Having conversations about consent can happen across all domains. Consent is not just about sex. It is even involved when having conversations with one’s roommate like if the roommate is being sexually intimate while the roommate is in the room, or if there is a dynamic that is impairing one’s sleep. Having practice with conversations about consent and other sensitive topics prior to college can help them have conversations about all forms of consent while in college.
College students can arrive at college with a small box of medical care items, such as Advil and Tylenol, a thermometer (including instructions on how to use it), condoms (even if they do not intend to have sex just in case in the heat of the moment it happens), maybe an allergy medicine especially if it’s required, and other potential needs.
Emergency contraception is not an abortion pill, it simply prevents pregnancy from happening. It is important to take it sooner than later. Taking it 5 days later is not as effective as taking it the morning after sex if one feels they may be at risk for pregnancy, as accidents happen. There are two different kinds. Plan B can be purchased over the counter. One can ask their provider to prescribe it. Another kind, Ella, is one of which you cannot take if you are on birth control hormonal treatment.
Cleaning sheets is important to reduce allergens in one’s bed, which can impair one’s sleep quality.
Parents can look for cues as to if there are changes or concerns. They may need a certain individual or context to broach sensitive topics.
College campuses have resources like the Title IX office, which is for anyone who feels they may have been targeted by sexual assault of any kind; not just rape but also any sexual advances or uncomfortable situations they have experienced. It is confidential and a safe space to talk and gain support.
Parents should not feel they need to have all the answers on these topics or address everything on their own. There are professionals who can be helpful and can have expertise that parents lack. Professionals can be the ones who create a comfortable space to talk about such sensitive topics.
THC and marijuana products have been shown to not be good for sleep even if they make it easier to fall asleep. It can impair restorative sleep. Additionally and likewise, alcohol may ‘knock you out’ to fall asleep but it is bad for quality of sleep.
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Gerald Reid 00:08
Welcome back to season eight of the Reid Connect-ED podcast, co-hosted by myself, licensed psychologist Dr. Gerald Reid, and my sister, educational therapist Alexis Reid.
Alexis Reid 00:18
What does it mean to prepare young people to begin their lives outside of high school. Today, we're diving into a topic that every young person will navigate, but one that often does not get enough honest conversation. What it really means to take ownership of your sexual, physical, and mental health after high school. Graduation doesn't just mark the end of classes; it marks the beginning of greater independence. Whether you're heading to college, entering the workforce, taking a gap year, joining the military, or exploring another path, you'll suddenly find yourself making decisions about your health with much less guidance than you may be used to. Recognizing changes in your body or mental health, building healthier relationships, understanding consent, practicing safe sex, and knowing when and how to ask for help are all skills that become part of adult life. Unfortunately, many of these topics receive only limited attention in high school, leaving young adults to piece together information from friends, social media, or the internet. Today, we're talking about how to fill those gaps with accurate information, practical strategies, and the confidence to advocate for yourself. Our goal isn't to have all the answers for every situation. It's to encourage curiosity, reduce stigma, and remind you that taking care of your health isn't something you master overnight. It's a lifelong skill that grows with knowledge, self-awareness, and support. Whether you're a student preparing for your next chapter, a parent helping your child become more independent, or an educator supporting this transition, we hope today's conversation gives you practical tools and a fresh perspective on what it means to build a healthy, informed, and empowered adulthood. Today, we're joined by two incredible experts who also happen to be siblings to talk with us about how we can prepare young people to make good choices about their physical, sexual, and mental health. We all believe that evidence-based guidance is the real foundation of young adulthood or college readiness, physical health and sexual safety, sleep and daily rhythms, mental health, and emotional regulation, and the quality of the parent-child relationship. Instead of checklists and scare tactics, we'll discuss how to make a mindset shift from monitoring and control towards curiosity, partnership, and using the pre-college years as a practice ground for agency, well-being, and sustainable success. Our guests today are sisters, Joanna Fehrman Snyder and Abby Fearman. Joanna Fierman Snyder is a certified child sleep consultant and former educator with 15 years of classroom experience, including as a first and fourth grade teacher and learning specialist in New York City, certified through the Family Sleep Institute, Joanna combines her educational background with science-backed personalized sleep coaching to help families thrive. A member of the International Association of Child Sleep Consultants, with additional training in SIDS risk reduction and lactation management, she empowers parents with the tools and confidence to support their child's healthy restorative sleep. Joanna holds a BA from Bates College and an MA in curriculum and teaching from Teachers College at Columbia University. Abby Fairman is a women's health nurse practitioner and sexual assault nurse examiner with over 20 years of experience in sexual health, recognizing that traditional healthcare models often lack the time for comprehensive education and that young people often turn to unreliable social media sources, Abby founded the Bear Facts. Her mission is to partner with medical providers to offer teens and young adults the essential education, open communication, and compassionate care needed to make informed decisions about their sexual health. Abby is dedicated to filling the critical gaps in sexual health literacy, empowering young people of all identities to navigate their development with confidence. We are so glad you both are here today. Thank you for having us.
Johanna Fierman Snyder 04:21
Thank you for having us. We're excited to be here.
Alexis Reid 04:23
So I'm just going to start this conversation in saying I wish we had more guidance when we were younger to navigate so many challenges and different transitions in life. And like just the conversation about sexual health, at least when I was younger, never happened. Like it would happen in little blips or you know kids that might have heard something from their older siblings, but it never really became, you know, a process in an open conversation that ever felt comfortable or reliable in the information that was being communicated. So I'm so glad that we get to have this conversation and bring it to light. And for our audience who might not have been a part of it, we had. Great privilege of coming together in early June of this year to do a workshop to talk about all of the things that we're going to discuss here today, and especially thinking about the transition out of high school, thinking about our adolescent young people that are really stepping into their adulthood and their independence, and maybe not always feeling comfortable or ready for it, so I'm really glad we're having this conversation.
Gerald Reid 05:26
And this is a true siblings conversation.
Alexis Reid 05:28
What's less comfortable than talking about sex with your sibling? It's
Gerald Reid 05:36
happening in real time. Let's go.
Alexis Reid 05:39
So I I want you guys to have an opportunity to kind of just talk a little bit about your journey, how you got to doing this work. I know the bio kind of encompasses you know the the highlights of what led you here, but I wonder if you can share a little bit about your journey and the work that you've done.
Abby Fierman 05:56
Sure. So thank you for that beautiful introduction. As Alexis said, I am a women's health nurse practitioner, and I have worked for about 20 years in the sexual space, both as a clinician in a OB/GYN traditional office and as a sexual assault nurse examiner in the state of Massachusetts. And it's given me a lot of time to see what works and maybe what doesn't work so well in our healthcare system, and I've had the opportunity to talk to both women and men and boys across the sort of say early teens to even up to their you know 30s and 40s through my experience about their experience about their education, and I'm realizing how much is lacking. When I was a provider, it was always really frustrating that I could have a 15-minute visit to talk about fill in the blank. Maybe it was birth control. Maybe it was their periods. Maybe it was consent or whatever the topic was. It was never enough time, and as a provider, that was really frustrating to me. And I felt like I wasn't giving my patients the best care possible because it was rushing them out the door because I had five more patients waiting to be seen that day, and that didn't feel fair to anyone. So after I left the practice, I had some time to think, and I started actually getting calls from friends saying, "Hey, my daughter is thinking about using birth control. Hey, my son has some questions. Would you be willing to talk to them? And I started to talk to them, and it was really fun. And of course, I just did it for free because I loved it. And then my sister, who already was a small business owner, said, "Why don't you? Why don't you do this? You could make this a business. You could do this, and so it took about a year to really figure it out. And it's still a work in progress. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly clients, you know, adolescents, their parents want, but it's coming together. And I'm trying to offer kids either in a small group or one-on-one space a safe place to talk about all of these things. So when they do go to their provider's office and maybe they do want birth control, they really have a better understanding of how their body works, what works best for them, what would be the most beneficial for them in the time of life that they're in.
Alexis Reid 08:17
So beautifully said. We're so glad that you're doing this work and making the transition into being able to go a little bit deeper with some of these conversations and the psychoeducation around like what actually is going on in people's bodies and what they may or may not need, Joe.
