In my office, I hear them all the time -- the stories of young women's experiences when their bodies began to change during puberty.
They remember the feelings of confusion and even fear of the unknown, as their bodies started to spread and grow in new places. They can still see that not-totally-disguised look of discomfort from their mom who noticed belly fat and stretch marks appearing on her child’s body for the first time.
They remember the shame they felt at their eleven-year-old checkup when a well-meaning pediatrician recommended cutting back on snacks and getting more exercise, noting how much weight they had gained since last year’s visit.
They still hear those comments and jokes from peers about their breasts developing faster - or slower - than everyone else’s seemed to be.
As a psychotherapist who specialize in the treatment of eating disorders, I know how complicated the emotional experience of body changes during puberty can be. Excitement, fear, shame, confusion, anxiety, pride, sadness… Change can be messy, and puberty involves some of the biggest changes a child, and their family, will ever go through.
For parents, it can bring up a lot of emotions, including a sense of loss, to see your child’s body moving farther and farther away from the little kid you’ve known and loved her whole life. Or maybe you struggle with your own body image, and it’s hard to see your daughter’s body taking on a shape that does - or doesn’t - resemble your own.
Whatever your story, we all live in a culture where beauty and health ideals tell us weight gain is dangerous, and that women’s bodies should be slender, toned, and fat-free in all the right places. We learn that women’s bodies are for looking at, and therefore should look a certain way.
We know from the research, and from the stories of so many teens and women who enter our therapy offices, that puberty is a particularly vulnerable time for developing struggles with body image and disordered eating. Both pubertal status and timing of puberty in comparison to peers have been found to influence development of eating disorders and disordered eating. In addition to environmental risk factors, genetic risk factors for eating disorders have been found to be activated during puberty.
In other words, puberty is a sensitive and vulnerable time for body image and self-esteem. So as parents, how do we sensitively support our daughters - and navigate our own emotions - during this period of change?
I have a few suggestions. But the very first thing we want parents to remember is how normal these changes are. And that beyond normal, they are remarkable and extraordinary!
Our children’s bodies and selves are radically changing during puberty, and that is both normal and necessary. 50% of adult body weight is gained during puberty - and humans NEED this new weight to support the incredible growth that occurs during puberty. Teens’ brains are developing and changing rapidly, their bodies are growing and strengthening bones that will carry them for the rest of their lives, and they are turning on a new hormone system that will allow them to create their own families one day.
As our daughters embark on the incredible journey of moving into adolescence and adulthood, remember that it takes years and years - often awkward years! - and significant weight gain to support these changes.
Even before puberty begins, you can begin preparing your child - and yourself - for this process and what it might bring up, by reminding yourself that these changes are normal and expected.
You can also notice, point out, and combat messaging that says healthy always looks thin, and that weight gain is always negative or something to fear.
Try working to create a set of family values that emphasize how healthy bodies come in all shapes and sizes.
Prepare in advance for pediatrician visits where weight may be discussed, and make sure your doctor knows how you want any changes in growth to be addressed (or not) with your child.
And above all, remind yourself to be kind to yourself! This work is hard. Don’t go at it alone. Reach out for support and find others who you can talk to about all of the joys and complexities of parenting a daughter during this stage of life.
Body-Positive Home is an educational resource offering workshops and body image workouts for the whole family. It was founded by Zoë Bisbing, LCSW a New York City based psychotherapist and mom of three. Click here to purchase a copy of The ABC’s of Body-Positive Parenting.
]]>
What’s the impact of early or late puberty? As a parent, should you be concerned?
First of all, language like “early bloomer” and “late bloomer” can imply that there’s one “right” time to bloom, and that your child might be arriving too soon or too late. But normal development occurs across a range of ages, with variability based on many factors. Try to keep in mind that your daughter is going to grow into the body that she’s meant to have, on the timeline that’s right for her!
It’s understandable you may be concerned about the timing of your daughter’s puberty if it seems out of sync with peers -- so always check in with her pediatrician, who will be monitoring her growth and looking out for any signs of a medical cause for early or late puberty. But try to remember that there’s usually no need for medical concern or treatment. Your daughter is likely just developing on her own unique schedule.
However, even if there are no medical problems at its source, being an early or late bloomer may impact your daughter socially and emotionally. Here’s what to keep in mind:
For girls who develop earlier, the transition can be fraught.
