Kerre Woodham: Answer kids' sex questions, but spare them the details

Some parents are perfectly capable of discussing these matters and some are completely hopeless. Photo / Thinkstock

Teachers have been in the gun this week for giving what kids would say is too much information in sex education classes.

Some parents are furious that their 12-year-olds have been discussing all the different sorts of sex you can have without risking pregnancy - and that their kids have been asked to shut their eyes and imagine a world where everyone is gay.

I don't envy teachers their job and some will be better than others at imparting information in a matter-of-fact, common-sense way.

When my daughter was at intermediate school, I remember a young male teacher telling me that in his sex ed class he'd written all sorts of relevant words on the whiteboard and told the class to shout them out, have a good laugh and then they'd get on with the lesson. The kids, all offspring of liberal parents, looked at him blankly and eventually one boy raised his hand. "Uh, Mr B," he said, "There's a u in menstruation."

Some young ones have the benefit of parents who are perfectly capable of discussing these matters, other kids can't bear the thought of their parents talking to them about sex and some parents are completely hopeless and in a state of denial.

It's best that this information is imparted at school in a dispassionate way. Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to puberty and sex.

Hillary Clinton had good advice - she said always answer the question, but don't tell them everything they'll need to know for life. Mind you, her husband is probably responsible for millions of children the world over learning about oral sex.

A friend and her daughter were listening to the news in the car at the time of Clinton's impeachment trial and the 10-year-old asked her mum what oral sex was.

My friend was seized with horror at the thought of explaining that to her child, but she was saved when the young one followed up with: "Is it talking dirty?" Yes, said her grateful mum, knowing she'd dodged a bullet.

At my Catholic boarding school I found out about sex thanks to Judith Krantz novels - remember Princess Daisy? Phwoar! She was a scorcher. If I hadn't smuggled those in to read, I'd have been lost.

Mind you, I was a slow learner. At the sixth-form social, I told a boy his car keys were sticking into me. He said he hadn't driven. Took me years to recover from that.