Johanna Fierman Snyder 08:32
Sure, I can follow that. I have lots of things to like add onto why it's it's a great business, but I'll first introduce myself. So thanks for having us. We're very excited to be here. I, as you said, was a teacher for a long time and loved it. I think you know, growing up, I always wanted to be a teacher, and that's where kind of my path took me, and I loved it. And then when I had my oldest son, I felt pretty alone and exhausted, and didn't really know what was happening with sleep, and I didn't have resources. I read a lot of books, but it wasn't, you know, my pediatrician. We, as Abby said, like I had a 15-minute visit with her. I was trying to get information, but and then with research, I kind of helped his sleep and got on like a path that felt manageable. And I always say, like my teacher background, I wanted like a routine, and that felt more comfortable and safe for me. And so, I did a lot of research and learned a lot about sleep, and was starting. You know, worked well for us. And like Abby said, similarly, I was giving lots of advice to friends who then started having babies, and I was just doing it from what I had learned. I didn't, you know, I wasn't trained in this area. But you know, fast forward, I was still teaching. I didn't wasn't taking on another full time career. And then when I stopped teaching, we we moved, and I was not teaching at my school anymore. I had some time to kind of think about what I wanted to do next, and I wanted to become certified as a sleep consultant, and felt like I was giving advice, but I I wanted to. The credentials and the the background and more knowledge about it before I really went into opening my practice. So I became certified, and now I've been a sleep consultant helping families across the country and internationally. And I work with children zero to 10 in my like one on one practice. But I've recently done more work in elementary schools, which was an awesome experience. Where I, you know, was talking to students up until eighth grade, and then we recently did our webinar about for older people and teenagers and beyond. And it's great. I mean, I could I could talk about sleep all day. So I'm happy to be here to talk about
Alexis Reid 10:38
it. I'm so excited, and I just want to give a shout out to all of your boys because the case isn't always that practitioners are really helping to support their kids kind of step into it because sometimes it feels like you're doing work all the time. But I can attest to the fact that both of your boys, you both have two boys, really kind of own the work that you both do in a really beautiful way. I've had conversations with some of them that you know they're rating their their health and wellness classes that they have at school in comparison to what they know about how they should be taking care of themselves from both a sleep perspective a sexual health understanding like all of it and it's really beautiful to hear that it's not just like what you do professionally it's also what you live, and that's really why I wanted you to come on this podcast and talk about it because it's just a part of who you both are, and you're so passionate about it. And not only are you just passionate about it, you have done so much research and so much training to get to this point, and your expertise is just incredible. So I'm I'm really glad for folks in the audience to be able to hear more about the work that you all do, and I I want to set the stage. You know, this is a open flowing conversation, but maybe we can kind of go back and talk a little bit about what we know about like young people who are maybe in high school, because this is an interesting time. I work a lot with parents, and so do all of you, who are kind of just like winging it sometimes. And I've noticed a little bit around how they sometimes walk on eggshells around their teenagers instead of really like enforcing what they know is helpful from a structure perspective, like you were saying, Jer, or you know, even just thinking about giving them information to guide what's best for them, because every single person is different, right? Just because we're talking about adolescence doesn't mean every single person is going to have the same needs. But globally, we can think about what is kind of best practices and what are some of the ways in which we know young people are getting information, and maybe we can talk a little bit about what might be more helpful.
Johanna Fierman Snyder 12:46
Yeah, I mean we talk a lot about the information that's out there because my clients get you know are scrolling at night and they're up at night if their kids up at night and they get a lot of information online and social media and Abby's clientele also is getting a tremendous amount of information from social media, and there are reliable sources on social media, but there's also sources that maybe we don't want to get information from, and it's hard as a new parent or a parent of a teen or a teen to know which is reliable and which is not, and which is like a trending idea or which is actually like something that is that is real and backed in in science and and research.
Gerald Reid 13:26
Just to be clear, too, some of those some of those sources on the internet could be like funded to like push a product or something. Yeah, absolutely. And you wouldn't know until like later when they begin pitching it. Like they kind of reel you in with some interesting things that might be true in the beginning, and then kind of narrow you into some tunnel of like, okay, now you're going to go purchase this or think a certain way, and
Abby Fierman 13:49
and that's not new. That's been happening on TV media for for years. If you especially walk down you know the aisle of the you know women's health and hygiene, the number of products that are there that are really unnecessary, but are a product, and they've been told that it's going to make you quote better. However, you you know define that, and so I think that you're completely right. And you know, we all get sucked into these things that are going to get a quick fix or make us better or make us more quote unquote normal. And I think that as adults we can get sucked in, so it's that much easier for for kids to to see that and think that maybe there's something wrong with them or that they need something. And so I think it's really important that we educate them about being, you know, social media savvy and smart.
Alexis Reid 14:35
I just want to pull it back a minute too, because in my work around executive function, it's it's about the neurodevelopmental stages, right? We're not just saying that kids are vulnerable or adults are vulnerable. It's literally our frontal lobes aren't necessarily filtering the information to be able to prioritize what's important because everything feels important, right? Everything feels like it's something we're supposed to have, especially if it's promoted or advertised and is. Certain way. I'm thinking, as you were describing, like going down an aisle. There's like a million different options, and how do you even know what you need or what's right for you if you haven't been able to explore or ask the right questions to get to, you know, what you should invest in as something that's going to help take care of like your most personal parts, right? As a human,
Johanna Fierman Snyder 15:21
yeah, and the conversations are important. The conversation-I mean, it's hard to talk to our teenagers, both as parents, but also in a in a general population. Like, it's hard to get information out of them or to know what they're hearing and to know what they're what information they're getting. And they have short appointments with their primary care providers, and they have like maybe a health class in I think my kids had one in fifth grade and one in seventh grade and eighth grade and one in 10th grade, but they're not hitting on topics in in depth way, and they also might not be comfortable spaces for those conversations to happen around your peers with a teacher you've known a little bit, but not a lot. And you know, yes, yes, you need sleep. You should get sleep, and and yes, you should you know take care of your body and and use you know condoms and things like that. But they're not like in-depth conversations, and so then it falls on parents, and those are conversations that are hard to have, and you don't know what information your child's getting,
Abby Fierman 16:22
and if I bring it back to what Alexa said, you know, neurodevelopment. What we're talking to our fifth grader about is really different than what we're talking to our eighth grader about, and then our 11th grader. And so, you know, depending on where you live, what state you live in, what school district you live in, perhaps you are at a public school, or you're at a religious school, or you're at a private school. You're going to get a very different curriculum, and some of those topics are not going to be readdressed. They might have said, "Oh, we covered, you know, basic female anatomy and the menstrual cycle in fifth grade. Check, we're done. And that's a very different conversation with a 11th grader than it is with a fifth grader or with a college student, and so I think we need to remember that we need to continue having the conversations. I get this call a lot from my friends. Okay, I'm going to have the talk. What? What do I? Can you give me some pointers? And my number one pointer is, that's great. I am so happy you're going to talk to your child, but it's not the talk; it's the talks. It's plural. It's multiple. They need to be ongoing conversations, and they need to be ongoing conversations as your child' stage of life changes. You know, so many different factors. If they're mental development, maybe they're in a relationship, maybe they're moving out on their own. Maybe they're traveling for the summer by themselves. Different things come up at different times, and it's scary. And I totally recognize that. And my husband would probably say he's thrilled that I'm not scared to talk about anything. It kind of comes with the nurse background. It's really hard to make me uncomfortable, but I recognize that that's not the same for everybody. So the advice that I also love to give is, it's you don't have to do it all in one sitting. Have a five-minute conversation, and and you can set a timer, you or you can tell your kid, I want to talk about this for five minutes, and I promise at the end of five minutes we'll be done. I love car ride conversations. Car rides are great; no one can escape. I also love no eye contact. I listened to a woman speak at our son's school this year, and she said, "Both you sit on the couch, look straight forward. You don't have to look at each other. Set the timer. Be like this one topic for five minutes. Ask me all your questions, okay? And and admit sometimes I think it's really important to admit to our kids that we are as uncomfortable as they are. Like I know you're cringing, but like it's really hard for me too, like I don't want to have this conversation, so it's okay. And then, if you really don't want to have a conversation, then find trusted people who can, because I don't want anyone to feel shamed if it's too hard for them, as long as they feel like they find people who they do trust to talk to their kids.
Alexis Reid 18:57
That's such a good point, and Gerald, you could probably speak to this better than I, but you know, especially from a learning perspective, when anybody feels like big emotions like shame or embarrassment, it's really hard to take in the information today. Yeah, their mind is blank. Yeah, thinking about the ending of it. Totally. So if you're just one and done, like the amount of information that they might have actually held onto might be so minimal. So that this open dialogue, I think, is so important-not just about sexual or like physical health, but just in general about anything in life. That that opportunity to build trust and open communication, I think, is really the entryway and and the on-ramp to be able to be supportive in situations where things might come up and might feel uncomfortable or unsafe to be able to navigate that. For
Gerald Reid 19:44
sure. So I'd like to hear from your perspective on like some topics and some ideas that maybe are misunderstood or things that are important to talk about. Before we do, there's a context here that's important because in therapy I kind of hear a lot of different things and. One of which, over the past 1015, years with the internet, that's an important context about talking about things like sexual health. Is and and this this goes back to like even 10 years ago. I remember working with a young person. It was like there's like cartoons on YouTube when the kid is like 10, and it turns into pornography without anybody realizing what it's going to turn into, and these kids get exposed to something they've no idea. It kind of freaks them out, but then they get curious about it and they keep watching it, and there's like an addictive quality to it. And so, like the context is so important about these conversations, I imagine too, because the background information or the background exposure is so important about you know how it's talked about, or maybe the kid doesn't even know how to bring that type of thing up because it shapes how they think about these topics as they get older because of you know earlier experiences, and that's interesting to to think about.