It’s normal for young people to desperately want to fit in. If you’re the first in your grade to experience the physical changes of puberty, it can be isolating to stand out among friends and peers who still appear childlike.
Girls experiencing early puberty also appear physically older than where they are in their emotional and cognitive development. This can be challenging if others make assumptions based on external appearance that don’t match up with how the girl thinks or acts. Early developers may be sexualized and treated as emerging adults earlier than they are prepared for at their age.
In the research, early puberty in girls has been linked to higher rates of emotional problems like depression and anxiety, eating disorders, earlier sexual activity, substance use, and more risk-taking behaviors. Girls may compare themselves more negatively to peers, feel more anxious and less confident, and hang out with others who engage in risky activities.
And girls who develop on the late side face challenges too. Research suggests that girls who develop later than peers are also at risk for psychological distress and behavior problems.
Why is early or late puberty a risk factor? Early or late bloomers may be teased, feel self-conscious, be treated as younger or older than they are, struggle with body image, and experience stress related to standing out. Researchers have also hypothesized that developing on the most common timeline allows girls to anticipate, prepare for, and better cope with the changes of puberty. Early and late bloomers may be more likely to be caught off guard by changes and therefore feel insecure and stressed.
How can you support your early or late bloomer?
The changes during puberty can be distressing if your daughter doesn’t understand what she is experiencing. An early bloomer in particular may be confused, embarrassed, scared, or anxious because she doesn’t know what’s happening to her body. Her school may not teach about puberty until she gets older, if they do at all. Try educating your daughter from a young age, in clear and age-appropriate terms, about the changes she will go through to become an adult. Early preparation is protective -- she can better cope if she knows what to expect and understands that it’s normal when her body begins to change.
As her parent, you can emphasize to your daughter that the changes she’s undergoing in puberty, their timing, and their speed are normal. You can emphasize how much diversity there is in body shapes and in how bodies grow. Make it clear that her development and her timeline are just right for her. Early bloomers and late bloomers may feel shame and embarrassment about standing out -- normalizing their experiences can help soothe their stress and encourage self-acceptance.
Experiencing early or late puberty can be a stressor and a challenge for your daughter. Like with any other challenges she may face, she will be buffered from some of the risks if she has strong coping skills. Helping her cultivate resilience, the ability to regulate her emotions, and problem-solving skills will be protective in puberty -- and in all areas of her life! Want suggestions for how to do so?
As with any struggle related to body image, one of your most powerful moves as a parent can be supporting your daughter’s developing sense of self worth outside of her appearance. Keep your compliments and praise focused on her insides, not her outsides. Encourage her to figure out what she cares about and feels good doing. If your daughter feels secure about who she is and doesn’t judge or evaluate herself based on her appearance, she’ll be better prepared to handle the ups and downs in body image that can arrive with puberty.
Sources:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352827319303544
https://www.bradley.edu/sites/bodyproject/sexuality/puberty/
http://cincinnatifamilymagazine.com/development/means-early-bloomer
]]>Participation in sports can be one of the most powerful positive influences in our children’s lives. There are the physical benefits, of course: exercise helps with the growth and development of bones, muscles, ligaments, and tendons. Movement is amazing for growing bodies.
And then there are the psychological benefits: youth participation in sports has been linked to positive outcomes ranging from higher academic achievement, to the development of qualities like leadership, teamwork, perseverance, and concentration, to higher self esteem, self confidence, and overall mental health.
Seems like a no brainer, right?
As body-positive parents, we are all about encouraging our kids to find sports and types of movement they love. But falling in love with sports can sometimes come with extra baggage. We’re thinking particularly of sports cultures with a strong emphasis on appearance and aesthetics. Think dance, figure skating, ballet, gymnastics -- where success and performance is traditionally tied to having a particular body type.
Does your daughter love a sport that tells her -- explicitly or implicitly -- her body needs to look a certain way for her to succeed? Does she feel pressure to change her eating or exercise habits to mold her body into an ideal, or feel horrible if, no matter what she does, she can’t achieve it?
Appearance pressures from sports can lead to unintended negative consequences for body image, disordered eating, and overall psychological health and wellbeing.
