Talking about sex with your children can be hard. It can feel awkward, and therefore it can be easier to just skip it altogether.

But young people tell us that they wish their parents were able to talk to them more about these topics – and to answer the questions that they have.

Young people are curious, and sex ed at school is outdated, so often they have no option but to look elsewhere, which can lead to them stumbling across misinformation in the black hole that is the internet.

At Fumble, we share sex ed content that’s written by young people for young people. Here are some of our most-asked questions – and how to go about answering them if your teen plucks up the courage to ask.

Consent is more topical than ever, and it’s something that concerns young people a lot. We often get asked: if people find it hard to say ‘no’, how can you be sure the person you’re intimate with definitely wants to be?

A clear ‘yes’ is the absolute minimum, but even if they have that, having open, frequent discussions with their partner about how they want to communicate and give consent will help them be sure they’re both happy.

Comfortable, communicative intimacy is the best, most pleasurable, and safest type for everyone involved. Encourage them to give their partner opportunities to say ‘no’ indirectly, by suggesting alternatives to sex, too.

Many young people find it hard to talk about STIs, as parents and teachers only tend to talk about safe sex, and often STIs are unnecessarily stigmatised. But the fact is, STIs are very common, and having one doesn’t mean the person has done anything wrong.

Being tested regularly for STIs is a great habit to be in, regardless of whether you are having unprotected sex.

As a general rule, everyone should get tested before each new sexual partner (ideally with their partner tested, too) and once a year. They should get tested sooner if they’ve developed symptoms or had unprotected sex.

Want to help your young person do this in practice? Help them book in at their GP, or check out online and remote sexual health check providers. Most STIs can be treated with antibiotics or managed by the person, so it’s best to know as early as possible.

It is way more common to feel guilty or blue after sex than we usually acknowledge, especially if it’s a new experience.

Sex is a physical, psychological and emotional experience with heightened intimacy and intensity. When that stops, it’s perfectly natural to feel a little sad. There are sometimes other reasons why they might be feeling down, for example, they weren’t ready for it, it wasn’t with the right person, or it wasn’t what they were expecting.

Reassure them that that’s okay. Let them know that these feelings usually pass and encourage them to talk to their partner.

Often, young people can feel awkward about telling an adult, so just being there and not judging can help. This is where having built up trust and open dialogue with your child over the longer term is really important. For tips on how to do that as a parent, head to our free masterclass.

When it comes to sex, arousal and pleasure, there is a lot of focus on the penis and erections, so it can feel like this is the only way to tell if a boy is aroused. But there are actually lots of gender-neutral signs of arousal.

These can include rising blood pressure and heart rate, breathing becoming heavier, flushed cheeks, positive sounds of enjoyment, and smiling or voicing enjoyment.

Erogenous zones are areas that feel sensitive and can create a sexual response when touched. This includes genitals, but also for both men and women can include the neck, ears, nipples and back.

Remind them that even if someone is visibly aroused, that doesn’t mean they consent to sex or sexual intimacy.

Sending nudes under the age of 18 is illegal, so lots of young people are reluctant to speak up about it at all if they’re struggling with this, as they’re worried they will get in trouble.

Let them know the law is there to protect them, and you will help them navigate this. Try not to panic (we know this can feel tricky as a parent!), and try to avoid the temptation to ask them why they shared pictures, or tell them they shouldn’t have.

Reassure them that they haven’t done anything wrong. Sharing someone’s nude photos without their consent is a form of image-based sexual abuse. It can be reported online via the CEOP, part of the UK’s national crime agency.

Organisations like Childline and The Internet Watch Foundation also provide extensive information and support on this topic.

Lucy Whitehouse is the CEO of sex-ed charity Fumble. If you’re looking for more information or an answer to a specific question, get access to all of Fumble’s resources and guides at fumble.org.uk.

Maybe you’ve already seen Emerald Fennell’s new Wuthering Heights movie in the cinema, and you’re now deep-diving into every adaption that’s ever existed.

It could be that you’re more of a “watch on the sofa” type of viewer, and want something to whet your appetite while you wait for Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi’s effort to start streaming.

Or, perhaps you’re a purist who’s boycotting the whole thing because of all the controversy surrounding the casting in the new movie.

Whatever your reason for seeking out more Wuthering Heights in your life, Emily Brontë’s classic novel has been a constant inspiration for filmmakers for almost a century now, so there’s plenty of material to choose from.

From former Bonds playing Heathcliff to modern-day reimaginings, here are seven reworkings of Wuthering Heights available to stream right now…

So iconic it’s preserved in the US Library of Congress for its cultural significance, one of the OG Wuthering Heights adaptations stars Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier as Cathy and Heathcliff.

