Summertime
and the livin’ ain’t always easy. With the end of the school year
approaching, many children have plans to go off to summer camps, go on
vacations, take trips abroad and have sleepovers. The underlying themes
to these activities is spending time away from one’s parents, learning
new life skills, gaining autonomy and hopefully having a good time.
Additionally, these activities often require facing many new challenges.
Although summer camp and summertime activities should be an exciting
and fun time for children, often the difficulties of growing up can rear
their unexpected heads at the most inopportune times. This can be
particularly true for many adolescent girls as they go off on these
adventures while going through puberty. Here are some simple guidelines
to help you prepare your loved ones for their time away and for puberty
in general.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Explain
to your daughter the basics of puberty. “Puberty” is a generalized
medical term characterizing an adolescent’s transition from sexual
immaturity to sexual (reproductive) maturity. Encompassed within this
transition is the maturation of thoughts and cognition, social and
behavioral engagements and physical development. Driving the changes of
puberty are a complex coordination of hormones, which eventually lead to
a series of physical changes that often occur in a predictable pattern.
In girls, the most common, earliest detectable physical change of
puberty is growth of stature and breast development. This is then
followed by growth of pubic hair and then finally menstruation. Roughly
six months before her first menstruation, or period, a girl will often
notice a clear vaginal discharge in her underwear. This is a great time
to prepare her for her first period!
The
onset of puberty in girls has been trending earlier with the average
age being around 10.5 years and a range of 8 - 12 years. An individual’s
genetic makeup is responsible for the timing of the onset of puberty.
Prior to adolescence and puberty there are no differences in the
occurrences of depression between genders; however, the prevalence of
depression in adolescent girls becomes twice that for boys and is often
associated with a negative self-image.
Puberty
is so variable that adolescent girls at camp will have vastly differing
degrees of pubertal maturity within the same age groups, including
physical and behavioral traits. It is important for parents to help
daughters understand the normalcy of the variation of breasts, pubic
hair, body shape, menstrual bleeding and help them prepare for feelings
that arise. Puberty can raise a lot of questions about body changes,
self-image, gender and sexuality. Just as boys sometimes wear shirts to
cover their adolescent bodies during phases of development, ensuring
your daughter wears what she is comfortable swimming in is necessary.
Being open to discussing how one feels about one’s body (shape, weight,
size) without shame can be difficult. Helping girls advocate for
themselves (who can she go to if she is having concerns about
self-concept) is most important. Making individual choices without
feeling pressured is another area to discuss openly.