The good news is that you can take steps as a parent to buffer against those risks:
Imagine your daughter passionately loves ballet, but her genetically determined body shape means it would be impossible for her to obtain the classic “ballet body.” To change her size would require unhealthy, extreme weight control behaviors. The impact would be dangerous, and temporary, if possible at all. And then there are her features even further from her control -- like her height, or the arch of her foot, or the structure of her skeleton. She might be left feeling that she’s failed, because she can’t mold her body into the shape she’s learned she needs to excel at ballet.
Try to help her externalize the problem instead. Remind her that there is nothing wrong with her, or her body -- even if she doesn’t look the way a dancer “should.” In fact, maybe there’s something wrong with any culture, sport, or art that sets unrealistic appearance ideals as a requirement for success. Can she see how the expectation makes her feel like she’s flawed and needs to change?
Join her in getting angry at the real problem -- rather than at herself.
Watching an event on TV together, you might muse about how all of the athletes or performers look similar. Start to name and draw attention to body ideals, instead of letting them go unspoken and unquestioned. Encourage her to get curious about their impact. Is it even possible for most people to achieve those body types? What would it take?
Remind your daughter that bodies are naturally diverse, and come in all shapes and sizes.
How do the bodies in her sport compare to the range of bodies she sees on the subway or at the beach?
See if you can find examples of athletes or performers who represent more body diversity in the field. Support and celebrate them!
You might be surprised. She may share that she loves expressing her creativity through dance, moving her body to music, mastering a new skill, spending time with her friends, feeling the thrill of competition, or more.
If she’s feeling the pressure from coaches or others to change her body to reach a more elite level of success, you can always guide her back to the basics of what she really loves. Can she enjoy that same benefit from her sport, in the exact body she has right now?
Help her identify what she really values about the sport and think through whether she can continue to enjoy it, just as she is.
Children are born moving intuitively. They run around the playground, chasing, dancing, jumping, and playing because it feels good and it’s fun. They stop when they’re tired or not having fun anymore.
In organized sports, we move away from this style of movement. We begin to move based on the demands of a practice schedule or workout set by a coach, or push ourselves beyond our limits in the name of performance, achievement, or an identity rooted in a sport.
Encourage your daughter to still pay attention to her physical cues within her sports context. Can she be present in her body and listen to pain or injury, rather than ignoring these signals and pushing through? Ask her what is fun and brings her joy, how she knows when she is sore versus injured, and more. Tuning into her body will help her develop and maintain a lifelong love for movement of all kinds.
Many sports and dance worlds are highly structured, with adults in charge making top-down decisions that can’t be argued with. Can you be the trusted adult your daughter can go to if she has a concern?
She may be told she could run faster if she lost weight, or hear that it’s normal and unconcerning to lose her period, or that other girls are doing X, Y, and Z to get the “right” body type. These messages are especially confusing if they seem to be endorsed by or come from adults in charge. Let her know that your priority is her safety and wellbeing, and that she can share with you anything that makes her uncomfortable.
As a parent and adult, you have the power to not only protect your daughter, but to make changes in her broader sports culture.
Think critically and speak up if extreme or unhealthy behaviors are encouraged in the name of high performance. You are allowed to question coaches and institutions. Ask: is this necessary, and is this worth it? Look beyond elite performance and achievement to also wonder what is safe, healthy, and adaptive for young athletes.
Be selective about what programs your family participates in, to align your money and time with your values. Consider how a program or coach treats young athletes, and what messages they share about bodies, movement, and success. Support healthy sports cultures. Work to reform unhealthy ones.
Our daughters learning to love movement is a beautiful thing. We share this information not to demonize any sport or art, but to help parents best protect their daughters self esteem, positive body image, and wellbeing as they pursue the sports they love.
Body-Positive Home is an educational resource offering workshops and body image workouts for the whole family. It was founded by Zoë Bisbing, LCSW a New York City based psychotherapist and mom of three. Click here to purchase a copy of The ABC’s of Body-Positive Parenting.
]]>In my private practice, I’m approached on a pretty regular basis by parents who are concerned because their tween or teen girl has gone vegetarian or vegan. Plant-based eating has become more trendy and mainstream over the past few years, but for some, the concept of meatless meals is pretty radical. Top concerns are that kids won’t get enough protein, calcium, iron and energy, and that plant-based eating won’t be enough to sustain growth and development.
