In this day and age, where sex and new media go hand in hand, teenagers are facing more sexual challenges than ever before.

Between pornography, the sexualisation of mass media and access to technology and social media, sex is omnipresent. And if we want to protect children from distorted, unbalanced and unrealistic information, parents and teachers need to start talking about it more openly.

But don’t worry: talking to young people about sex doesn’t mean they’re going to do it more. Well-informed children start exploring sexual behaviour at a later age and enjoy it more than children who have received little information about it.

In the Netherlands, many sex education programmes use cartoons and humour to educate children as young as 10, and the results are astounding. The Netherlands has a much lower teen pregnancy rate than the UK, sexually transmitted infections are less common and young people are expressing more sexual satisfaction.

If this makes you cringe because you don’t think that children should be having sex in the first place, I’ve got some sad news for you: they’re doing it anyway. The UK has the worst teenage pregnancy record in western Europe and sexually transmitted infections are on the rise.

And with sex knocking on every digital door, we need to make sure that our children know which doors are safe to open. Let me introduce you to sexual education 2.0…

Sexual education 2.0

Teachers have a responsibility to deliver the facts and to address what children are already learning from the media, celebrities, film and pornography. Drawing attention to people in the public eye who approach the discourse of sex in a positive and informed manner is a good way to make sure that students are taking in some solid information without you having to spoonfeed it to them.

But sex and relationships education is, above all, a task for parents.

Schools need to make parents aware of the importance of maintaining healthy sexual boundaries with their children. While I am not suggesting that parents should have tell-all discussions with children about their own sex lives, opening up the floor to an honest and non-shameful conversation means that children will be more likely to go to their parents if anything gets too much for them.

By creating this safe space to discuss sex, parents are not inviting children to ask for oral sex tips − and trust me, they won’t − but ensuring that when children really need the big questions answered, questions that may be too sensitive for teachers to address, the person they come to will be Mum or Dad.

When we open up the discussion, we arm children with the emotional intelligence and confidence to be sexually empowered; to say “no” when they don’t want to do it, and to be careful and confident when they do. We teach them not to enter into sex too lightly but also to find pleasure in this wonderful act of self-discovery and start to build healthy sexual attitudes and practices that they can take with them right into adulthood.

We have the power to empower them - we just need to start talking.

Goedele Liekens is a clinical psychologist and sexologist, an author and broadcaster, and a UN goodwill ambassador. In 2015, she presented Sex In Class on Channel 4