[attach id=633281 size="medium" align="right"]Starting early will help your children feel comfortable asking you questions about sex.[/attach]

A surprisingly large number of parents would rather build a life-size model of the Millennium Falcon out of six billion Lego pieces, than get into the nitty gritty when it comes to human reproduction.

But it’s a mistake to presume that school or the internet are telling your child all they need to know about love, sex and babies, says Meg Hickling, author of The New Speaking of Sex: What Your Children Need to Know and When They Need to Know It.

Talking to kids about the facts of life from an early age is key to raising a healthy, well-adjusted adult when it comes to sex.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy. Many parents find themselves fumbling for an answer the first time they are asked why the dogs are hugging each other. But at some point the truth must come out, and if you want to be sure that it’s you letting the stork out of the bag, you need to get in early.

“Many parents are rather shocked at how early I suggest they should start talking to their kids about sex,” Hickling told Today’s Parent. “But what I also hear from parents is that they want to be first. If that’s the case, you need to start talking. Otherwise, kids will get their information and attitudes from other children and the media.”

Ideally, starting early will help your children feel comfortable asking you questions about sex. That’s important because if they don’t hear about it from you, then they are vulnerable to negative influences from their peers or the internet. The ‘facts’ they glean might be incorrect and they will certainly be delivered without the values that you might wish to communicate. You can’t rely on schools, friends and the internet to help your kids make the connection between sex and love, or to understand the issues surrounding consent and safe sex.

It’s natural for parents to feel concerned that they are somehow ‘corrupting’ their kids by talking about sex

There’s another good reason to talk early and often to your children about the facts of life. Hickling cites a UN study which found that sexual health education tends to encourage students to wait to have sex until they are older. Sex-savvy kids also have fewer partners, fewer unplanned pregnancies and fewer sexually transmitted diseases.

In Holland, children from age four to 12 are taught about sex during ‘Lentekriebels’ week. Classes include a lot of age appropriate detail and it is no coincidence that the Dutch have one of the lowest teen pregnancy rates in Europe.

Hickling advises us to forget the adage that when children are ready, they will ask about sex.

“Some children will never ask,” she explains, either because they are more interested in other pursuits or because they already perceive the taboos around sex.

She adds: “Parents always underestimate what their child ‘needs’ to know… You cannot tell a child too much. Keep the door open, be prepared to talk anytime and allow, even encourage, the child to come back to a topic over and over again.”

It’s natural for parents to feel concerned that they are somehow ‘corrupting’ their kids by talking about sex. Hickling notes: “Some people will say, ‘I don’t think that children need to know about sexuality at this age. I want them to be innocent. I want them to enjoy their childhood’.”

But she suggests that those notions come from a place of unconscious shame, a reflection of the adult’s own childhood, where sexuality information was considered to be secret, dirty, for adults only. She recommends that we think about it like a scientist, saying: “There is nothing shameful about the way that we make babies and even less shame in learning about our bodies.”

Hickling also notes that knowledge is protection. Sexual predators are less likely to pick sexually literate children who have talked openly to their parents about sex, because those children are not likely to keep quiet afterwards. Lastly, she points out that“when we teach children about conception, we are not teaching them to have sex. Intercourse is an adult activity. What we are teaching children is body science.”