Johanna Fierman Snyder 20:55
Yeah, there's the amount of exposure for the younger generation that we did not grow up with is it's completely different. Like we didn't we didn't have that experience. There wasn't the internet that we were going on YouTube to watch a video, and then it turned to something else. So now we as adults are learning that that's happening to our kids. We have to, as adults, figure out how to have that conversation with our children, even though that it wasn't an experience that we lived and and talk about like this might come up. You might see this. Like we, you know, let's talk about that. Or have you ever, you know, like have has that ever happened to you? But it's things that like as adults we are learning kind of as we go, also because we didn't live that. Like that wasn't our experience. I'm
Alexis Reid 21:38
picturing like the movie The Sandlot. You know, and they have like the dirty magazines that they like sneak right once in a while, right? Right. And now it's like you have exposure and access all the time as a young person if you have any kind of digital. Much more extreme. Yeah, much more extreme.
Abby Fierman 21:52
Yeah, the statistics are are absolutely staggering. With I I don't want to be misquoted. I don't remember the exact statistics, but the number of like fourth graders who have already been exposed to some sort of pornography situation online is staggering and would shock almost every parent. And I think not only, as Joanna said, are we we're learning and navigating this as adults who never sort of experienced it. I think that there's a huge knowledge gap with so many parents that this is even happening, and that is not a criticism to parents. I think there is so much overload on parenting right now in terms of education and social emotional health, and all of these topics that are so so important. That if you actually are you know doing all of that and working and raising your family and trying to find a little bit of space for yourself too, like you know. How do you even know that that is out there? And so I think that's also an enormous challenge for society and for parents right now. You know, I come from a background of healthcare. I have a you know a master's degree in nursing, and I am still not even aware of some of these things. I'm still learning. I'm going back and taking more sexual health education courses as I'm educating kids to learn about these knowledge gaps that I certainly didn't learn about in my master's degree program in nursing school.
Alexis Reid 23:13
And there's new terms that are popping up every day that I'm constantly using that like aren't necessarily familiar to even them, but especially not to us as adults.
Johanna Fierman Snyder 23:21
Yeah, and it's why it's why young people need trusted adults also because you know I have had this conversation with Abby before, where if she's going into a medical appointment, she's sort of like knowing what is supposed to happen and knowing what to expect, and not every question that they should ask, but she she has the background of like, okay, this is what that appointment should look like, but I don't necessarily have that, so I might leave an appointment and think like okay, I think it went okay, and she'll say to me, but did they ask you X, Y, and Z? And I'll say no, but I didn't, I didn't know that that they should have asked, or I don't have that knowledge, and and the reverse for like in an education world where you guys have that knowledge, and that's a lot on a on a parent to to know all that, which is why there are people like people turn to you, Jerry, as a resource for emotional health and well being and education. Like I can't do the things that you do. Like I, you know that that's that's your expertise. You know so much more about it. But there's kids are getting all of that information at them.
Abby Fierman 24:21
I was actually at an appointment in the spring for my kids' well visit check, and I, you know, my son was like a standard teenage boy. Everything was fine, fine, fine. And I did mention before I left the room because I do leave the room for my children's exams. But for the first five minutes, I was there, and I did say, "Well, sometimes you have trouble falling asleep, and the trigger response from the pediatrician was, "Well, have you tried melatonin? Which, of course, because I have a sleep consultant for a sister, my radar went up, and I was thinking, "Wow, that was the first question. But again, no, look at all the behaviors. What else is happening? You don't just do melatonin right away. And if I didn't have a background as a health. Provider, I wouldn't think. Oh, we should also ask about like their mental health and their stress, and are they thinking about you know what what's been going on in this year that could be your screen time, et cetera. List the long things that can affect sleep, and so again, this is not anything against the pediatricians. I think they are asked to do an enormous amount of work and cover an enormous amount of topics in a 15-minute well visit, and on top of that, it's impossible. And on top of that, you have, you know, if you have a pretty well-adapted, healthy child without a lot of you know challenges, maybe they see that doctor once or twice a year-a well visit check and a strep check. You know, they're not also having the time to really build a relationship with a person that they feel that that's that they really trust them and that that want to come to them with those questions. Right,
Gerald Reid 25:49
trust is important.
Abby Fierman 25:50
Yeah, it's really important, and
Johanna Fierman Snyder 25:51
it's not their fault because they don't like we said they have this short window of time and more patience to see.
Alexis Reid 25:56
So I said in the introduction that I don't want to provide a checklist, but if if you were going in as you do with your child to a wellness visit, what are some things that parents might want to keep front of mind to either set the tone or plant the seeds before they do give their child space?
Abby Fierman 26:13
I think that when you know you have a well visit appointment, especially as you have a child who's an adolescent, and they're getting ready a year or two away from going to college, and they're going to be on their own and having to think about how do I go to appointments on my on their own. Having a conversation beforehand with your child about do you have any questions? They'll probably look at you and say no, but have you thought about anything? Are you concerned about? And it could be sleep, it could be their growth, it could be their menstrual cycles. It could be acne. Anything that feels maybe that it's bothering some to them, and give them a little bit of ownership. I think that it's important that we let our kids lead these discussions and think about it. They are when they're under 18. I also do feel strongly that parents should be allowed to be in the room for a part of the visit, parents have questions. Sometimes those are the same questions that the kids have. But we need to give our kids space and ownership to start thinking for themselves about what is concerning to them, not what's concerning mom. Right? Mom's agenda and kids' agenda might be really different. So, what is it that you want to talk about, and give them the autonomy and the space to know that they can ask the questions, and hopefully also give them this the confidence to say, and if you don't get the answer you want or you don't understand it, ask again. It's okay, or stop and say, can I write this down? We need to give them the tools to take care of themselves because we're not always going to be there, and that's what we want. That's the goal of parenthood, right? Is to launch them to being successful human beings in all ways that mean success. And in my definition right now, I'm talking about in their in their physical and mental health.
Alexis Reid 27:52
Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna pull it back too and say these are conversations we shouldn't just have right before well visit, right? If if your kid is starting to say like I'm feeling tired. I feel like I'm lacking focus. We can zoom out and look at the bigger picture and be like, How are you sleeping? How are you feeling connected to your friends or to us? Like, how are you eating? Are you hydrating? These are the questions that I ask, especially younger people, so they develop this awareness to start checking in with themselves, as you're saying, Abby, and that's what we want to do. We want them to continue to
Johanna Fierman Snyder 28:24
check in with themselves because we're not. For you know, I don't want to ask that question every day, but I also know that my kids need to be independent and they need to think like when they are not in my home and they they feel exhausted at the end of the day. Like, well, what happened yesterday? What what did I do? What did I not eat? What it like. What do I need to change today? But they have they have to be able to start doing it on their own because we can't feed it to them all the time.
Alexis Reid 28:49
Yeah, and I think it's also important to share that it's sometimes natural to not always feel our best, right? Or to be nervous about something, or not have the words to communicate what you need to ask or what you really need. You know, as adults, it's even difficult to ask for what we need, or even know what we need. So these are conversations that I think are so important to start now. And if you can have these tougher conversations in more neutral environments, whether it's a car ride or a walk, again, it helps for when situations get a little more tense or maybe averse that we can have these moments to draw upon to help you feel comfortable getting what you need.
Gerald Reid 29:28
What are some topics and information that you think is important? That's you know par for the course for these types of conversations. What kind? What comes up? Because when we were doing the webinar, there's some things that you had mentioned, like some specific things. I was like, wow, yeah, that's pretty important. I didn't totally think like that's a thing to emphasize or to.
