This is a topic of growing disagreement in my household. Up to now, DD8 has been given just enough information to satisfy some general curiosity, but any time her questions get too specific, we cut her off with, "You're not ready to learn that yet, we'll talk about it when you're older." Basically, anything that has to do with the mechanics of copulation, rape, diseases, etc., runs into this boundary. DD has learned to accept this response, since we have shared information with her at later dates on other topics, and gave her reasonable explanations about why she wasn't ready to learn it before, so she trusts our judgement.
But I've always felt like whenever the timing was to begin "the talk," it needed to be when we could get in front of the problem. She's entering 4th grade, and I remember receiving sex ed in school in 5th... they may have moved it earlier. Also, girls are hitting puberty at earlier and earlier ages, and I feel like DD should know what's going on before she has her first menses, so I asked DW when she had hers.
Nine!
Okay, so by my count, it's time to start sharing information. DW is NOT convinced.
