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There's no right or wrong age for a child to have sex?
No. It's not age that determines a good or bad decision. It's not that parents want teens to stay abstinent for the rest of their lives. Our goal is to raise teens who know how to protect themselves and how to avoid the potential negatives, like sexually transmitted infections, unwanted pregnancies or abusive relationships. It is possible to have a healthy, love-based sexual relationship as a teen. That's not to mean 13-year-olds should go out and have sex. But I don't want us to say all teen sexuality is bad. There are 16 and 17-year olds capable of making good decisions about having sex. I for one would far rather have them have sex in the context of a monogamous, safe, loving relationship than getting drunk at a frat party because they're 21 and are a quote unquote adult. It's OK if people don't believe that, but I want parents to really ask themselves, what is our goal? Is our goal for them to never have sex in their whole entire lives, or to make sure they find a way to become sexually healthy—however we define that?

Some kids feel shy about bringing up sex. Should parents leave some good books around the house?
What a parent should do, before they just leave a book in a child's room, is read it first. Find out if there are parts that are more important to read now. Cut and paste as you see fit. Say to your child, "I want you to be able to talk to me. Why don't you read this, and we can talk about it?" The idea hopefully is that if you start young and you're talking about these things as if they're no big deal, and part of what makes us human, hopefully they're not totally freaked out by the time puberty arrives.

Some sexual education methods seem to focus on a lot of the scary aspects of sex.
If you scare your kids, they know you're not telling them the whole story. I was doing a three-week eighth-grade workshop. After the first session, we came back. I said, was there anything that surprised you? A girl raised her hand and said, "I was surprised you even spoke positively about sexuality. I thought you'd say, never have sex or you'll die." That's not what we want our kids to think. We want to protect our children, and it's OK to tell them that. But we want them to know sex is a wonderful, pleasurable part of life. There are ways to have sexual experiences that are pleasurable, without having a partner, too, but you can't scare the daylights out of them. They know it's not true. At some point, they will make a decision about sex, and you want them to come back and share with you.

A girl raised her hand and said, "I was surprised you even spoke positively about sexuality. I thought you'd say, never have sex or you'll die."

That about says it all. My school and mom used scare tactics. I was really surprised about the negativity I was hearing. It was all 'disease and pregnancy oh my'! Nobody said a single word about pleasure or enjoyment or emotional connection or stress relief & relaxation. It was all doom and gloom and "choose abstinence'.

But parents and schools are known for falling prey to sensationalism and paranoia and being heavy handed in response. Problem is, they aren't helping, they're just making things worse.