The good news is that we have decades of research studies now showing that vegetarian and vegan eating patterns can absolutely provide all the necessary nutrients people need to thrive, grow and/or develop during all ages of the life cycle (including the tween and teen years). Plant-based diets have also been shown to lower the risk of developing chronic lifestyle diseases like hypertension, diabetes and heart disease down the road. The key word, however is CAN, because nutrient gaps can happen easily in vegan and vegetarian diets that are poorly planned.
If your tween or teen daughter is considering or already adopting a vegetarian or vegan eating pattern, the worst thing you can do is tell her she can’t. Whatever your thoughts and opinions happen to be with regard to plant-based eating, as parents, we have very little (if any) control over what our tweens and teens eat. Educating both yourself and your daughter on how to ensure a balanced, varied vegetarian and/or vegan diet that includes all the essential nutrients is a great way to both connect, show support for her choices, and set her up for a lifetime of healthy eating no matter which dietary pattern she ends up following.
Here are 5 things to know as well as some related tips for making sure your she's getting all the nutrients she needs to thrive:
1. Vegetarian girls who eat dairy and eggs will have an easier time meeting their nutrient needs than vegans (who do not eat dairy and eggs), as dairy foods are a great source of calcium and vitamin D, and both dairy and eggs provide all of the essential amino acids needed for normal growth.
2. If your daughter is vegan and/or does not drink cow’s milk, spend some time and energy finding a fortified plant-based milk alternative that she likes and will drink regularly. Soy milk offers a nutrient profile that is closest to that of cow’s milk and when fortified with calcium and vitamin D, offers a convenient way to make sure tweens and teens are getting the nutrients they need for proper bone growth. Not all plant-based milk alternatives are fortified, however, so it’s important to read food labels.
3. Sometimes it can be tricky to get enough overall calories on a vegetarian or vegan diet, both of which tend to be lower in fat but higher in fiber (more whole grains, beans, peas, nuts, seeds, etc.). More fiber means more filling, which can lead to a lower intake of calories in general. Encouraging your daughter to eat often (around 3 meals and 2-3 snacks per day) and include a variety of energy-rich plant-based foods like avocado, nuts, seeds and legumes can help.
4. Discuss ways to ensure that vegan and vegetarian meals and snacks are balanced and nutrient-dense, and that they include plant-based proteins (beans, legumes, soy foods, nuts, seeds or dairy/eggs if vegetarian), complex carbohydrates with fiber (whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, peas, legumes, beans) and sources of healthy fats (nuts, seeds, olive oil, coconut, avocado).
5. Talk to your daughter’s pediatrician or registered dietitian about the potential need for supplements, particularly if your child is vegan, in which case supplemental B12 is essential and the potential for vitamin D, iodine, iron, zinc, calcium and omega-3 fatty acids should be discussed.
Helping tweens and teens plan and stick to a healthy vegetarian and/or vegan diet takes effort on everyone’s part - parents, caregivers and kids alike. But when everyone is on board, going through the process of learning how to meet nutrient needs using plant foods can provide unique opportunities for bonding between parents and kids, as well as lifelong skills that will enable girls to properly nourish themselves in the long term.
Cheers to your good health!
]]>For this reason (among others!), I am so happy to join the Girl Factor team. As a nutrition counselor, consultant and author, my goal is to reduce parental stress around food and feeding, and provide parents with tools, tips, recipes, and programs that make it easier to raise healthy, confident eaters who enjoy a lifelong positive relationship with food.
In addition to the challenges they face in meeting the nutritional needs of their changing bodies, today’s tween and teen girls face a different set of health-related challenges as they grow. It’s too easy for them to find unreliable, bizarre and sometimes dangerous answers to questions about their health and changing bodies on the web, or from non-credentialed social media influencers. Health, wellness and nutrition myths and misconceptions swirl around the internet, celebrity-endorsed detox diets are all the rage, and our thin-obsessed culture continues to reward a standard of beauty that is unattainable for the vast majority of women.
I’m excited to partner with Girl Factor and create a solution in the form of evidence-based resources for parents of tween/teen girls that will advance the cultural conversation around women’s health with empathy and acceptance—and help our girls navigate through these changeful years healthfully and with confidence. To that end, here’s what you can expect from my articles and posts:
Evidence-based nutrition information and guidance to help you optimize your tween/teen girl’s health
Advice on how to help her establish a lifelong positive relationship with food
Nutrition-focused solutions for issues she may face as her body changes
Practical tips on how to bring the science of nutrition into your family’s meals and snacks
Do you have questions about:
The effect of vitamin D status on premenstrual symptoms?