Johanna Fierman Snyder 29:45
I would say, in terms of kids who are leaving for whatever reason, they're no longer going to be under our roof. They need to think about their mental health and wellness. And as a sleep consultant, sleep is like a huge part of that. I know we talk about moving our bodies. We talk. About eating healthy, but sleep is a huge component of wellness, and so you're going to be in a brand new sleep environment when you're wherever you are, leaving your home and being somewhere else, and you need to make sure that that space is conducive for sleep. So, like small things, I we spoke about this, but like using an eye mask because you're going to be sharing a room, and your roommate or roommates might be working later than you, or coming home later than you, or you might be coming home later than them, and you you want to protect your sleep and think about okay, well, I have to get up tomorrow at nine a.m. to get to my 10 a.m. class. Well, I I need you know I want to get like nine hours of sleep. I need to kind of work backwards and think about that. So setting up a sleep environment and actually, you know, this goes to with Alexis, but like executive functioning with planning, you have you have to be a planner and think. I have to kind of stop what I'm doing and have a 15 minute wind down, even if it's listening to music and nothing else, or some people just read, or even if yoga or stretching or whatever it is, or just kind of washing your face and getting ready for bed. 15 minutes of just like my time before you get in bed to go to sleep, and and pay attention to what time that is, because if it led you to six hours of sleep, you're not going to feel great the next day, and it's actually going to impact the rest of the day. It's going to impact your ability to focus in your classroom and do your assignments, and you know, not panic when you get a syllabus because you're, you know, anytime we don't sleep enough, we get information, and it it's hard to process that information. So I
Abby Fierman 31:35
remember in the webinar you talking about how your brain refiles at night when you sleep, and that has stuck with me. And I would love you to share that with the greater community. When you
Johanna Fierman Snyder 31:44
sleep, your brain actually saves, stores, files, information that you learned in the day. So you actually need sleep to maintain all the information that you learned, so that you can retrieve it the next day. So our sleep is like I tell like my older kids, it's like saving a video game. You you hit save and actually it saves and stores it for the next day. So you didn't lose your game, you didn't lose all the points you had, but actually your sleep is saving all the information and it files it, so you can pull it out later when you need to retrieve it. So when you are studying and learning and you know reading an enormous amount of reading for a class, but the next day you're expected to then discuss it in a group or be able to you know be called on by a professor. You can actually pull that information out because if if you don't sleep, you're not storing that information as well and you're not organizing it. And I actually like visualize filing cabinets in my brain because that's how I'm like a you know visual like that, and it really does. I feel like they're getting put in files and then hitting save while we sleep. So the sleep is really important for that aspect in order to pull that information the next day. So
Gerald Reid 32:50
let's talk about the the short term and long term that Alexis often talks about with planning. So in my experience, people in college individuals they want to have fun, and it's like it's an opportunity to kind of like always have opportunities to have fun, even if it's like 12 at night, two a.m. Right, and they're like, "Oh, we're just gonna hang out. Like this is so amazing. Like I have the freedom to do it. And so, in terms of thinking short term and long term, sleep also helps us to emotionally regulate. Absolutely. So if we get adequate sleep, our emotions are more regulated, so it's almost like you can have fun at two a.m. at the expense of the next day not feeling emotionally regulated. And it's important to kind of think about short term, long term.
Johanna Fierman Snyder 33:30
And when you're in a college environment, there's constant people around you. Like you're sharing a room, or you're in a class, or you're walking across campus, or you're eating in a dining hall. Like there's, it's it's it's not often that you're on your own, and when if your emotional regularity is not kind of as strong as it should be, it's difficult to have social engagements with other people and relationships and connections. And so, yes, staying up until two in the morning might be fun in the moment. And we all went to college, and we all did that, and that's going to happen to our kids when they go to college, but the next day, it's harder to engage with people. It's harder to read social cues. It's harder to understand. You know, people don't always think about this, but like to notice if somebody else isn't having a great day and to check in on them. Like it's harder to pick that up when you're exhausted and you didn't sleep the night before. So it's also hard to catch up on sleep, and I know we spoke about this a little bit in the webinar. You you can't really catch up on sleep. So college students stay up late, and then they sleep in late on the weekends. But back on Monday, when you have to wake up at eight a.m. sort of a jet lag effect. Your whole body's clock has shifted from that weekend schedule, and you feel pretty bad on Monday morning when you wake up because your body had gotten used to waking at 11 or 12 or one in the afternoon, and you've now cut chunks of sleep off, hours off, and you're waking up at eight to get to a class, but you're actually not catching up on that sleep. You've just shifted your whole schedule. So your whole body schedule has shifted, and then you're shifting it back, and you're doing that every single. It's like flying east coast to west coast every single weekend. And just
Gerald Reid 35:09
to be clear, the the solution to that is actually not to sleep in, but to sleep to wake up consistently, even if it's like eight a.m. Yeah,
Gerald Reid 35:15
and just be miserable the whole day. But at least you'll fall asleep at a normal time that night, and then wake up at the normal time, so it's consistent.
Johanna Fierman Snyder 35:22
Yes, and I use the word consistent with my families all the time. I mean, it doesn't matter which sleep training method you choose. It doesn't matter how old your kid is. Consistency is one of the most important things when you want to make any change in life, and with sleep in general, in this case. But yes, you actually have to go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time every day to get the adequate amount of sleep,
Gerald Reid 35:44
and it helps my whoop score. And it helps my whoop ages dramatically decrease. Exactly, exactly. It really does. And I,
Johanna Fierman Snyder 35:51
I tell well, and my God, exactly. I tell people also. One tool is you know have your kids set their own alarms in the morning when they're home because they're going to go off to college and need to set their own alarms to get up. But setting alarm for bedtime is actually just as important as setting alarm for in the morning because it just says to your brain like, okay, that alarm went off. I actually want to stop what I'm doing.
Gerald Reid 36:15
And cortisol too, right? If you're consistent with your sleep, cortisol levels are consistent. Yeah, which is important for being ready to wake up, you know, and just regulating your body's functioning.
Johanna Fierman Snyder 36:26
Yeah, your cortisol levels move with the light and the darkness, and so we want to make sure they're they're you're similar each day, consistent.
Alexis Reid 36:33
I have like three questions, but I'm going to ask the million dollar question that the audience is probably wondering that I know doesn't have one answer. How much sleep should you get? Every single person asks me that. I know. I know. So
Johanna Fierman Snyder 36:47
college students kind of get lumped into the adult area, which I don't love because a lot of them are 18. Yeah. So they say like seven to nine hours for adults, but actually for college students, there's more of a push for like nine to 10 hours. Kill your
Alexis Reid 37:00
line too. Think about like teenagers because the number is way different than most people think. Yes,
Johanna Fierman Snyder 37:05
I mean people. You know, I don't expect teenagers to get 12 hours of sleep. Although when they sleep in on the weekends, that happens. But like I just said, that's not catching up. That doesn't make up for the six hours that you got on Thursday night. So I mean, if you if you can aim to get eight to nine hours a night, but I prefer like 10 and more. But that's it's it's not possible with their schedules. It really isn't. These kids have a lot of work. They have a lot of things going on. They're doing homework late into the night, and they have to wake up early for school. Like high school schedules.
Gerald Reid 37:36
And adults, they are. They are,
Johanna Fierman Snyder 37:38
and adults we perpetuate it because we we schedule those things, but high school is not designed for sleep. You know, kids have to get up at six a.m. to get to school on time, to get a bus, to get to school. It's completely backwards. Like elementary school students start their day later, and it should be reverse. Elementary school students should actually have an earlier start time, and high schoolers should have late start time. There's a
Alexis Reid 38:00
there are movements across the country to shift it, but it's difficult because of after-school sports and jobs and things that they actually want to end the day. You know, so but high schoolers should start later because they do need that sleep, and it's hard to get when you know you have to be up at six in the morning or earlier to get to school. Some start at seven, like you know, my kid's school starts at eight, which is on the later side, but your kids start at eight and they live further away, so that means they're up early to get out the door. I I love what Jerry said about short term, long term, because especially with adolescents and young adults, it's very difficult for them to see the long term impact of their present moment decisions, absolutely. So this is leading back to Abby, but before we do, can you share like there's some no duh, like these things aren't good for your sleep. We shouldn't do them, but can you just explicitly share like some of the things that really like are the greatest impact on sleep and just overall rest in general? Because I even find that like being involved in so many things, it's hard to rest. Yeah, and I'm sure a lot of adults can connect with that idea too. Yeah, there's
Johanna Fierman Snyder 39:06
so many answers to this, but one is light and dark. Darkness absolutely helps us get better sleep.
Gerald Reid 39:12
It
Johanna Fierman Snyder 39:13
sends a signal to our brain that it's time to sleep. It helps help set our circadian rhythm, which is our internal clock that dictates sleep and wake. So having a very dark sleep environment is hugely important. And think about morning too, because when the sun rises and the sun comes in, and it's lovely to have big windows, but it it will wake you up, and you want exposure to light when you wake up, but you don't want it to wake you before you're ready. So darkness. Can I
Gerald Reid 39:38
ask you a question about that? It's almost like connecting to the the rhythm of nature,
Johanna Fierman Snyder 39:43
it absolutely. And so,
Gerald Reid 39:44
like, I'm gonna answer your question too, Lex. I feel like kids are so stressed nowadays, and they're worried about literally everything, and like things that you can't even like anything you can think of. They're worried about, and so I feel like that gets in the way of the natural end. Of the day, because it's like you've been on edge the whole day. You feel like something bad is always going to happen, or something bad has happened, and there's no natural wind down, like as almost like a rhythm of the day.