Like Emerald Fennell’s take, this 1939 film chose to chop out the second half of the book, which is basically a whole load of Heathcliff being cruel to children, opting to go heavy on the romance instead.

If you’re after a black-and-white classic to balm your dating app fatigue, this version is the one.

Stream it on: Amazon Prime Video

Some 15 years before he became the fourth James Bond, Timothy Dalton was running round the Yorkshire moors as Heathcliff for this 1970 film adaptation of Wuthering Heights.

Playing very fast and loose with the original source material and focusing – yet again – solely on the first half of the book, this version was a box office hit.

However it was less loved by the critics, who called it “simply petulant” at the time of release. The original controversial remake, perhaps?

One of the first adaptations to fully embrace Heathcliff’s revenge arc, the BBC’s five-part TV series is the kind of prestige drama teachers would wheel out on the big telly as a treat.

With five hours’ worth of material to play with, the series was able to faithfully dive into both parts of the book and explore some of the darker subject matter as well as the romance.

Stream it on: BBC iPlayer

With a bizarre – but brilliant! – cast including Ralph Fiennes (in his debut film), Juliet Binoche and Sinéad O’Connor (acting as Emily Brontë herself), this 90s adaptation also made an effort to include both sides of the story.

Come for Juliet’s French-Yorkshire accent, stay for Ralph’s chilling depiction of Heathcliff long before he was the movie star he is now.

An early noughties MTV-produced teen romance musical television film version of Wuthering Heights, you say? Inject it straight into our veins.

This version was so damn hip it did away with Cathy and Heathcliff to make way for “Cate” and “Heath”, while replacing the Yorkshire Moors with California.

You’ll also spot Katherine Heigl playing Isabel Linton, a couple of years before her big break on Grey’s Anatomy, while Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne’s eldest daughter Aimee also makes a rare on-screen appearance.

It would be unfair to talk about Tom Hardy’s turn at playing Heathcliff without preparing you for the jump scare that is his wig collection for the two-part series.

Now that unpleasantness is out of the way, the 2009 TV adaptation of Wuthering Heights shuffled around the order of events in the books, giving more prominence to the character of Nelly, played here by Sarah Lancashire.

In a true testament to the project’s romantic themes, Tom and his co-star Charlotte Riley (who played Cathy) ended up falling in love on set, and have been married since 2014.

In stark contrast to Emerald Fennell’s take on Wuthering Heights, Andrea Arnold’s on-screen adaptation was one of the few to feature a Black actor in the role of Heathcliff, as well as a teenage Cathy, staying true to the source material, with James Howson and Skins’ Kaya Scodelario taking on the iconic literary roles.

While it didn’t do massive numbers at the box office, critics praised how it “stripped the story ruthlessly down to its bare essentials: pain, anger and love”.

Watch it on: Channel 4 and Disney+

The hit Netflix dark comedy thriller How To Get To Heaven From Belfast reunites the creator of Derry Girls, Lisa McGee, with some of the sitcom’s main stars – plus a host of familiar faces from the world of TV.

The critically-acclaimed series follows three women in their 30s, who reunite in the wake of the death of the estranged fourth member of their teenage friend group.

After a sinister discovery, the trio embarks on a quest to find out what really happened to their late friend, becoming tangled in a web of conspiracies in the process as they attempt to keep their own skeletons firmly in the closet.

How Tom Get To Heaven From Belfast is full of recognisable performers – and here is where you might have seen them before…

Roisin Gallagher plays screenwriter Saoirse in How To Get To Heaven From Belfast. Her first notable role was playing DC Emer Taylor in The Fall alongside Gillian Anderson and Jamie Dornan.

In 2022, she landed the leading role in ITV’s The Dry, where she portrayed a woman who returns home to Dublin amid her recovery from alcoholism.

The following year, Roisin appeared alongside Johnny Flynn in Sky’s romantic drama The Lovers, playing a supermarket worker with a secret past who fell in love with a well-known political journalist.

More recently, Roisin played the romantic love interest, Laura in Harlan Coben’s Netflix series Lazarus.

Sinéad Keenan, who plays Robyn in the Netflix show, is best known as DCI Jessica James in ITV’s Unforgotten.

Before that, she first found fame in Irish soap Fair City, where she played Farrah Phelan.

She later portrayed the werewolf Nina Pickering in the BBC supernatural drama Being Human alongside Russell Tovey, and has also had roles in Doctor Who, playing the captain of a Vinvocci salvage team in The End Of Time, Jimmy McGovern’s TV movie Care and the BBC’s 2021 legal drama Showtrial.