Whether chocolate causes acne?
Whether your tween or teen is meeting her needs for calcium during this important period of bone growth and development?
Whether her iron needs change when she starts menstruating?
If yes, stay tuned! You’ve come to the right place...
Cheers to your good health,
]]>Not too long ago, a mother brought her nine-year-old daughter into my office, concerned about a hard bump growing under one of her nipples. “I know she’s supposed to eventually get breasts,” the mom explained, “but it seems a little early.” The mom wanted to make sure the bump wasn’t something more serious like a tumor.
In fact, the first signs of breast development can appear as early as eight years old and that hard bump under the nipple is exactly what you would expect. Here’s some other facts about your daughter’s breast development that should help you understand her changing body.
On average, girls breasts start developing between the ages of 8 and 13.
Thelarche (Thee-lark-ee) is the medical term for the beginning of breast development and is caused by hormones released by the ovaries during puberty. These hormones (estrogen) cause the fat and other tissues in your breasts to accumulate and grow. For 90% of girls, this is the first sign of puberty.
The earliest sign of breast development is the development of breast buds.
A breast bud is a firm, round, tender and sometimes itchy lump under the nipple of one or both breasts.
Breast asymmetry is common during breast development.
In many adolescents, budding breasts may not begin to develop evenly. Typically, by age 18 the size difference should be less obvious but slight differing breast size is completely normal even in some adult women. It's also common for breast buds to be tender or sore. When breast buds first emerge, they can be tender and sore. This tenderness will go away as the breast continues to develop. The skin can also be itchy as it starts to stretch but this too will subside.
What to expect after breast buds…?
After the first sign of breast buds, breasts will show an increase in size within 4-6 months. On average, it takes about 4-5 years for full breast development after the start of thelarche, with most girls usually fully developed by 18 years of age. As breasts develop, they become rounder and fuller. The areola may get darker and larger, and the nipple may start to stick out.
Breast size is largely determined by heredity.
Breasts come in all shapes and sizes. There is almost no size that is considered abnormal. Your breast size is primarily determined by heredity. Because breasts contain fat cells, a girl’s breasts size can increase with weight gain.
Just because she has breast buds doesn’t mean she’s getting her period right away.
On average, it takes 2-3 years from the start of thelarche (breast bud development) to menarche (first period).
It may be normal, but it can still feel awkward!
Help your daughter feel more comfortable about her changing body. Share your own experiences getting boobs and buy her bras that cover and protect her breast buds (we recommend lycra bralettes and bras to start).
This is just one piece of the puberty puzzle and a reality of our girls growing into young women. You’re not alone. Girl Factor is here for you, and your Girls throughout the journey so stick with us and stay tuned for what’s to come.
Dr. Inga Sazan is a Board Certified Pediatrician and a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
One moment your daughter is laughing happily along with you and her siblings, participating in a fun family conversation around the dinner table as you all retell a hilarious story from the kids’ childhood that’s become family legend.
A few minutes later, without you realizing what’s happened, she’s furious about something. Her smile has dropped, her eyebrows are frozen in a sarcastic arch, her arms are folded, and she's making it clear to all that she’s NOT amused. Her dad jokingly tries to cheer her up, and she snaps. So fast you almost miss it, there’s a back and forth, and by the time it dawns on you that wow, she is seriously mad, she’s already stomped away from the table and slammed the door to her room. You can hear her crying all the way from the dinner table.
As our kids develop into adolescents, they’re experiencing physical, biological, social, emotional, and mental changes. Their moods are strong, intense, and likely to rapidly shift in ways they’ve never felt before. Try to remember that your teen is experiencing major hormonal shifts, as well as dealing with pressures involving school, friendships, family, romance and physical changes - all while going through the normal process of trying to establish their own identity and independence.