Johanna Fierman Snyder 40:11
Yeah,
Gerald Reid 40:12
and I feel like there's is important to to learn how to retrain yourself to remind yourself that it's almost like unplugging from the matrix and being like, wait, everything's okay. Nothing bad is happening. Like I'm safe. Like I'm here in my bed.
Johanna Fierman Snyder 40:24
Yep.
Gerald Reid 40:25
Like all that panic and those alarms going off of me. Like they're false alarms. There's really not, you know, unless there really are bad things happening that you got to address. But I think.
Alexis Reid 40:33
Can we highlight that? What's a good mantra for people to feel safe? Because I I do this for myself too. Yeah. And I'm sure you would advise your patients to do the same to remind themselves like I am safe.
Speaker 1 40:44
Yep. Yeah. Like I mean,
Gerald Reid 40:45
just put your hand on your heart or your stomach or your belly and just ground yourself in your body and remind yourself like look around, be mindful, be present. You know, you have a transitional object, whatever it is like that you feel comfortable with, or a song or something. Talk to someone that you feel comfortable with, you know, you know, or you know, whatever it is that grounds you to remind yourself, like this is the natural rhythm of the day. Everything's okay. We're so conditioned to be afraid and angry and upset about everything all the time that it's so important to just let the natural cycle of the day just happen naturally.
Alexis Reid 41:18
I'm going to add one other strategy. I often offer to take a shower at the end of the day. Don't literally say to yourself, "I'm washing the day away, so that you can transition into rest. Yeah. When I
Johanna Fierman Snyder 41:29
work with some of my older clients, I have them if they want to. Like, I never want to put pressures on them, but if they want a journal before bed, even for my like non-writing, like if they want to color or put something in a journal, and I always say like it doesn't have to be things that you're worried about or upset about. It can be about anything, and you're just emptying everything in your head before you go to bed. Yeah, so you let it get brains out, and it's just like get it out of your head before you go to bed. Nice. And I'll say like it doesn't have to be what you're worried about. It just can be anything, and and then they'll start even if they color about something else that they love that is in their head when they're going to sleep and not something else. Yeah,
Alexis Reid 42:10
gratitude journal, like all these little things are so helpful. So, but anyway, darkness to the things that are impactful.
Johanna Fierman Snyder 42:17
Yeah, but but to to piggyback on that, a wind down routine is really important. Whether you're putting your two year old to bed or whether you're a college student, just giving yourself 10 to 15 minutes of like, I'm going to plug my phone in. I'm not. I'm not telling. I know they're on screens. I'm not saying obviously an hour before bed. Yes, but like that's not realistic. So just give yourself like 10 to 15 minutes of, I'm just focusing on getting myself ready for bed, calming down, turning the lights off, putting my sleep mask on. You know, silly things in college is also like clean sheets help help you sleep. Like actually wash your sheets because the allergens can make you not feel good, and when you don't feel good, you actually aren't going to sleep that well. So
Gerald Reid 43:00
find those free washers in the building. Use of like these washer sheets. They're becoming more and
Abby Fierman 43:04
more common. I just finished a lot of college tours, and they are becoming more common. Those free washing machines. Yeah, but
Johanna Fierman Snyder 43:10
use that. It goes back to
Alexis Reid 43:11
planning, right? Yeah, like having a week to reset your space is so important because, like I always say, you know, your space, your physical space, sometimes dictates how you're feeling on the inside. So if there's stuff around, if it's dirty, if there are allergens, it can really impact so much of everything. Another good feel good, Alexis. Right? There you go. Feel good if your space looks good and you feel good. It's really helpful.
Abby Fierman 43:35
Totally mantra.
Alexis Reid 43:36
So real quick question, especially for college students, should you be doing schoolwork in bed. Oh no! Please use your bed for just a
Johanna Fierman Snyder 43:44
few things, and it would be both what Abby and I both talk about. It's really for sleep and intimacy. Yeah, beds are for really just, and it's hard in a dorm room because there's sometimes not another space. But maybe you can fit a beanbag chair in your room, or maybe you can like actually sit the other direction on your bed and prop up some pillows, just so you're not like tucked into bed. It's it, your brain is trained. Like we want our brain to be trained that when I get into bed and pull up the covers, I'm actually going to go to sleep. It triggers you to
Gerald Reid 44:11
feel, yeah, yeah, sleep time.
Johanna Fierman Snyder 44:12
Yeah. So try to find places, and I know Alexis has spoken about this too. Whether it's a coffee shop or a library, or mix it up. Like it doesn't have to be the same location all the time, but try not to do it in bed because it really you want that space for sleep.
Alexis Reid 44:26
I often am reminding people that like our brains are not as smart as we think they are. Like we train them based on our behaviors and our habits to associate different things. So if you're in your bed doing work all the time, our brains are going to associate bed with like work and being on versus what it's really intended to be is restful and being able to wind down and be comfortable. Okay, so all of this is pivoting pivoting us back to Abby because that connection was so great. It was a really good one. Thinking about sleep and how beds are really just for two things, but also thinking about long term and short term impacts of things because if you. Resting, if you aren't caring for your body, you don't often make good decisions, and it can impact the vulnerabilities for everybody across the lifespan. But I wonder if you can share a little bit about what you tend to see because you've seen all sides of things. I see a
Abby Fierman 45:14
lot. I always find this transition, and I found it harder in the webinar too. I'm like, I feel like Joanna's giving this really good, like helpful information, and mine starts to feel really scary. And my goal is that I don't want to scare people because I talk about things that are scary, like sexual assault and sexually transmitted infections, and you know drugs and alcohol, and those things are really scary. But I, I want to come at it from a perspective where we're not scaring kids, and I really don't want to use anything that involves shame or the
Gerald Reid 45:46
ambulances going by, as you're saying. I know, I know, don't be scared.
Johanna Fierman Snyder 45:50
It's about education to trigger people. Yeah, I
Abby Fierman 45:53
don't want people to to feel shame because things things will happen and things do happen, and so I think we need to find a good balance where we're educating our kids about all things related to sexual health, so they can make good decisions, and then also let them know that if something bad or scary does come up, if there is an instance that there is sexual assault, if there is an instance where like I don't know, you maybe something doesn't feel right in you, or concerned that you have an infection, that you don't feel the shame to not get help, and so I think it's really important that we hold both of those things when we're in our sort of mindset when we're talking to kids. So, you know, as a I've seen a lot in my last sort of eight to 10 years as a sexual health nurse examiner. I take care of all all genders, all gender identities. Everyone, unfortunately, it does not. You know, sexual assault occurs across the lifespan and across all genders. But one of the sort of reoccurring themes I've seen amongst college kids is a situation where kids are out and they're partying and they're drinking, and then there's this period where they don't remember, they sort of wake up and they're in a compromised situation, and perhaps that's a situation where maybe somebody put something in their drink, like a roofie or something that would make them have that amnesia. Sometimes it's actually just kids drinking too much, and similar to you know you've trained your brain that like your bed is where you're gonna sleep. I think that sometimes when kids finally like sit down, they stop dancing, whether it's on a couch or in the back of an Uber or wherever. There also there's this sort of relaxation that takes over, and they also just pass out and kind of become in a compromised situation. And so if we think back to sleep and making good decisions, I think that we need to educate our kids that we understand. You know, you're going to go to college. There are going to be parties. There are going to be fun times. But thinking about how can I also stay in control and make good decisions, or if I see that my friend is not in a good situation, how do I encourage them to sort of walk away or to go home? And I had a college student ask me the other day, like, "How do you know when a situation is uncomfortable? And I said to her, "The minute it feels uncomfortable to you, it doesn't matter what the situation is. If somebody is just holding your hand and that feels uncomfortable, then that's an uncomfortable situation. If you just get a vibe like this party doesn't feel like it's going in the direction I wanted to go anymore. I think it's really important for them to to have the tools to say, "Okay, I'm going to leave. So, when it comes to sexual health, I want kids to be aware of. First of all, I want I want them to know that sex is supposed to be pleasurable. It is something that is important. I think one of the conversations that is lacking these days is we talk a lot about consent, and I think that it's coming more from a litigious background than a consent to make sure that both people are just feeling safe, that they trust the person they're with, that they are both enjoying the situation.
Gerald Reid 49:01
Like it's not just a physical experience; it's an emotional experience. Someone once said that to me. I said, "This is beautifully said.