You may recognise Caoilfhionn Dunne for her playing Lizzie in the Dublin-set crime drama Love/Hate, VP Jackie Walsh in Industry, or, more recently, Anne Glover in A Thousand Blows, alongside Stephen Graham and Erin Doherty.

Caoilfhionn also appeared in one episode of the BBC sitcom Ghosts, appearing as film director Petra O’Keefe, as well as Britannia and the Star Wars spin-off Andor.

Iconic Irish actor Bronagh Gallagher is the main antagonist of How To Get To Heaven From Belfast.

Bronagh has consistently been on our screens since the 1990s and was listed at number 33 on The Irish Times’ list of Ireland’s Greatest Actors Of All Time.

She is probably best recognised from playing Sandra in the sitcom Pramface, appearing in the Sky miniseries You, Me and the Apocalypse, and most recently as Carol in comedy/drama Brassic.

She rose to fame in 1991, playing a singer in the musical drama The Commitments, which began a long and illustrious career, ranging from playing a captain in the Judicial Forces in Star Wars to starring in The Personal History of David Copperfield as Mrs. Micawber.

Her TV credits are almost as long as her filmography, ranging from Scottish crime drama The Field Of Blood to sketch comedy The Peter Serafinowicz Show.

If Josh Finan, who plays Jason in the new Netflix drama, looks familiar to you, it’s quite probably from his Bafta-nominated role as the young, vulnerable Marco in The Responder.

He later played Dixon’s assistant Jethro in Netflix’s The Gentleman, a bartender who works with Donny in Baby Reindeer and Gerry Adams in Irish historical drama Say Nothing.

Most recently, Josh has played the lead in BBC drama Waiting For The Out, which sees an educator try to teach philosophy to prisoners.

Ardal O’Hanlon is undoubtedly best known for playing Father Dougal in the iconic sitcom Father Ted, but he also played the lead, George, in the BBC comedy My Hero, which follows an alien superhero who tries to adapt to life after falling in love with a human.

More recently, Ardal appeared in Death In Paradise between 2017 and 2020.

A mainstay of British and Irish TV for the last three decades, Ardal also played a cat person in the Doctor Who episode Gridlock, a politics teacher in the third season of Skins and Mary and Sarah’s cousin Eamon in How To Get To Heaven From Belfast creator Lisa McGee’s other hit series Derry Girls.

The Irish actor continues his run of playing bad boys with his role in How To Get To Heaven From Belfast.

Emmett found fame playing Brendan Brady in Hollyoaks between 2011 and 2013, and has had a prolific TV career since leaving the soap, often playing villains.

He later had a recurring role in police drama The Fall, as D.C. Glenn Martin, before appearing in BBC supernatural drama In The Flesh, Harlan Coben’s Safe and five episodes of Peaky Blinders between 2017 and 2019.

Michelle Fairley will already be known to Game Of Thrones fans for playing Catelyn Stark in the fantasy series, although she had a long career in both film and TV before joining Westeros.

Since appearing as the mother to the Stark children in the fantasy show, Michelle has appeared in Suits, 24: Live Another Day and The White Princess, in which she starred as Henry VII’s mother Margaret Beaufort.

More recently, she played a terrifying matriarch in Gangs Of London, Princess Augusta in Bridgerton prequel Queen Charlotte and Mrs Wilson in the 2024 Cillian Murphy film, Small Things Like These.

Natasha O’Keeffe is best known for her role as Lizzie Shelby in Peaky Blinders.

However, her first TV role came years earlier, in 2010, when she played Abby in the BBC drama Lip Service. Following this, she joined the cast of Misfits, playing Abby in seasons four and five.

Her other TV credits include The Abominable Snowman, Strike and the fantasy series The Wheel Of Time.

Saoirse-Monica Jackson has teamed back up with her former Derry Girls collaborator to appear in a small but memorable role in How To Get To Heaven From Belfast.

She played the always-opinionated Erin Quinn in all 19 episodes of Derry Girls, and has since gone on to join the cast of the BBC crime drama The City Is Ours, as well as appearing in the TV film The Trial, where she played a crime investigator.

On the big screen, she appeared in the American coming-of-age romantic comedy Finding You, before having a blink-and-you-miss-it role as Barry’s housemate in the critically-panned DCU project The Flash.

Darragh is best known for playing the geeky Michael Holden in the Netflix teen show Heartstopper, but fans of the Netflix teen drama will no doubt find him recognisable in How To Get To Heaven From Belfast as he sports a very different look.