But while it’s all well and good to remember that this is normal, it can also be really hard emotionally on a parent when your teen is swinging between highs and lows. Their mood swings put us on a rollercoaster as well. In that spirit, we have a few suggestions for how to cope, inspired by Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), that we think are useful for any parent:
Before you jump in and start trying to help your daughter deal with her emotions, notice what’s going on for you. Think about that scenario where your daughter has stormed to her room, crying in furious anger in the middle of a perfectly lovely family dinner. In that situation, do you find your own heart racing? Maybe your emotional intensity has gone way up, and you’re feeling activated, with the urge to leap into action to start problem-solving ASAP. (This is really common when we feel distress around the pain of someone we love!). You may simultaneously want to figure out what made your daughter so upset and help her understand that it really wasn’t that big of a deal; feel angry at her dad for offending her and feel defensive of him as your well-meaning coparent; want to make her pain go away because it’s so hard to know she’s hurting and feel annoyed about the way she ruined a lovely family dinner. Whew. Try to pause and just notice all the emotions going on inside of you.
Get out of “emotion” mind. When we can’t think straight, we’re in “emotion mind.” Our emotional system gets activated by seeing our child in pain and our intense emotions are urging us to fix the problem and make their distress go away. But if we act from emotion mind, we may end up making the problem worse, because we don’t have access to our wisest self that makes decisions informed by reason as well as emotion. So try managing your own distress to shift away from emotion mind, before you charge into your daughter’s room to help her with hers. How to get to that place where you can think wisely? Here are a few suggestions to help yourself pause before acting:
Breathe. As syrupy as this may sound try taking several deep belly breaths. It can help to put a hand on your chest and a hand on your belly, and try to breathe so that the hand on your belly is the one rising and falling with your breath. Exhale for longer than you inhale. Try counting to 4 as you breathe in, and 8 as you breathe out. This will activate your parasympathetic nervous system and help you calm your body down. It’s easy to poopoo this one, but if you are willing, it is one of the most reliable and consistent techniques we always have to help us shift.
Change the temperature. Intense emotions can make our faces and body rise in temperature. Try splashing cold water on your face, or taking some ice cubes from the freezer to hold in your hand. This can work really quickly to help you feel cooler and calmer, bringing down your level of emotional intensity.
Weigh the pros and cons. Try writing down or talking through the pros and cons of how you might respond. In this example, you might take a moment to talk through the pros and cons of following your daughter into her room now, or waiting until after the meal is finished and cleaned up. No matter what you decide, even taking the time to weigh the decision will help you wait out some of the emotions and take action from a more collected place rather than in immediate response to your first urge.
So you’ve taken a moment to be mindful of and notice your own distress. You’ve used that knowledge and decided to get out of your emotion mind, by using a skill like belly breathing, splashing cold water on your face, or talking through the pros and cons. Of course you still have plenty of feelings about your daughter crying in the other room, but you’ve settled down a bit and feel like you can think clearly.
Focus on what’s in your control. Remember that your daughter’s emotional experience is not in your control. Her thoughts and feelings aren’t something you can change - as much as you might want to! You can’t make someone feel happy when what they’re experiencing is sadness or anger. Try to acknowledge what is true about this moment - what your daughter is experiencing, thinking, and feeling - without value judgments like “should” or “should not.” Trying to convince her to feel better (with “your dad was just joking!” or “this isn’t that big of a deal!”) can come from the most well-meaning place, but make her feel misunderstood and even more upset.
Try validating. While you can’t control or fix your daughter’s distress, what you can control is how you respond. One of the most helpful responses to a mood swing is to join your teen in what they’re feeling and validate their experience. In a nutshell, validation means acknowledging that someone’s experience is their experience. Validation doesn’t have to mean you agree with someone, or that you approve of their reaction. But it does mean that you recognize that they are genuinely experiencing reality the way they are describing to you. To take it to the next level, you can also recognize that based on someone’s context or past experiences, what they are experiencing makes sense to you. So with your crying daughter, this can look like getting really curious about what she is experiencing. What happened at the dinner table that made her so upset? Whether or not you agree with how she interpreted the situation, can you recognize why it might make sense for her to feel so angry and sad based on what she’s describing? Try saying, “It makes sense that you feel so upset right now.”
You managed your emotions and helped your daughter manage her own - by acknowledging, validating, and sitting with those emotions. Now you are both out of your emotion minds, and there is space for problem-solving if necessary. Sometimes you may not even need this step, and weathering a mood swing is really just about getting through the steps above. But if the cause of the distress still needs to be addressed by something like an effective conversation, we give you full permission to join your daughter in a discussion about what might be useful next steps.
