When it comes to talking to children about sex, waiting until they reach puberty is waiting too long. The chats need to begin in elementary school, according to Elizabeth Schroeder, the executive director of Answer, the national organization dedicated to providing sexuality education for young people.

This approach is a principal element of Answer’s five-year strategic plan, Ms. Schroeder said in a talk last week at the organization’s annual fall fundraising breakfast. Representative Rush Holt and Senators Shirley Turner and Barbara Buono were among those attending the event at Jasna Polana. Also on hand was Princeton resident Susie Wilson, who served 23 years on the Network for Family Life, Answer’s predecessor, and is now its advisor. Answer is based in New Brunswick.

“As you’ve heard me and others doing this work say, starting sexuality education in the teen years is far too little, too late,” Ms. Schroeder said. “… early childhood sexuality education, like early childhood education, establishes the invaluable foundation on which we adults can all continue to build so that the more explicit sex education that is provided in the teen years and beyond doesn’t feel like it is coming out of left field.”

Ms. Schroeder’s talk followed a presentation by nine members of Answer’s “teen staff” about how withholding information about sex can negatively affect their lives. “I asked my parents what ‘gay’ meant, and they told me it was a sin,” said one. “We need you, the people we trust the most, to be open and honest with us,” said another.

A serious challenge faces Answer this year, according to Ms. Schroeder. “It’s about a formerly stealth, and now quite open, campaign against sexuality education in this country,” she said. “It’s about the calculated, non-stop attacks on the work we do, attacks that are right there with the attacks on women’s health and rights, that have grown stronger and more vociferous in nature over the past few years in particular. It’s about a focused, determined effort to keep young people in the dark, to justify misleading and lying to teens as keeping them ‘innocent’ about the more adult issues people face in today’s world with regard to sexuality.”

Citing the “abstinence until marriage” approach being implemented in some New Jersey public schools, Ms. Schroeder praised a local organization. “Why don’t adults in these school districts care that their children are being lied to?” she asked. “Why are we letting misinformation be provided, when we have wonderful organizations right here in New Jersey — HiTOPS being one of them — that work with schools to provide high quality sexuality education?”

Sexuality education is about more than preventing teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Young girls in particular are made to feel worthless for having sexual feelings in the first place, Ms. Schroeder said. “What is the impact of that? Research shows that the worse a person feels about her or himself, the poorer the decisions they tend to make about sexuality.”

Answer wants to shift the way parents and others throughout the country see sexuality education. “People are ignorant about sexuality education. Ignorance breeds fear; fear knows no bounds,” Ms. Schroeder said. Advocating young people’s need for age-appropriate sexuality information in schools and at home is the focus of the organization’s nationwide campaign to get across the message that sexuality is as important as any other social issue. “Does a young person stop going through puberty just because he is homeless? Does a parent living below the poverty line not need to talk with her children about sexuality?” she asked.

Answer has made progress over the past few decades, but there is much work left to be done, according to Susie Wilson, whose pioneering work at Rutgers University formed the foundation for what Answer is today. “There have been real advances. Certainly New Jersey, since we were the second state in the nation to do this, got a head start on everybody,” she said after the program. “But we still don’t treat this as a subject equal with all the other subjects in school. It’s still on the periphery, because it’s not tested. Health and sexuality education don’t ever get tested. That’s very important. I don’t think we can get parity on this until we test on it.”

Resistance to educating young children about sexuality centers around the belief that it will encourage them to have sex, Ms. Wilson believes. “But look at Penn State,” she said, referring to the recent conviction of the University’s retired football coach Jerry Sandusky on 45 counts of sexual abuse of young boys over a 15-year period. “What happened there is that these kids didn’t know [how to recognize] what was going on, because they weren’t taught it earlier.”