My daughter will be 8 years old in a couple weeks. I have recently noticed that she has extremely thick noticble hair on her legs...this in turn made me think of my childhood and how I started puberty at 10 years old...which in turn made me realize I have not had a single talk with my daughter about anything. I knew that this day would come but boy did it sneak up on me!
I'm just looking for advise on approching the subjects of puberty with my daughter...I want to keep the talk more about the female body and what she can expect in the next couple years than "the birds and the bees" if that makes sense. How old were your children when you finally sat them down to talk, how did you put it, what did you say? I want to make sure that she hears it correctly from me rather than at school. At the rate that kids are growing up these days...I'm running out of time.
Thanks for any advice, suggestions, opinions!
S.
We went to the library last night and checked out two books. "The Period Book" and "It's Perfectly Normal". Both books I found in the childrens section and are extremely age appropriate for my daughter. We read our first chapter last night. She loves to read so I figured this would be the best plan of attack. Last night turned out to be great! We spent about an hour reading the first chapter and talking about the things that we read and the pictures that we saw...she had a lot of questions and was a little bit embarrasses at first but I think realized that it was ok to talk about with me. I think I was more nervouse than she was! =)
I think that this is going to be easier and smoother than I orginally anticipated!
S.
Hi! I don't have a little girl but my little sister is 9 and is absoloutly going through puberty a book I would reccomend is the American Girls book called The Care and Keeping of You. It talks about body image, periods, and hygene. There is also The feelings book to help her through her emotions since it can be kind of a rocky time.
I hope this helped.
M.
When I was a child (6-7 yrs old) my mother told me about 'mating'. I remember seeing two wasps on top of each other and asked what they were doing. She said 'they are mating and that this is how they make more wasps'. She said that all bugs, humans and animals do this to have babies. Somehow this was enough for me. A year later I saw two dogs together and I figured out that they were also 'mating'.
When it comes to teaching a girl about puberty, I believe my mother just told me that it was about 'turning into a woman'. When you get a little older, you can expect that your hips will grow, breasts will develop, you will start using deoderant, start shaving legs, and a period will start. (I already knew a little about a period, because I knew my mother had one) She just explained that this is how a little girl turns into a woman. As a little girl in elementary school, I was excited about this because someday I wanted to turn into a woman!
I hope this helps! Good luck!
I too have been told the American Girl book is fantastic for this subject and allows them to feel more comfortable coming to you with their questions.
There's a great book by American Girl that I got for my daughter. I think it's called My Body. It's very informative. After my daughter read this, she had lots of questions, so the book helped me start a dialog about this.
I found a nice book that covers everything it is by American Girl "The Care and Keeping of You" the body book for girls I bought it at Borders in the kids section. I never thought it would come on so fast I decided to have the talk and briefly explain things to my daughter she was about to turn ten and had blossomed and needed a bar. She didn't understand all of it, but I said as thing start to happen we would talk more, At about
10 1/2 her period started and we have been able to fill in as we go along, everything at once would had been too much, she still is so young and I am so sad she had to deal with all this. But the difference is I didn't know anything when I went through it so I am right there with her every step. We are about to venture into shaving her legs she has had to shave under her arms for a year now. So wow things are different now days.
She is a big girl in a liitle girls body. Good luck go easy and be totally open so she doesn't think anything is bad with her changes.
Ironically, I had the same talk with my daughter at the beginning of the summer. She is 9, but going in the 5th grade, so I try and remember that I need to keep up with the kids she goes to school with! She has very hair legs, so we talked about it and she told me it makes her very self conscious and wanted to shave, so we decided that she could use veet instead of a razor and it worked well. We also talked about the hair she is getting "down there" and how it is very normal and about what a period is all about. I found a website called puberty101.com that shows decent stages and whatnot of puberty that helps a kid understand. (There is a LOT of future puberty type items on this site that are currently age-inappropriate for my daughter, so I only showed her the type of things we were talking about). I hope it all goes well! Good luck.
Hi,
DOn't have a daughter, but have raised three sons (21,18 &15). We have taught them from early childhood the truth about sex. If they had a question we answered it easy enough for their age. Here is a book that i recommend, it is a church book BUT it Non-demominational, very strait to the point and frank about marriage/sex/dating/etc...
It is a FREE book and they have never asked me for any money afterwords... Just call (800-772-8577). and ask for "The Missing Dimension in Sex" Try it, if you don' like it, then get rid of it. but it is free and educational.
Terry P.
PS they also have a magazine for young people too, it is called
True Education, that's free too.
They may send u a News magazine too, but if don't want it, just let them know. It all free and you are under NO obligation, Really!
I agree that the American Girls book is awesome. My 10 yr old read it several times and then passed it on to my 8 yr old(without my knowledge). It covers puberty and hygeine and not the birds and the bees. The book is called The Care and Keeping of You and you can buy it at Amazon.com but they might also have it at your local library. I decided to buy it and I'm glad because my dd read it several times. I also told her if she wanted to talk to me about any of it, to let me know.
I have a 15 year old now, but when he was in 4th grade I started talking about changes that would occur in his body and also explained changes that would occur to the body of girls in his class. I tried to explain to him that it is normal and not to make fun of any of the girls if they start to develop early. I remember boys making fun of girls when I was young and wanted to make sure he did not do that.
My suggestion would be to sit her down and start by saying I noticed you have hair on your legs and explain what is going to happen over the next few years. I tried to keep everything light hearted. Just so you know as my son got older he told me the kids talked about sex since the first grade. I almost fell out of my chair when he told me that.
Thanks,
A.
Well, I started the talk with my son when he was 4 and I noticed he really started understanding when he was 5. I read alot of books to him so I first got a book from the library about male and female bodies and I read to him and from there he started asking questions. He is 6 now and he knows about what goes on with the male body and the female body as well. He got really curious about how I got a baby in my belly and I just told him the truth. I feel its better to tell the truth with the correct terminoligy. I have a 3 year old girl that I have already started talking to about the female body and have been trying to explain what I told my son about periods and she still really doesnt understand that yet, but I will still keep talking to her about these things. My parents never talked to me about sex or periods or any of that. I kind of grew up in a household of thinking anything private such as your period shouldnt be talked about, I think that may be why I started with my kids so young, but like you said kids these days will hear things that arent true from kids in school. So I figure at least my son knows the "facts" now. Well sorry to have this go on. I hope this helps and good luck.
Your library might have it. Amazon does for sure.
Everything You Never Wanted Your Kids to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid They'd Ask): The Secrets to Surviving Your Child's Sexual Development from Birth to the Teens (Paperback)
by Justin Richardson, Mark Schuster
Best regards
J.