Abby Fierman 49:07
I totally agree, and I think this. These are not. This is not my sort of. These are my words. Someone mentioned once at a at an educational talk that I was at. Our children are on Snap or text or social media so much that there actually is so much social anxiety amongst them to communicate in real time, face to face with another human being, and that is something that maybe our generation did do a little better because we didn't have a choice, right? We had to. You wanted to ask someone out, you kind of had to look them in the face, or maybe make a phone call or pass a note, but you couldn't just send them a snap and send an emoji
Speaker 2 49:46
back, right? Like you had to. Even now,
Johanna Fierman Snyder 49:47
our kids use the phrase, and I don't mean our kids. Like kids in general use the phrase "talking. Like, yeah, I spoke, I talked to her, but that actually doesn't mean they were talking. Right? They were snapping, texting, and I'm like, oh, that. You did not have a face-to-face conversation. So can I ask a
Gerald Reid 50:03
question then, real quick? So, so if we're saying intimacy should be an emotional in addition to a physical experience, are you saying because kids are so socially anxious, which I 100% agree they are socially socially anxious, that it almost precludes it from becoming a more emotional, safe, comfortable experience because there is that disconnect of the emotional piece, because they're so socially anxious to to connect and to find that
Abby Fierman 50:26
100% And I try to remind you know teens that if you' gonna have this really intimate experience with another human being, you should be able to talk to them. You should be able to say things that you want to do, that you don't want to do, that you trust, you should be able to ask them to use a condom. You should be able to talk about things like pregnancy prevention and STI prevention. And if you can't have those conversations with that person, is that the right person to be having this very intimate moment with? Because it is. It's it's just as much physical as it is emotional, it's probably more so emotional if we think about sort of all the thoughts that go in before and afterwards. It's a very vulnerable time, and so I think giving our kids the tools to educate them about all forms of safe sex, forms of protecting them from pregnancy, ways to protect them from infections, ways to protect them from assault. So then, when they're in the moment when they're actually with that person, they have all that stuff, and that doesn't feel scary because they're like, "Oh, I can talk about those things, and then maybe the emotional stuff is harder for them to talk about. But they at least have that knowledge base of these are the things that I know that are going to keep me safe, and I want to have that that front of mind too.
Alexis Reid 51:40
I don't know if this is accurate, but in the media, there's reporting that younger people are not having as much physical intimacy, and and I'm glad you brought up this idea of of social anxiety because I think that a lot of it is impacting, right? Maybe it's a lack of knowledge and understanding of what like safe sex actually is and looks like in an emotionally safe environment, and also this fear of like not even engaging. So this is also why I think your work is so important for people to understand their bodies, their minds, their hearts to be able to even make that decision.
Abby Fierman 52:15
Yeah, and I think for kids going to college, it's the first time that they're going to be with such a diverse group of people from different educational backgrounds, religious backgrounds, cultural backgrounds. They are going to have very. They're going to all come into it with really different knowledge bases, and so that's also really important. You know, I think a lot of kids are going to have come to college with very little, I guess sexual experience, and I think that might be the one thing that's kind of constant in terms of kids having the social anxiety. But the education they've gotten and from where they've gotten it is going to vary so much based on all of those other factors. And I think that that's what's really important. You know, I have talked to kids who have maybe more experience, but come from schools that are very strict, and so they've gotten information from other people, and then vice versa, kids who are not as you know intimate, but they have learned more based on their backgrounds, and so we're getting this melting pot of kids coming in, and it's really scary because the I'm forgetting the term right now, and I drive me crazy than forgetting. But there is a term of why sort of sexual assaults are so high in that first semester of college, and it's all of these things we've touched upon: the vulnerability, the education, the making good decisions, the the
Johanna Fierman Snyder 53:39
want to have a lot of fun. The wants is what I'm supposed to be doing now. The expectation, expectation, yeah,
Gerald Reid 53:46
the fantasy of what it should be, and substance use too. And I feel like it goes. The substances goes hand in hand with the anxiety. I feel like kids are using substances a lot nowadays, all types of substances because of that anxiety, and then it kind of feeds into this cycle of what we're talking about. It can make people more vulnerable to making decisions that could be unhealthy for them on both sides. Absolutely, yeah. What they
Abby Fierman 54:08
think might be, let me have a drink or two to sort of calm the nerves, and then it very quickly escalates way past that, and then they aren't in a position where they can make safe choices for both sides of it. Yeah, absolutely.
Alexis Reid 54:22
It's so interesting. I don't know if if I should mention this, but I went to a Jesuit undergraduate college and graduate work too, and and there was a very distinct difference in behaviors for those who went to parochial schools going into the college versus those who weren't. That a lot of times they were so I don't know. Protected perhaps from these conversations. That when they got into college, they experimented way more than some of their peers. So it's interesting just to to double down on the idea of like being educated properly and being open to these conversations. And obviously, like you know, religion and values come into play. For sure, but I think the expectation needs to be these are things that kids are exposed to, whether we like it or not, whether we agree or not, whether they're engaging or not. They're exposed to it either from their friends or when they go to college, from peers, and these different conversations that come up. I mean, for goodness' sakes, I had a conversation with a 13-year-old's mom about the the show that we were talking about on the the webinar a few weeks ago, because it's you know talking about college relationships, and the the men characters were a little bit more honest about this consensual sexual relationship and trust. They talked so much about trust for sure. An educational piece, but I will say two things. One is, you know, a young person like a teenager might be watching the same kind of visual exploration of relationships as somebody a little bit older, and not really knowing what's happening, and maybe not even cueing into what's happening. So, as an adult in a young person's life, it's important not to say, "Oh, but did you notice this? or "Do you know what this means? Because a lot of times, the younger people-and Abby, correct me if I'm wrong-sometimes the younger people don't actually understand the gravity of what's happening. So it's tricky to like plant those seeds without them noticing. So it's careful navigation back to what we were talking
Abby Fierman 56:19
about before of having multiple conversations through their developmental time, you know, I heard once that you know consent with you know when you're talking in elementary school is literally talking about well, how did you feel if someone just took that French fry off your plate? Like that's not okay. So that's an easy way to talk about consent when they're young, and then obviously as they get older and they're more developmentally mature and the stakes are higher. You build on that. It's a building block. Yes. Just like you know, you learn your math stats first and you move up to calculus. Like you've got to start with very basic things and then and move up in terms of your conversations and not. I think the word consent is used in an amazing way and in a detrimental way, I think it's great that we are talking about it. I think it's great that my kids are like, "Hey, mom, did you have consent to do that? And I think that's awesome. I also think that it's getting thrown around a little too lightly. And what is what does it truly mean? And it can mean so many different things in so many different spaces. It's not just about sex. It's about any kind of thing, anything that feels uncomfortable. Yeah, and even you know, if we go back to sleeping and thinking about being in your dorm room, and maybe and consent can be asking your roommate, hey, like I think this my boyfriend might want to sleep over tonight. Is that okay with you? That's asking consent from your roommate, and your roommate might say, no, I'm not comfortable. Even if the you know the person who's asking is like we're just we were studying we're just falling asleep like nothing is going to happen sexually, well maybe the other roommate is like no I can't sleep with other people in the room that makes me uncomfortable and so having those that's another version of having a hard conversation but it needs to happen which by the way
Gerald Reid 57:59
think about this like at what other point in your life are you going to be in a room with someone where someone's having sex next to you? Like when you're a child doesn't happen when you're out of college, doesn't happen. They have your own room because you have a roommate. Maybe they're in a different room, but like it's just like I don't think people realize because they never had a you know it's new to them. They think it's normal, but
Johanna Fierman Snyder 58:17
right. The conversations are important. I mean, it's a change. Abbot Abby just said, like having these conversations, us with our children, roommate with a roommate, like the conversations just have to keep happening, even if they're hard conversations. I this is a kind of a change in topic, but even conversations of like I, I you know I typically go to bed by like 11 o'clock at night. You have this person that you're now rooming with who you've barely met, maybe you met through a person, and they're like, "I go to bed at two a.m. every day. Well, okay, like how how are we gonna make that work?
Alexis Reid 58:48
Totally. But
Johanna Fierman Snyder 58:49
if you don't talk about it, it's not gonna work. It's gonna lead to like little problems, little problems to like a a bigger problem. The conversations have, even if they're hard, you have to have them.
Alexis Reid 59:01
And Jerry and I can attest to the fact that, like, even just that discomfort in not being able to sleep because your roommate can't sleep, it impacts everything else. Like, I see it all the time at my practice. With like, you know, it's hard for them to focus, hard for them to show up, it's hard for them to feel good. They get overly anxious because they're holding on to something that could have been potentially rectified if you have a conversation.
Johanna Fierman Snyder 59:22
Just say I'm going to bed at 11. I'm gonna like if you want to still study or you're out. Can you just come in quietly or make sure like when you come in, you're you know
Gerald Reid 59:29
yeah. It's almost like kids have so much FOMO and so many expectations on how things should be that like there's no patience for like okay like maybe if this is not exactly how I wanted it now it could be better later, or like, or even a conversation could you know be messy at first. But you can kind of work through it if you have respect for each other.
