Actress Valerie Bertinelli has heaped praise on ex-husband Eddie Van Halen's parenting skills after he gave their son Wolfgang a pep talk about sex before the teenager hit the road as Van Halen's bass player.

The young musician replaced Michael Anthony in the reunited band in 2007 when he was just 16, and his rocker dad made sure he sat the teenager down to warn him about female groupies.

Bertinelli admits she had her doubts about her wild ex sharing sex advice with young Wolfgang, but she was pleasantly surprised at how delicately he handled the situation.

She says, "(I'd never had) the sex talk. Especially with a teenage boy, he doesn't wanna hear that from his mother.

"So I incorporated Ed into this and said, 'Maybe you could talk to him about this.' Then I was like, 'Wait, getting Eddie Van Halen to give a sex talk, am I crazy?!'

"But he did say a lot of the same things that I thought. He said, 'Be careful with your heart. When you do give it away have patience and kindness... and be careful of the skanks and w**res; they're gonna want you because you're in Van Halen!' That's it. He's a really terrific dad, he really is."

Bertinelli divorced Van Halen in 2007 after 26 years of marriage.