LEWISTON – Parents, educators and teens gathered Thursday night to talk about how teen sex education can be more successful.

"They had the opportunity to interact with high school students from Lewiston, an opportunity to ask those students about their dating relationships and how to have that conversation with kids about dating, about relationships and about the talk about sex," said Pat Stewart, with the Idaho Department of Education.

Students from Straight Forward, a Youth Group in South Dakota, came to help teach others how to have more of these conversations.

"Parent's need to be communicating with their teens,” said Dirk Tedmon, of Straight Forward. “If you look at the youth risk behaviors survey and things like that, teenage sex is on the rise and we want to change that."

And parents said they learned a lot from the straight talking teens

“The teens were actually amazingly open with all of us parents, which was great,” said one mom. “But one thing that I did learn was...50 percent of teenage girls think that having oral sex is less intimate than actually having sexual intercourse."

The state PTA and Dept. of Education organized the sessions Thursday night and Friday and were on hand to support better communication between parents and their children.

"A lot of times we feel like we know a lot, but when we're educated by the kids who are actually living it, it makes a big difference in how we can communicate with our own children," said Amber Seipert, VP of Programs for the Idaho PTA.