Alexis Reid 59:48
Can I? I'm going to press pause because I want to go back to this idea of having a conversation, even with a child, and and using maybe a movie or a show as a good gateway to having a. Conversation because you're using somebody else, a character, as an example to have a conversation, and I really want to hear both of your opinions on this because you know I think it's it's difficult to kind of just have these conversations organically, especially if you have younger kids or teenagers, and you know oftentimes parents don't feel comfortable with what they're watching, so they just let the kids watch it by themselves. And Steve Gross came on the podcast to talk about
Gerald Reid 1:00:25
from the life is from the life is good playmakers,
Alexis Reid 1:00:26
and he talked about you know having a conversation with his kid about you know why do you like this song why do you like this music instead of saying I don't like this I'm uncomfortable he got curious about like what actually was drawing him into the music that he was listening to that didn't seem it seemed a little discordant to like his vibe, and he realized through having this conversation that it was way more than just the music or the lyrics. There was something else, you know. He was into the beat. He liked the rhythm, and I think the same goes for talking about sexual health or even physical health and sleep with kids. If you're watching a movie, to join them, even if it feels a little uncomfortable, because it might give you an opportunity to talk about it. I wonder if you can share some examples or ideas.
Abby Fierman 1:01:08
There's no shortage of teenage love and college love shows right now, and I know a lot of us in the room are watching them and enjoying them. And I know some, some of us, not all, not all of us. I know some teens who are watching with their moms, and I, I, I applaud them because I, I. How many times have we like had conversations with our friends where we're like thinking about that time, like, oh my god, I remember watching this movie, it was great, and then this scene happened, and oh my god, my parent was next to me, and it was so gringy, it was awful, and that's how our generation was because our parents, you know, talk to us even less because that was the time. So I think I think using media, whether it's a show, a movie, a song, even something if you see on social media, click click video, are great ways to engage with kids and have conversations. To again take it a little bit off of the, are you doing this? What are your friends doing? And make it sort of this more generalized conversation. Takes
Gerald Reid 1:02:07
a judgment out of it too. It does the perceived judgment, the shame, all
Abby Fierman 1:02:11
of the the stigma, all of those things. You know, it's we're talking about them, not you, and that can make conversations much easier.
Gerald Reid 1:02:19
Okay, I would like to hear you say some things about other topics that are about health that may come up as a college student. Yeah, because you had mentioned a few in the webinar that I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1 1:02:30
yeah,
Gerald Reid 1:02:30
good point. So,
Abby Fierman 1:02:31
okay, so when I think about health overall and sort of just general wellness, we you know we've we've covered that you need a dorm room that has really sleep conducive, and that's like a non-negotiable. So when everyone's thinking about all the like decor that they want, I think that they need to think about their sleep decor, and then they need to think about their health decor. And so for health decor, I think it's really important to kind of recreate the family medicine cabinet, and not in a grand, crazy way, but basic things. So there's
Gerald Reid 1:03:04
no room for that. Yeah, there's no room. But if
Abby Fierman 1:03:06
you wake a small box that they can put under their bed, right? If you wake up in the morning and you have a headache, or your kid says, "I have a headache, you go to your cab and you open and get them some Advil. They should have basic things. They should have Advil. They should have Tylenol. They should have a thermometer. How many times do have I seen a patient said I have a temperature? What was what was the number? Oh, I don't know. I just felt bad. Well, a 99.9 is really different than 103. So it's really important that your kids has a thermometer that they can and that they know how to use it because a lot of again a lot of parents who have just been putting their thermometer in their kid's mouth until 18, so they're not hard, and these are smart kids, but they should know how to use a thermometer. So
Alexis Reid 1:03:46
practice early.
Speaker 1 1:03:47
Yeah, practice early.
Abby Fierman 1:03:48
Some other basics are, you know, maybe an allergy medicine, especially if your kids can, you know, is used to having, you know, frequent allergies, or again, if they're not changing their sheets a lot, as Joanna said, and there's a lot of allergens in their bed, and then. then first aid stuff. So some band aids, some hydrocortisone, some neosporin, some really basic things. Obviously, if they have a major gash in their hand, you're hoping that they that you have also talked to them about where to go if they need help. So student health is usually your first bet. If not, you know, a local urgent care. But basic first aid. And then when it comes to sexual health, I think that every single child should have condoms in their room. And it doesn't mean that your kid is going to have sex, or that they are already having sex, or that the minute they get to college they're going to have sex. It's just preparedness. You never know when you're going to get a headache. Well, you never know when maybe you are going to fall in love, and maybe you are going to have that. And let's let's take away the barrier. One, you know, condoms can be expensive, and we don't want kids to not buy them because they're expensive. Two, sure, there can be nervous, there can be shame. Again, if a child's having adolescents having sex, we would hope that they feel comfortable, but we understand that that's not always easy. I used to hand them out. In the clinic all the time to patients and say, I don't care if you use them. Give them to your friends. Share them. Just like be a safe place because not every kid's going to come to college with condoms. So maybe if your friend is talking to you and you be like, Oh, here, I have an extra condom. Like, use this in case you need this. I think that people should have emergency contraception, and emergency contraception is a pill that is not an abortion pill.
Gerald Reid 1:05:25
Say that again.
Abby Fierman 1:05:25
Emergency contraception is not an abortion pill. It is just a pill you can take within five days of unprotected intercourse to help prevent pregnancy, and I think that everyone should have it. I don't think you should have a prescription for it. I think you should have it, the pill, in your med kit. So if something happens that you know you can take it immediately. It is more effective the sooner you take it. If you wait five days, it's not as effective as if you take it that morning. And again, you were probably really tired. You were probably you know, maybe drinking. You maybe made a decision that you know is you're you're stressed out. Like, why are we going to add more stress to these kids' lives and put them in a position where on a Sunday morning they're trying to find an open pharmacy? They should have it. Accidents happen. You could be the most responsible human being and have sex with a condom, and it can break. Nothing is 100% So why would we not give our kid a seatbelt? It's an extra tool in the in their pouch, you know, of medicine in case they need
Gerald Reid 1:06:29
it. Can you describe the name of that again, so people? So it's called
Abby Fierman 1:06:31
emergency contraception. There's two different kinds. So Plan B is the one that you can buy over the counter. It's a medicine called levonogestrel. It's safe. There's no side effects. There's no medical reason why somebody can't take it. Anyone can take it. The one little asterisk I would put is that it can be expensive over the counter. It can be up to $50, which I have lots of issues with, and I think it's ridiculous. So I personally, as a provide provider, prefer to give someone a prescription so they can purchase it over the counter, so their insurance company will pay for it, and then it will maybe in some states it's free, in other states it's five to $10, and that's a significant savings. There's a second medicine called Ulapristal acetate, which is known as Ella, which is another form. It's one pill; you take it one time. There's no side effects. You just can't use that method if you are on any hormonal birth control. So if you're taking the birth control pill, or you're using the birth control patch, or maybe you have a IUD that has some hormones in it, you can't take that kind. You can't take Ella. But they're they're great. They're great options. You know, back when we were in college, we used the emergency contraception plan. Was you just take basically a half a pack of birth control pills, which was terrible. People felt so sick. They were nauseous. They were vomiting. Well, and if you're vomiting your pill, then you're not actually getting the benefit from it. So these are really, really great options for people to have, and I don't want again. There shouldn't be shame or stigma around it. It's kind of like if you, by accident, are cutting a bagel and you cut yourself, you're going to put a bandaid on. Well, if you're having sex and by accident the condom breaks, why should we punish you? Like you should have this option,
Gerald Reid 1:08:18
and it just prevents pregnancy. Basically,
Abby Fierman 1:08:21
if ovulation has not occurred yet, it stops ovulation from occurring, or it kind of stalls things in place. And so, it's not 100% it's about 89% effective from preventing a sperm and egg to coming together and fertilizing.
Gerald Reid 1:08:34
Thanks for explaining.
Abby Fierman 1:08:35
Yeah, my pleasure. I, I think that, and this is one of the reasons why I started the Bare Facts. That little conversation we just had about contraception or about emergency contraception, well, if I have 15 minutes to educate someone about birth control and birth control methods, I can't adequately do my job and feel like a responsible provider. That I gave my patient all of the best information. There's so many great options out there, and there's no perfect option. I love the what. What would you do, or what's the best? There's no such best. Every individual is unique. What is best for you and for your body at this time in life, which may also be different in five years, but for us to really have a good conversation about that, you need the education and you need to be able to make your choice. And you can't do that if I am rapid fire throwing information to you in five to seven minutes, and then you have to quick make a decision.
Gerald Reid 1:09:36
Well, that was 35% of the 15 minute conversation.
Abby Fierman 1:09:39
Yeah, there you go.
Alexis Reid 1:09:40
And speaking of which, when we did our webinar in June, we talked about how this could be like a 12-week series where we talk about all this information. So I just I want to just you know give you the opportunity to kind of share some last-minute tips and ideas that you think would be helpful for both. Young people, their parents, caregivers, or even pediatricians who might be listening-that might be helpful to remind them.
