Parents Forced To Have Sex Conversation With Their Children Early Thanks To Internet - But Is That A Bad Thing?

Parents are increasingly worried about the internet opening up to their children an adult world they're too young and innocent to deal with.

Their fears have been heard after a survey found that parents have had to have 'the conversation' about sex and the facts of life earlier than they wished because of things their children have seen on the internet.

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The parents of 70 per cent of British children admitted to having a conversation with their children about sex, puberty and pornography by the age of 11.

We might want to preserve their youth, but by the age of 11 shouldn't we have already had the birds and the bees conversation? After all, the youngest dad in the UK was just 12 years old when his child was born.

And it's worth remembering that compared to previous generations, we are more open with our children these days and better able to have this sort of conversation at an earlier age, when it might have been swept under the carpet due to embarrassment a few decades ago.

The research by AVG Technologies found that parents most dread discussing pornography and on average believe their children need the conversation about five years before they did.

Parents blame social media and apps, with many admitting it's difficult to keep up with what their child is seeing or reading online.

But the blame shouldn't just be laid at the feet of the internet. There's a wide set of cultural reasons that our are becoming aware of and interested in sex at a younger and younger age.

Senior researcher Dr Leslie Haddon from the LSE, who studies how children use the internet has suggested that this 'loss of innocence' has actually been going on for decades, with sexualised images increasingly part of the mainstream, on TV and in magazines and newspapers. It's not a new phenomenon created by smartphones and Facebook.

"You wouldn't say that all these things are attributable to the internet, but in that particular case nowadays you can come across more things," he said.

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While there's undoubtedly plenty on the internet that children should not be seeing (and probably would not want to see), parents may need to accept that their responsibility to explain the facts of life to their children is earlier then they might have thought.

Biologically, children are developing faster than ever, and it's vital we give them the tools to make informed decisions about their changing bodies and feelings as soon as it's appropriate. Otherwise there will be more 12-year-old mums and dads struggling through their teen years as parents.

And the research will certainly make mums and dads feel better than it's not just their children asking the awkward questions.