How to Talk to Kids about Puberty with Cara Natterson and Vanessa Kroll-Bennett

Embark on a candid exploration of addressing the intricate aspects of puberty with children in this insightful podcast episode. Through anecdotes and expert advice, listeners gain valuable insights into fostering open, empathetic conversations about body changes, grooming, and self-image with their kids.

INTRODUCTION:

Have you ever been bewildered about how to talk to kids about puberty? We probably all remember that awkward video they showed in school. I remember my son came home the day they showed it brimming with both disgust and new information as well as a little ditty that they played periodically throughout the video – “just around the corner!” And all we needed to do was utter those words or hum the tune and his eyes would bug out and he was like “Nooooooo!” Why? Talking about puberty and all that goes with it is Awkward! But it’s also critical for the health, happiness, and safety of our kids so let’s get talking.

My next guests ALSO had their book come out on October 10th, just like me with How to Talk to Kids about Anything so we share a book birthday—twins! And their book is also a national bestseller, along with my book so October 10th must have been a good day for books! They also have a podcast which, I will be on as well. Speaking of podcasts—those 5-star reviews really help us podcasters—so if you love this one, could you head up to iTunes and rate and review it? By the way, thank you to BRW1979 for the wonderful 5-star podcast review- “an excellent podcast for parents who want to be more intentional. A wide variety of subjects that his on everything that really matters.” Well, just wait for today’s topic then! Please keep those wonderful 5-star reviews coming—they mean so much! And now, onto today’s guests!

Bio:

Cara Natterson, MD, is a pediatrician and the New York Times bestselling author of The Care and Keeping of You series (more than seven million copies in print), Guy Stuff, and Decoding Boys. A graduate of Harvard College and Johns Hopkins Medical School, Dr. Natterson founded Order of Magnitude, a company dedicated to flipping puberty positive. She co-hosts The Puberty Podcast, co-authors The Awkward Roller Coaster Newsletter with Vanessa Kroll-Bennett. Vanessa is the founder of Dynamo Girl, a company focused on building kids’ self-esteem through sports, puberty education, and parent workshops. She runs all media at Order of Magnitude. Aside from co-hosting The Puberty Podcast (with Cara Natterson, MD), she hosts Conversations on Parenting and Beyond at the JCC Manhattan, and writes the Uncertain Parenting Newsletter about the messy process of raising tweens and teens.

Welcome back, Cara, and welcome to you, Vanessa, to How to Talk to Kids about Anything.

Important Messages:

1. Early Puberty Education

Vanessa Kroll-Bennett: A decade ago I started a company called Dynamo Girl, as you mentioned. We were using sports and social-emotional learning to build girls’ self-esteem. All we know, all the data, girls’ self-esteem peaks at age nine, and precipitously declines. Not a coincidence because what we learned very quickly when we were coaching girls all these years ago is that the average onset of puberty for girls is between eight and nine.
Vanessa Kroll-Bennett: The thing that lights me up now in our work is I just think kids this age gets such a bad rap. I think they are so amazing. Tweens and teens are hilarious and brilliant and insightful and fun and empathetic and interesting. And I want the world to see them that way. If we have better skills/tools and information to understand what’s going on in their lives, we will bring out the best in them, rather than bringing out other sides of them.

2. Importance of Using Correct Anatomical Vocabulary

Teaching Correct Terminology:

Vanessa Kroll-Bennett: So with all kids, regardless of whether they are going to menstruate someday or not you want to make sure they know the correct anatomical vocabulary for all their body parts. And for the body parts that other people have. It’s time to use the anatomical vocabulary because, and we’re not fearmongers, but partially because it protects kids from sexual predation. If they know the correct terminology, it will dissuade someone who is interested in grooming them because it’s clear that there are adults talking to these kids about their body and their safety and all that.