Body-Positive Home is an educational resource offering workshops and body image workouts for the whole family. It was founded by Zoë Bisbing, LCSW a New York City based psychotherapist and mom of three. Click here to purchase a copy of The ABC’s of Body-Positive Parenting.
]]>Many of us can remember a pretty relaxed approach to parenting from our own parents. They loved us, but they didn’t feel obligated to entertain us or to manage our time or our social lives. We played outside till long after dark, planned our own playdates with the kids on our block and knew our parents didn’t want to hear it if we were bored. We were parented with a hands-off approach that forced us to solve our own problems and make our own fun, and most of us probably can admit we are better for it (even as we micro manage every waking minute of our own kids’ lives.)
But many of us remember a little less fondly the passivity of our own parents when it came to puberty; covertly leaving a copy of Where Did I Come From by our beds and being fine with the fact that we learned the rest from Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret and the misinformation of our friends. For many women who grew up in the 80s, our first and last conversation with our mothers about periods was the day we got it.
We have our own daughters now and we didn’t just rewrite the book on parenting, we shred the last one and started over with a whole new storyline. We call their teachers when they’re fighting with a friend and sign them up for coding and chess. We plan their playdates and activities and then still think we need to play with them when they have “downtime.” For better or worse we are Involved. And yet - many of us may still be trying to figure out the chapter on puberty for our own girls.
We want to be a resource for them. We want to demystify things for them. We want them to be empowered rather than embarrassed. We want them to know they can talk to us and they can count on us for answers and solutions.
Here, we provide some tips and conversation starters to open the lines of communication with your daughter:
It’s OK to laugh. Her questions may be funny and it’s ok to laugh. Just make sure she’s in on the joke rather than feeling like you're laughing at her. If she knows she can giggle at things that seem embarrassing, she knows these conversations with you can be fun and easy.
Even if she’s not talking about it, she’s probably thinking about it. While there’s no right age, and you know your daughter best, you should know that by a certain age, her friends are talking about periods, puberty (and even sex) even if she’s not telling you about it. That can be as early as 4th or 5th grade, or later for some. At some point it’s important to break the ice with her. If not, she may start to think there are certain topics you are avoiding with her and so she too will avoid them with you.
Not sure what to say? Keep it casual. No need to have a serious sit-down Puberty with a capital P conversation. Instead, try to normalize uncomfortable topics by talking about them in the normal course of conversation. Start early and set the tone. Once she knows no topic is off-limits, she’ll be more apt to come to you. And if you’re really stuck on how to begin, here are a few conversation starter ideas:
Use something you see on TV or in a book as a jumping off point – comment on a feminine hygiene product commercial or a razor ad in a magazine.
Be on the lookout for Girl Factor products coming soon! And be sure she knows that they are all created and formulated specifically for her!
Have your pads and tampons out in the open. Encourage her to open them and examine them. Talk about how they work and what they do.
Talk about when you were her age – crushes, getting breasts, your first-time shaving - Kids love hearing about when their parents were young and knowing that you went through the very same things will put her at ease.
Tell her about one of your embarrassing period accidents (we’ve all had them!)
Mention casually that you have your period, or that you have cramps.
Talk to your husband in her presence about your period – that you think you are getting it, or that you can’t forget to pack your products for your trip.
Buy her a bra before she needs one. She’ll be a lot less embarrassed before she starts developing and she’ll have it when she needs it. (We recommend Lycra sports bras, they fit well and they hide her breast bumps when they come.)
Make it a family affair. Our husbands are out buying our tampons and pads but for some reason aren’t supposed to know that their daughters are getting their periods? Have conversations in the presence of Dad, so she knows this is not a secret from him. It’s far easier to bring him into the conversation before she gets her period. She may want her privacy down the line. But she’ll know from those early conversations that she doesn’t need to be embarrassed around him.
This shouldn’t be a one-time conversation. This is an ongoing conversation - and you hope, especially as she gets older- a 2-way conversation that evolves as she does.
Finally – Prepare her! Not just with information but with products. Girl Factor can be the perfect destination and we look forward to introducing all we have to offer.
Before she’s in the throes of puberty, your daughter will be more curious than embarrassed. Take advantage of this time to teach her she can come to you, and that no subject is off-limits. It doesn’t mean she won’t pull away at times or seek more privacy as she gets older. But she’ll always know she can talk to you.
]]>