Five Ways to Make Puberty Easier for Your Daughter.

{Collaborative Content} One of the hardest transitions that anyone has to make in life is the transition from childhood to adulthood. Yes, we’re talking about puberty, and we've all been through it! You can’t get from being a child to being an adult without those few uncertain, insecure and scary years of being a teenager. The feeling of being too young to do much but maturing faster than you expected. Dealing with changes to the body and changes to the emotions hitting you? That’s all horrid to deal with.

As a teenage girl, though, it can often feel more traumatic. Teenage boys have it very hard, so we won’t discount their experiences, but when you’re a teenage girl you have all of those emotions rushing through you and you add the new arrival of periods and acne on top of it all. Insecurities about physical appearance start as young as 9, and that happens to coexist when puberty begins. For some people, puberty is traumatic for them from the effects of puberty on your skin to the effects of hormones on friendships. If you have daughters, you’ll want to prevent them from going through the same level of trauma. Even though trauma isn't optional, it’s sure something you can go through as a family and support your daughter as she does. Here are five ways to do just that!

Image Source: Pexels

• Communicate. Please, communicate with your daughter. Tell her that her body is going to change and what to expect. Tell her about periods and tampons and period pants. Tell her about acne and the importance of washing her face every single day. Hygiene conversations may not be easy to have, but they are a must. She needs to be prepared!

• Be open with your body. Half of the insecurities picked up by teenagers come from their own parents. As a woman, your body will have gone through life a little more than your teenager’s has. Normalise your body by not hiding it from your daughters. Normalise periods happening and be open about your own experiences so that they can feel secure about what’s to come.

• Brush up on your own education. Acne and periods aren't the only things to affect girls in puberty, but you need to stop finding the shame in your periods and skin experiences. Instead, you need to brush up on things you have long stopped worrying about and make sure that you instil in your daughters that this isn't taboo!

• Be patient. If you’re the mother of a teenage girl, remember how you felt as your body and hormones changed, and then give your daughter room to feel her feelings out loud. She won’t always be graceful, so give her some of your grace. Empathise and be patient.

• Bring a gift basket! When puberty is well underway, put together a gift basket of hygiene products, period pants/items like pads, chocolate and books on what to expect for her to read. Make it clear to her that you’re here for her right now and always, and that when she needs to shriek, you’re the space she can shriek to!