What about like the sex talk? Did you guys have that together with your kids or did you?

I was feeling, yeah. Yeah, and that's having that conversation with your mother,

it's probably going to be awkward for everyone,

so I'm going to have to lean on Ian for that.

Welcome to Howto, I'm Charles Dumin.

This is the second episode in our three-part series, Cheat Sheet, which is designed to help

listeners navigate this really weird back-to-school period that we're all living through. Last week, we talked about how to manage screen time

when so many students are doing remote learning.

Today, we're talking with two parents who are worried

about one particular aspect of being online.

What their teenage son is learning about sex and relationships on the internet.

This was something they were thinking about even before the pandemic started. Ian and Heather are both working parents in Ontario, Canada,

with a 10-year-old daughter and a 13-year-old son named Henry.

Henry is a great kid. He's very curious. He spends a lot of time online though, especially now,

but generally like a good kid and we really want to make sure he stays a good kid.

According to his parents, Henry does really well in school. He has a solid group of friends and he plays on the

hockey team, but lately he's started talking more with girls, which of course is totally natural for a teenage boy, but he's saying these things that seem to his parents more mature than he is. Like he talks about being stuck in the friend zone

with this girl that he likes,

or a few other things that have given them pause.

He said some things that I think he's either picked up online or in locker rooms or at school.

And the first time it happened, he, we were going for a family walk and he said, you know, mom,

like any man can have his career ruined if a woman just makes up an allegation of sexual abuse and they would lose everything and I said who, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,

...