MOST OF US don't have much of a Secret Past to worry about. Okay, perhaps there was a boy or girlfriend you lived with until you met Mr or Ms Right; perhaps you smoked a joint, even if you didn't inhale; maybe you were the school rebel; perhaps you once came close to doing serious damage to a sibling.

There could be other, more serious matters: giving up a baby for adoption, having an abortion, having an early broken marriage.

Many, perhaps most, parents have had experiences that aren't secrets, exactly, that we're not ashamed of but that we wouldn't share with the whole world. Should we share them with our children?

It's a question that occurs to us as children enter the teenage years, become curious about the big issues, start serious discussions about the meaning of life. Is it wise to draw on our own experiences, to reveal a little more of ourselves than we would have when they were very young? Can they learn anything from our experience? Is it hypocritical to conceal certain facts about our lives or common sense?

The short answer seems to be: if in doubt, don't share - or at least proceed with caution. (Part of that caution should be to ask yourself if you want your child's friends and their parents to know; a secret shared, even with your own child, is frequently a secret broadcast.)

The boundary between what it's okay to reveal and what might worry and upset a child is a little blurry, but a boundary there definitely should be. So says Marie Murray, a senior clinical psychologist working with adolescents in Dublin.

Parents, she says, are sometimes surprised at how shocked and censorious teenagers can be about even small revelations - a night you drank too much, anything to do with sex. But there are good reasons for this. Young children, up to the ages of eight, nine or 10, idealise their parents. As they get older, they will certainly realise you have feet of clay but they still need someone recognisable as a parent to rebel against.

"Clinically, one of the most important guidelines for parents is to establish clear boundaries, by dress and behaviour, that say `I'm a parent, an adult, you're a young person," Murray explains. "If you dress, speak, behave the way they do, teenagers can't establish their own identity."

Talking about sex and sexuality, you tread a very thin line: children, teenagers in particular, do not want to think of their parents as sexual beings. Says Murray: "Young people love to hear romantic tales about their parents, how parents met, and fell in love. What they hate is to have their parents' sexuality obvious to them. Adolescents prefer to believe their parents to be sexually dormant, so that they themselves can cope with the intensity of new feelings they may be encountering.

Think of AbFab's Edwina if you want a picture of what not to do: if parents behave like teenagers, teenagers may feel obliged - like Saffy - to behave like stern, old fashioned parents.

SEX ISN'T the only no go area. As a general principle, it's probably best to assume that children only want to, hear the expurgated, sanitised version of your life story, if they want to hear it at all.

If you feel the urge to reveal all, ask yourself why. The guiding principle should he that whatever you tell your children should be for their benefit not because you want comfort and understanding.

Kids love to hear "simple stories" about their parents' childhoods, perhaps tales told by a grandparent. "Revealing some vulnerabilities, mistakes, is important to allowing our human side to emerge. But too much information can be disturbing to young people who need clear and unambiguous messages about behaviour," Murray says.

"More personal stories are ones I think we need to be careful about. If young teenagers is having serious problems of discipline at school, telling them that you were a rebel might convey the message that it is really okay for them to do likewise as well as the dangerous notion that you can behave in these ways and everything will turn out okay'. That might not happen for your children."

Then there is the issue of drugs. "Many parents of teenagers today were teenagers or children of the 1960s, when drugs were first freely available and when they were part of a cultural move towards establishing a particular youth identity. Some parents may have tried them and got away with them.

"But recounting this information to young people is not, in my view, useful - for two reasons: first, young people seek a role model in their parents and a guide to behaviour - and hate to see it dismantled because it leaves them uncertain about what is safe and what is not; second, telling children about you and drugs conveys implicit permission to try and `get away with it'.

"It may not happen that they learn the lesson on a first trial. Look at the tragic deaths on the first occasion that a young person tried ecstasy."

Sometimes, it's impossible for parents to be the solid, safe authority figures that children want them to be: when a marriage breaks down, for example, children are confronted with the unwelcome idea that parents halve lives of their own. However, Murray adds, "adolescents are struggling with their own new sexual identity and they do not need a parent suddenly presenting new partners".

Is there ever a right time to reveal more of yourself, ever a time when they want to hear? "If there is," Murray says, `it's when your children have reached safe adulthood, and often when they have children of their own and begin to understand what parenting is about."

"IN MY TEACHING career, I have relied enormously on parental involvement in planning my work and in giving the best education I could to the children," says Sean Delaney, who has been teaching at the Kilkenny School Project since 1988.

"I have see a lot about partnership in education recently, but the more political aspect of parental involvement is usually stressed," he says. Parents can get involved in their children's education in a more practical way too: helping out on school tours or with school plays, for example, is partnership at class level."

However, Fionnuala Kilfeather, national coordinator of the National Parents' Council (Primary), says it is important to distinguish between "helping out" and genuine partnership. "True partnership means planning together," she says. "It means working together on issues like discipline and homework and sharing information on what the children will be learning over the course of the year.

"At class level, it is not just a question of parents coming into help out at the request of the teacher. It is about creating projects together, evaluating the project afterwards and planning for future activities.

"Partnership is about seeing the role of the parent and the teacher as equal, but different, and respecting the contribution everyone has to make."

Delaney agrees that if partnership is to be effective, parents and teachers have to work as a team. "Partnership at class level can take many forms, but any initiative has to be mutually agreed upon. At our school, parents often make suggestions which we work on together.

One initiative we have just set up is a prereading scheme, which evolved from parents enquiring about how to help their children become good readers. We have a hot lunch at the school, initiated by parents, and at the moment we are revising our school plan in English together.

"But you can't impose partnership. We don't have a history of this type of involvement and it can be daunting for teachers. Crucial to the whole thing is a relationship built on trust. Simple things, like praising the teacher or sending in articles on a subject the children are learning about, foster mutual respect."

According to Kilfeather, bringing parents into the classroom demands a lot of advance planning. "Experience in the United States shows that where parents work in the classroom - say, helping out with reading - children get a clear message: their parents are valued and there is respect for the teacher. Working together at this level gives teachers more time, helps parents develop confidence in their skills and ultimately contributes to the quality of the children's education.

"However, you can't jump straight in. If parents are coming into the classroom, teachers have to be very comfortable. The teachers' standards of discipline would have to be respected, for example, and parents would need an understanding of the nature of working with children, which can be very unpredictable. Confidentiality and discretion are also essential."

At the Kilkenny School Project, parents and teachers put together a booklet of ideas for parents to share skills, information and their time. "Even something simple like getting four year olds ready to go out to play in winter can be very time consuming. If a parent could come in and help put on coats, hats gloves and scarves, this would give the teacher that extra bit of time to teach the children," Delaney says.

The booklet includes guidelines for working in the classroom, dealing with appropriate behaviour, recognising the authority of the teacher, being tactful, understanding and patient, and having a sense of humour.

"The school as a community is richer when everybody gives a little bit more of their time and energy,"

Delaney says. "Parents get to see what is happening on a daily basis and the children tend to be more motivated when they see them taking such an interest."