His other TV credits include minor appearances in Grace and Silent Witness.

Emma Canning – who plays the young Greta in flashback scenes in How To Get To Heaven From Belfast – is definitely a star on the rise, with an already-impressive resume.

Most recently, she starred alongside Paul Mescal in Josh O’Connor in The History Of Sound, but she also played a young Domina in Britannia, before going on to join Apple TV+’s star-studded Masters Of The Air.

She also appeared in Irish historical drama Say Nothing and recently appeared in Dune: Prophecy as a Young Tula.

Watch all episodes of How To Get To Heaven From Belfast on Netflix now

If there’s one thing we know about Gen Alpha, it’s that they low-key delight in coining a new word (or five) and the odd nonsensical phrase.

Take six-seven for example. It became a global phenomenon in 2025 thanks to social media, but it didn’t ever really mean anything. Or, at least, nobody could agree on a meaning.

Some said it meant “so-so” (as kids used it with an up-and-down hand motion), others thought it meant a tall person, or a basketball term.

In the end it just became a response that kids made at every opportunity – especially if someone (a teacher, parent, classmate) happened to mention those two numbers in a different context.

A teacher could say “turn to page 67 in your books”, for example, and the classroom would erupt into “six-sevennnnnn”.

This disruption ultimately led to the phrase being banned in some classrooms.

Thankfully the bizarre phrase seems to have fizzled out, but teachers and parents are noticing that “lowkenuinely” has entered the chat instead.

Lowkenuinely is a combination of ‘lowkey’ and ‘genuinely’, which describes expressing something sincere in a casual, laid-back way, according to experts at language platform Preply.

Essentially, it is a TikTok-era way of saying something is real or heartfelt. So, an example might be: “I lowkenuinely love this song” or “I’m lowkenuinely not going to make it through this exam”.

Kids of the internet clearly love a portmanteau (that is, blending two words together to create a new one).

Choppelganger is another recent creation hot off their keyboards, combining ‘chopped’, typically used by teens to describe someone as ugly; and ‘doppelganger’, which is a person who resembles someone else.

A choppelganger, then, is an uglier version of a doppelganger. One parent noted their kids had referred to them as “Uncle Fester’s Choppelganger”. Harsh.

There’s also been chat, clock it and glazing, as well as aura farming and crash out. Honestly, they’ve been busy.

According to the leading mental health charity Mind, 1 in 5 people report experiencing a common mental health problem (like anxiety and depression) in any given week in England.

Additionally, the overall number of people reporting mental health problems has been rising in recent years. The number of people with common mental health problems went up by 45% between 1993 and 2023/24, in both men and women and suicide risk is at its highest for people in their 50′s.

Now, a new review by psycholologists from James Cook University has revealed that some exercises can be beneficial in tackling common mental health issues and the symptoms that come with them.

Writing for The Conversation, the researchers said: “Exercise is effective at reducing both depression and anxiety. But there is some nuance. We found exercising had a high impact on depression symptoms, and a medium impact on anxiety, compared to staying inactive.

“The benefits were comparable to, and in some cases better than, more widely prescribed mental health treatments, including therapy and antidepressants. Importantly, we discovered who exercise helped most. Two groups showed the most improvement: adults aged 18 to 30 and women who had recently given birth.”

The researchers urge that all forms of exercise reduce symptoms but the most beneficial exercises for both anxiety and depression were aerobic exercises such as running, cycling or swimming.

“For depression, there were greater improvements when people exercised with others and were guided by a professional, such as a group fitness class.”

If exercise isn’t usually your kind of thing, the researchers assure that exercising once or twice a week had a similar effect on depression as exercising more frequently. And there didn’t seem to be a significant difference between exercising vigorously or at a low intensity – all were beneficial.

They add: “For people who are hesitant about medication, or facing long waits for therapy, supervised group exercise may be an effective alternative. It’s evidence-based, and you can start any time.”

• Mind, open Monday to Friday, 9am-6pm on 0300 123 3393.
• Samaritans offers a listening service which is open 24 hours a day, on 116 123 (UK and ROI – this number is FREE to call and will not appear on your phone bill).
• CALM (the Campaign Against Living Miserably) offer a helpline open 5pm-midnight, 365 days a year, on 0800 58 58 58, and a webchat service.
• The Mix is a free support service for people under 25. Call 0808 808 4994 or email help@themix.org.uk
• Rethink Mental Illness offers practical help through its advice line which can be reached on 0808 801 0525 (Monday to Friday 10am-4pm). More info can be found on rethink.org.