When is the right time to talk to my daughter about periods?
Young girls reach the age of menarche, the first menstrual period, at an average age of 12 to 13 years. This age is average, which means that some girls will have their first period much earlier, sometimes before the age of ten, and others will be in their late teens before menstruation begins. While your daughter is likely to start late, and this isn’t always predictable, it’s still important to try to explain menstruation well before puberty begins. The changes that will happen to your daughter’s body can be scary if not understood.
If there’s a female parent or primary caretaker, there’s no reason why when you explain periods, they can’t come naturally from you having a period. Daughters, and sons for that matter, are likely to notice things like sanitary pads, mom withdrawing to bed with cramps, and the like. If you’re a dad raising a daughter on his own, you don’t have this natural starting point for explaining menstruation. However, there’s no reason you can’t do this important parenting job well and with compassion. You can also enlist female relatives or friends to help explain the problem, as some girls feel squeamish about discussing something so “personal” with a father.
The main goal, however, is to make sure you’re the first to explain your period. As girls also enter second or third grade, there may be considerable speculation in conversations with peers that will include a lot of misinformation. If a girl who receives a lot of information about her peers doesn’t understand the basic mechanics of a woman’s cycle, she is likely to feel worried, nervous, or just plain confused about the major changes her body will undergo.
On the other hand, if you explain menstruation at too young an age, a girl could very likely forget the explanation because it could be several years before it is openly discussed with friends. It might be wise to look at this topic as something that should be introduced gradually, which can start when a child wants to know what babies are like and grow in more depth as the child gets older and is able to understand more. Most experts agree that when starting the explanation, you should always start by naming the genitals and reproductive system correctly, and not let the child feel that these names need to be pronounced in some kind of code. Give a girl age-appropriate information in the early years and build on that information when she reaches an age where she could begin menstruating.
It’s amazing how difficult it is for some parents to explain periods, given that roughly half of the world’s population menstruate for most of their lives, but there are plenty of resources to help you. In particular, books and pictures written for children are a great way to explain mechanics. They also help dispel some urban myths, like that a girl doesn’t bleed to death when she’s on her period.
Children often associate the sight of blood with an injury, so it’s important to help a girl understand that it’s a very different type of bleeding. Be open to lots of questions. Also you may want to start, especially when girls are around eight or nine, by asking your daughter to explain menstruation to you. This will help you correct any misinformation they may have received.
While every parent has to make the decision about when and how to explain menstruation, it seems important not to wait until it has started. There are a lot of autobiographies and personal essays dealing with the problem of girls who suddenly got their periods and were terrified. Since you clearly don’t want this experience for your daughter, start before it happens, generally when a girl is about seven or eight at the latest, and keep this topic open for discussion in the years before and after puberty begins.
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