Dating after children is notoriously hard and it can be difficult to know whether or not to mention your kids once you do go on that all important date.

Relationships on Female First

Relationships on Female First

But shockingly, a third of men say that talking about their children on a first date works as a great ice-breaker and makes conversation flow easier.

Women find it more difficult to date after children with almost a quarter of them saying they haven’t been on a date before joining DatingforParents.com, dating site for parents who carried out the survey.

The hardest part of dating when having children for a third of women was having to introduce their children to a new partner.

For men, the hardest thing was flexibility with this affecting 40 per cent of them and a further 20 per cent said that their biggest concern would be where they could have sex.

When it came to how you would introduce your new partner to your children, 42 per cent of women said they would have to be sure that the relationship would last first.

Men were more tactical and 37 per cent of them said that they would introduce their partner as a friend first until it became more serious.

The main differences came when asked about their sex life. Male parents said that being a parent made them use protection whereas as women said it made them extremely fussy.

Both men and women agreed on the advice they would give to single parents when dating. Forty per cent said they would advise being fully honest and 25 per cent said it’s important to be yourself.

Sean Wood of Cupid plc, who own DatingforParents.com, said, “It’s quite clear that mums and dads have quite different attitudes to dating in many cases still, but what is clear though is that both sexes think it’s important to be upfront straight away.

“Dating for Parents obviously removes the worry that many parents have about bringing up the fact that they have kids, and it’s great that so many find that their children make a great conversation point.”