Abby Fierman 1:10:08
I think that we need to look at each adolescent or college student as an individual person, and we need to figure out who their trusted providers are and provide provider. I mean, is that their parent? Is that a medical provider? Is that a mental health provider? Is that a sexual health provider? Is it an aunt? Is there someone who can have these conversations? And I don't want parents to feel bad if they feel like they can't cover every topic the way they need to really well. There's great resources in the communities. There are also great websites. There are great people on social media. It does take a little bit more work to find them, but we need to find the right ones for each individual. There is no, you know, cookie cutter method on how to do this, especially because kids are going to be at different stages of development emotionally, physically, sexually, at different points of their life, and so we need to figure out ways. I would also say, you know, watch, look at your kid for cues. Figure out sort of what's going on around them and what they want to talk about. And if you have a kid who doesn't talk, kind of you have to take you and yourself out of their comfort, them out of their comfort zone, and encourage them to talk and letting them know that they have safe spaces. So, if something, because something will happen at some point, whether it's sexually or with drugs and alcohol, at some point something's going to happen. You want them to know that there are trusted people that I can talk to, that I'm not going to get in trouble, that are going to listen to me, and they're going to help me to navigate that. And there's lots of great resources resources on college campuses, whether it's the student health, the mental health, the Title IX office, which a lot of people don't know about, which is 100% for anyone who feels they have been a target of any kind of sexual assault, and that doesn't actually have to mean, you know, rape. As we think about rape, it could be that they feel uncomfortable with a professor in a classroom; that they feel uncomfortable with certain students. That office is available for them, and it's 100% confidential. And I want kids to know that there are resources for them.
Johanna Fierman Snyder 1:12:12
Beautifully said. I think conversation. I think that all the things we talked about today really go back to conversation with people that you trust. So the more you talk about things, and the more we get things out there, even if they're uncomfortable, having the conversation just leads to more awareness. And when you have more awareness, you do make better decisions, or at least you have the the information to weigh your decisions in terms of what I'm going to do here. I had that conversation. I had that conversation with resources. So as I said at the beginning, there's a reason people go to you. There's a reason people go turn to Jerry for support, to Alexis, to Abby, to me because we have an expertise in an area, and so finding those people because parents can't be experts on everything. We don't want them to feel like they need to be an experts on everything, but there are many people out there that can support your parenting and support your child, so that they can have these conversations, so that they're equipped with the tools that they need. Beautifully said.
Gerald Reid 1:13:11
Nice. I do one psi.
Alexis Reid 1:13:13
Yeah. Yes.
Gerald Reid 1:13:14
I just have to throw this in here because you had mentioned melatonin. Yeah. Or you did have you, right? And you mentioned it too, Johanna and so melatonin are not. It's not like candy. You don't just like pop a bunch of melatonin. It's not regulated. It's not
Johanna Fierman Snyder 1:13:29
regulated in this country. So also the amount that it says on the packaging is not necessarily the amount that you're taking. It's often much
Gerald Reid 1:13:37
more.
Johanna Fierman Snyder 1:13:37
It's often much more, and people accidentally overdose and give it to their children, and don't they don't mean to be giving their children too much, but they're going with packaging says, but it's not regulated in a way that's safe. So I I never recommend it. I'm not a medical provider. I always say like you know talk to your medical provider. There are instances, you know, I work with children, autistic children, or children with special needs, or children who have severe ADHD, where there are times where it can play a role and be really helpful, but you just have to be careful with it. You can't just pop it. It doesn't. You're actually not supposed to take it right before you go to bed. Right,
Gerald Reid 1:14:15
supposed to take it much earlier. Yeah, it
Johanna Fierman Snyder 1:14:17
has to like go into your system. So taking it right before you go to bed is not actually going to help you get a better sleep. Seems like
Gerald Reid 1:14:23
it would make sense, but it doesn't when you do that. Yeah, and then lastly, somewhat related, like THC gummies and marijuana gummies, right? That's not good for your quality of sleep. Correct. From what I understand, correct. So not good. Think it's going to knock you up. Like the quality sleep's not going to be similar
Johanna Fierman Snyder 1:14:37
with alcohol, where you might like have a drink and or two and feel like oh I'm gonna like I'm gonna pass out and go to sleep. You often wake later in the night. You're not getting the restorative sleep that your body that your body needs. So yes, substances might help you fall asleep, but they don't allow you to get the the restorative sleep.
Abby Fierman 1:14:55
And from the medical side, also then you're getting up. You need to go to the bathroom. You know, go to the middle of the night. Then maybe you're a little bit tipsy. Maybe you trip. Maybe you fall. Like there's so many. It's a you know a cast spiral there that can what you think is that quick pill, that quick fix. Like most things in life, there are no such things as a quick fix.
Alexis Reid 1:15:16
So for our last question, we're going to share how people can get in touch with you and some of the work you're doing on the website and also through social media. But what are some things that you're hopeful for in the future, moving forward in the work that you're doing?
Johanna Fierman Snyder 1:15:31
I I mean I hope this answers for both of us. But education is, and I don't just say that because I'm a teacher, but education is we we want to provide the education for people so they have the the information and they have feel supported and that they feel like we are people that they can come to for that education and for that support so they can feel better. I have families tell me all the time like you saved my marriage. You saved like because their child wasn't sleeping. Like I didn't expect to go into that business doing that. That was not my goal. But providing the education to support families in a way that really impacts the whole the whole family.
Abby Fierman 1:16:07
Yeah, I think my sister hit the nail on the head. I come from a family of educators, and I am the one medical provider. And I went into it because I really love sort of the medicine and science, but the majority of what I do is education. I educate people constantly, whether I am seeing them in my medical practice, when I'm seeing them in the hospital and taking care of them, there's so much that is education. I actually had a young adolescent a few weeks ago say to me, you know, my boyfriend tried to tell me that birth control was bad, and I pulled up your website and I said, let's look at somebody who actually has an education and a background and knows what they're talking about, and show you why it's not bad for me. And I loved that I was a resource for her to share and explain why. But that she and she had a tool, and I think that we do. There's there's unfortunately so many so many voices coming at these kids, and there's a lot on social media that is trying to scare them or put in fear, or maybe people who even think that they're doing well, but they don't have the background and the knowledge. And so, I want our kids to be educated by people who are educated and evidence-based medicine of why we're doing what we're doing. And then I-the other thing is that I want kids, families, adolescents to feel safe, and I want them to feel that they have trusted people that they can talk to, so that they are safe. We're so grateful for both of you and all that you do, and for joining us here today. Thanks. Thank you for having us. We are eternally grateful to have both of you in our lives and with our children,
Gerald Reid 1:17:41
thank you, siblings.
Alexis Reid 1:17:43
The dream team.
Thanks for tuning in to the Reid Connect-ED podcast. Please remember that this is a podcast intended to educate and share ideas, but it is not a substitute for professional care that may be beneficial to you at different points of your life. If you are needed support, please contact your primary care physician, local hospital, educational institution, or support staff at your place of employment to seek out referrals for what may be most helpful for you. ideas shared here have been shaped by many years of training, incredible mentors research theory, evidence based practices and our work with individuals over the years, but it's not intended to represent the opinions of those we work with or who we are affiliated with. The reconnected podcast is hosted by siblings Alexis Reid and Dr. Gerald Reid. Original music is written and recorded by Gerald Reid (www.Jerapy.com) recording was done by Cyber Sound Studios. If you want to follow along on this journey with us the Reid Connect-ED podcast. we'll be releasing new episodes every two weeks each season so please subscribe for updates and notifications. Feel free to also follow us on Instagram @ReidConnectEdPodcast that's @ReidconnectEdPodcast and Twitter @ReidconnectEd. We are grateful for you joining us and look forward to future episodes. In the meanwhile be curious, be open, and be well.
S8 E9: Sleep & Sexual Health: Preparing Adolescents for College
In this conversation, we discuss the nuances and specifics of how to speak with your children about sexual and sleep health prior to their adjustment to college. These can feel like difficult conversations but we are here to help you figure out how to initiate and maintain dialogue about such important topics that are often overlooked and/or misunderstood. We are joined by Abby Fierman, MSN RN, founder of The Bare Facts, who is a Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner and Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner with over 20 years of experience in sexual health. Johanna Fierman Snyder, M.A. is a certified child sleep consultant and former educator with 15 years of classroom experience, including as a first- and fourth-grade teacher and learning specialist in New York City.
Summary:
Foundations of sexual and sleep health
Challenges of having sensitive conversations
Starting and maintaining open dialogue
Situations and expectations to address
Debunking certain myths
Be curious. Be Open. Be well.
The Reid Connect-Ed Podcast is hosted by Siblings, educational therapist, Alexis Reid, M.A. and licensed psychologist, Dr. Gerald Reid, produced by CyberSound Recording Studios, and original music is written and recorded by www.Jerapy.com
*Please note that different practitioners may have different opinions- this is our perspective and is intended to educate you on what may be possible.
