Mum, how do you get puberty?! How to have "the talk"
At the end of 2016 when my daughter Bella turned 10, I knew that I was going to need to have “the talk” in the coming year. Some of my mum friends have daughters the same age and had already gone there, and I wasn’t going to be able to put it off for much longer.
It’s not that I felt uncomfortable about the conversation as such, it was more wanting her to have that extra innocence for as long as possible. Girls are exposed to so much more of the “adult world” at a younger age compared to when I was a child, and they consequently get less of a childhood which saddens me. I just didn’t want to jump the gun on a discussion that will ultimately introduce her to the first stages of adolescence before it was necessary.
Over the summer I mulled over when would be the best time to have this chat, how much information I should give her and how the conversation should flow. I didn’t really come up with any answers. It turns out, I didn’t need to.
The other day the decision was made for me. We are driving up the coast for the weekend, just the two of us, and she suddenly asks “mum, how do you get puberty?” I nearly burst out laughing, thinking to myself that it certainly does feel like something you contract at times!! I suppressed the urge and did some very quick thinking, which involved stalling my response with a few of my own questions!
The conversation began a little like this:
Me: “What makes you ask that?”
Bella: “Some of the girls in my class said that they have got puberty already and I didn’t know what it was.”
Me: “Oh, ok. Did they say much else to you?”
Bella: “Just that they had got it ages ago.”
Me: “Well, puberty isn’t something that you get, it’s more about a stage in your life where your body changes. Boys and girls go through it and the changes are different for each. The changes also happen at different ages. Your age is considered quite young.”
Bella: “What kind of changes?”
Me: “Well for you your body shape will change. You will start getting breasts and hair will grow on your vagina for starters.”
Bella: “Ok. Anything else?”
Me: “Well, the biggest change you will experience is something called your period….”
And so the conversation continued with me explaining in simple terms what your period is, what it means and that it happens for girls at different ages. I also had to explain tampons and pads and that sometimes it makes you get tummy cramps and feel a bit emotional! I made sure that I didn’t dramatise it and explained that all women go through it and it’s very normal and natural – nothing to be afraid of.
She was amazing!! She took it all in her stride and was incredibly relieved we’d had the chat. I opted out of explaining sex, however, telling myself that that conversation can wait a little longer. Enough for one day.
Bel’s calm and accepting response got me thinking though. We as parents actually have a responsibility to have this conversation earlier than I had imagined and it’s such an important conversation to have! As much as we want to protect our kids from growing up too fast, if we don’t have the conversation they will end up with more questions than answers from school yard conversations and this can be really scary for them!
My mother never had “the chat” with me and I remember just picking up bits and pieces from the school yard and piecing together my own version of it all, and it was a very distorted version and unnecessarily stressful! In fact, it led me to thinking that your period was something to be ashamed of and that sex was a dirty thing. I carried this mentality into my early adult years, and it was mentally and emotionally damaging!
I actually consider myself very fortunate that Bella felt she could come to me and ask, because if she hadn’t I had potentially left it too late. I have the attitude now, that it’s great to leave conversations about the reality of Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy for as long as possible – I mean why ruin that irreversible innocent belief prematurely? However, when it comes to “the talk” we need to make sure we don’t put it on the backburner for too long.
Solly’s Top 5 Tips:
· Chat to your mum friends and find out what worked for them.
· See if there are any signs in your child’s behaviour and conversations that it might be the right time. For example, are they more curious about their body? Are they more interested in tampon ads on TV?
· Try to be in a calm frame of mind in a space that has no distractions. Don’t be in a rush with the conversation.
· Explain that in some cultures that puberty is often celebrated as a ‘coming of age’ and is nothing to be ashamed of.
· Explain that we are all different and that our body’s change shape differently; there is no right or wrong age for these changes to happen, nor no right or wrong body shape.
When do you think the right age is? Is it actually about age, or is completely dependant on each child’s maturity and exposure?
How did “your chat” go?