im sure in your day things were alot calmer and more secluded

How do you mean Kronas?

you see from older people i generally get 'in my day we all used to work at your age down the coal mines bleh bleh' things have changed maybe for the worse or better but its down to the parents to take control of there kids.........

oi I'm only 26 :D

It's the people of my generation +10 years or so who are screwing things up.
It's as if they want everything handed to them.

Be a parent? That's far too much hard work, the goverment should do that!

I'm 33 and things have changed.;) Yes its down to the parents. If I had children I could say but I don't so I won't.;)

sorry i did not mean to quote you it was a general comment about the maturer folk around :)

No Worries:) I agree with your earlier points though.:)

I think 5 years old is far too young for kids to start learning about sex. Little kids don't need to know that kind of stuff at such an early age. At 5 they should be playing & having fun not learning about adult stuff. Kids have sex far too young these days anyway so if schools are going to start sex education, I think it should be during the 1st or 2nd year of secondary school when kids are 11/12 years old

Hmm!
I'm a parent.
I'm also a teacher.
I see what happens when parents DON'T talk to their children about sex at any age.This is possibly why we have the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe although religion and culture may also play a large part in the differences between countries.

DON'T leave it to school, teach your children about this yourself.

Children are maturing much earlier than they were in my day.I began my cycle when I was 12 and I was unusual.Now it is much more common for girls to begin puberty much earlier than my generation did.They need to be forwarned of all and every consequence.

I had another baby when my eldest was 5.I began to talk to her about where babies came from when she asked why I was getting fat(ter).I had to keep it simple so I got Clare Raynors book for young children with lots of pictures.Children will ask simple questions at this age and expect simple answers.They don't need long words so use the ones they understand.

I do not as a parent and as a teacher subscribe to the 'keep them ignorant and teenage pregnancies will go down in number' as this never worked BEFORE sex education was provided in schools.
I know no parent likes to contemplate the thought that their child will one day become sexually active.However the day will come when they are.Better that you have protected,warned,advised and helped them rather than leaving it to 'experts'.There is only one set of experts when it comes to your children and that is you as parent/s.

Incog.
:)

What?!

I think you should read Incognitas' post above mine for some very useful advice. We knew enough about sex to do it by the time we were 11/12, but not enough to avoid getting in trouble.

Sex education needs to be started way, way before that age. It needs to be started before the rumours start flying round school. And it should be the parents that do it.

Sorry Towny, you're right, parents should be the ones who tell kids about sex, but not all of them do. (u can tell I don't have kids)

the thing is parents dont tell there kids about it parents are usally busy with work or have a reliance on the schools to teach them everything they also tend to brush aside questions when asked due to the sheer embarrassment.....

I agree entirely, parents need to take a lot more responsibility for their children, but these days pressures from work are such that they don't always have time even if they *can* be bothered to take an interest :(

Yes, but I'm sure I don't need to point out that this is a very modern phenomenon. For the vast majority of history "childhood" as a concept has not existed. Children didn't spend 16 years at school, they were working on the farms or in the factories or wherever and there were attempts to "protect" them from all that nasty stuff out there in the Real World (tm).

I once saw a documentary where a group of Dutch kids (a country with one of the *lowest* rates of teen pregnancies) were shown UK "Sex education" material and they were laughing their socks off at how coy and useless it was. Dutch children get told the *truth* and from an age *before* they will actually need the information, not some years after.

Would that we could be so sensible :(

This is from post #1. Now if you ignore the 'experts' bit (and maybe the words sex education), I think it may not entail much more than telling kids where babies come from. There surely is no mention of 'waer a rubber kids, or you'll get aids'.

What's wrong with telling kids where babies come from. When I was a kid (I'm 37) we were talking about sha**ing (without knowing what it was) at the age of eight...

Kids these days are a little wiser. I don't think the question is should they be told at an early age, the question is: what should they be told at an early age?

I agree with you entirely, except for one word. Kids may know more at an earlier age, but they certainly aren't wiser. Wisdom comes with age and experience. The illusion of wisdom just causes trouble. The problem is, too many kids think they are wise.