My kids got their sex education at home, from me, very early on. It started when my nearly three year old wanted to know how the new baby got into Mummy's tummy so I explained it to him. The rest of it came naturally over the next few years, particularly since we lived in a flat and they would play out on the local green with their friends. T make sure that they were aware of the need to avoid strangers I explained what a paedophile was and what he might do to my son or daughter. By the time they were ten both kids were well aware of the sexual side of life. Both abstained from sexual activity until they were in their late teens, my daughter telling me off when I mentioned birth control when she, as a sixteen year old, had her first steady boyfriend. SHE told ME that she did not consider that she was old enough for sex and would wait until she was 18.

Conversely, my mother found it too embarrassing to even give me full information on menstruation, which left me in for a nice surprise. I picked up some sexual info from the kids at school, but not enough to really help, was sexually active at 13 and pregnant at 17.

Now, I can only speak from my own experience, but I do think that children need their parents to BE parents and to take on those responsibilities rather than leaving them to schools. I also think that a loving home will give more protection to a child from the sexual mores of the day than will any half baked theory of when or if a child should be taught about sex in schools.

Unfortunately there is no test to be passed before we are allowed to become parents and so you will always have children being born into feckless or self-centered families who have no real idea of how, or no inclination, to make sure that their children are safe.

I agree that big business has played a part in the sexualisation of young children. Parents have also allowed that to happen. They generally hold the purse strings and if they refused to buy the crap that is pushed at children the manufacturers would stop making it. That goes back to how far parents are prepared to BE parents, rather than this 'chum' to their children, or who just let the kids have what they want to keep the peace. Peer pressure is there - kids feel left out if they don't have all the fashionable stuff that others have, but that is where parents again should be coming in and bolstering the self esteem of their children, trying to help them see that it is alright not to go along with the mass.

I can understand the sense in giving children details of places to go when the need is there. Otherwise, where do these kids get their information when they have no-one to confide in and no idea that there might be places that can help them. If that scheme had bee in place in my day maybe my life would have taken a different path. I am happy with where I am and love my kids dearly, but life was a struggle for a long time and, with help and support, might have been totally different.

Teenage mothers have always been there - mostly they were 'swept under the carpet' to avoid the scandal. Nowadays the tabloids love to play up this kind of thing as it sells papers.