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Dear Editor,

I am a mother of a 12 year old and a 10 year old and both know the basics of sex education.

I feel that in this day and age more children seem to be developing earlier and need to know the basic sex education to alleviate natural fears of their body changes. Also I think that given the information earlier may help to reduce the number of under age pregnancies (it wont stop all of them there will always be the inquisitive ones).

The moral side of the equation should be down to the parents but not all parents are able to communicate with their children well enough to put the issue cross. When teaching them they must be taught the dangers of std's of course and also the American idea of the computerised baby dolls which the children have to take care of are a good idea in preventing pre-adult parenting. I dont mean BABY ANABELLE types but the full on screaming, teething, pooing, grumpy real life dolls. Perhaps a proper supervised 'course' set in age groups and discussing basics including morals and responsibilities at early age through to std's, values, self respect and contraception at year 6/7 (10/11/12 years)should be organised like a youth group, we have a community centre but it is little used for this sort of thing.

I'm sure that for the older ones, health officials could be invited to talk, they are not all straight laced and boring and are geared to educate. And I know from experience that by the time they get to secondary school most of them know already from other children, television, advertising and other sources.

I think what we actually need is education in stages, to reflect the childrens own physical developments. They are taught PSHE (religion, social awareness and how to behave - anti bullying, anti racism)at Primary schools, so they are already being taught family, religious and social values.

It is a very complex subject and yes a lot of the onus should be on the parents, but an earlier education is beneficial.

Jamesem