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Should teens have sex education in schools? Absolutely. While part of me would like to say that it's the responsibility of the parents, it isn't - not fully. Many parents aren't equipped to discuss the scientific side of sex and its consequences with their children, or to talk to them in any detail about what's happening inside their bodies that has suddenly made sex an issue. Where parental responsibility lies is in keeping the channels of communication open with their children, keeping a finger on the pulse of their children's lives, and doing everything they can to encourage their children to talk to them every day about their thoughts, feelings and experiences.

The teenage years (and the several years leading up to them) are no walk in the park, for either the teenager involved or their parents. For the teenager, their body is changing and growing at an alarming pace and in a myriad of ways, some of them baffling or nerve-wracking. They are under more stress, both academically and socially, than ever before, and often want to see themselves as adults, capable of running their own lives. Add in the factor of what the "cool kids" are doing, or supposedly doing, and sex becomes a temptation on a variety of levels: to fit in, to feel like an adult, to show a significant other how important a relationship is to them, to rebel against their parents - the list goes on.

For the parent, they often spend their children's teenage years sitting back in wide-eyed, slack-jawed shock, wondering what happened to their darling, sweet-natured child. Little Janey becomes a sulking, crying, screaming whirling dervish of out-of-control emotion overnight who seems to want to spend most of her time on the phone or as far away from the house as possible, and Little Jimmy becomes a sulking, brooding shut-in who says barely two words a day and seems to grow out of his clothes every other week.

Between the confusion of the teenager about what they're going through, and their desire to fit in and be "cool" - the definition of which usually doesn't include conversing with Mom and Dad - and the confusion of the parents about the dramatic changes in their children's behavior, it can be difficult to sit down and have any kind of conversation, let alone one about as serious a subject as sex.

This is where school comes in. It's an environment that teenagers are used to, whether or not they like it, and one with authority figures against whom most teenagers will not rebel because they know what

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