3. Promoting Bodily Autonomy:

Vanessa Kroll-Bennett: If you are someday going to be someone who is going to menstruate bodily autonomy is super important. A self-awareness of what’s happening in your body, how it feels, noticing what you feel like in the lead up to a period, what it feels like while you have a period. But practicing the skill of noticing, of owning your body, of being in touch with your body is super important.

4. Openness About Menstrual Hygiene:

Vanessa Kroll-Bennett: Parents ask all the time, my preference is that people don’t hide it. They don’t act like it’s something shameful. It’s just part of life.

Cara Natterson, MD: We want everyone, whether you’re going to have periods or not, to support people who have periods. The coolest kid out there is the kid who says here take my sweatshirt and just wrap it around your waist and Yes, I’ve got your back. That is a friend.

5. Acknowledging What Is Normal

Vanessa Kroll-Bennett: One of the biggest issues we hear from men about sort of shameful experiences when they were boys and were first getting erections is having erections, wet dreams, and nobody talking to them about it. And they think there is something wrong with them. I think the number one thing is acknowledging that it’s normal. That there is nothing wrong with them. That they are not gross or disgusting because their body is having, you know, sometimes They are spontaneous erections, they can’t control it. They don’t conjure them, they just happen. I think recognizing what it is, why it happens, that it happens to lots and lots of people, that they won’t forever for the rest of their lifewill be getting spontaneous erections without any control.

6. 12’Oclock Advice:

Vanessa Kroll-Bennett: We talk about the 12 o’clock, which is what boys have said to us, which is if you have an erection and you’re trying to deal with it, you put your erection at 12 o’clock, which is straight up under the waistband your underwear, or boxers. One of the biggest pieces of advice we hear from teenage boys is that this was an age when they started getting erections that they needed to change the kind of underwear that they wore. Because if they were wearing boxers or something looser that they needed something that could still breathe, but would hold them, you know, at 12 o’clock, or if they did get an erection, wouldn’t sort of tent their pants in the same way.

7. Importance of Conversation

Vanessa Kroll-Bennett: It can be hard for a kid to say to an adult, uh, I think I need new underwear because I keep getting these and it’s embarrassing. And so thinking about ways into that conversation with a kid that normalizes getting erections that indicates “I’m here for you.” Lets them know there is practical stuff that can be done to not get erections, because it is an involuntary response at a lot of the time at this age. But at least giving them some tactics that they can rely on, and to manage it.

8. Body Hair Concerns
Vanessa Kroll-Bennett: The first thing we have to do is we have to clock what it is we’re reacting to. Is it our own stuff? Were we really hairy? Are we worried our kid is gonna be made fun of for their hairy legs? So first we have to clock what we are reacting to and how much of it is our baggage from puberty or adolescence.

9. Understanding the Science of Hair Growth

Cara Natterson, MD:  Science is the key to all of this. Understanding what is happening in the body is the absolute key to not having anxiety around it. It diffuses the situation and brings the temperature down a little bit by understanding, that we don’t love the word normal, but by understanding normal processes. So what’s the path to hair? It’s the same as the path to zits and the path to body odor. It is not puberty, actually puberty is defined by the sexual maturation of the body and it’s controlled by very specific sex hormones. Hair is adrenarchy, which is on a different hormonal path. There are different hormones that control the growth of hair, increase sweat, and increase oil in the sweat. Those different hormones are independent of your ability to reproduce. They are two paths that tend to happen at the same time. But there are parents of six-year-olds who have kids who have pubic hair and underarm hair. And those parents are often panicked that there’s something going on. They think their kids are in early puberty, but they’re probably not. But you should always see your healthcare provider. There are parents of 18-year-olds who have clearly gone through a path towards sexual maturation, but they have no hair anywhere. And those parents have questions. Also, those kids by that age have questions. So just a reminder about the science, that these two concepts are, what we like to say in medicine is true, true and unrelated.

10. What Not to Say About Acne

Cara Natterson, MD: Here’s my list of what not to say. “It’s gonna go away.” “Everyone else is gonna have it.” “Don’t worry about the acne on your face because other people might have it on their chest, backs, or butt.” Not helpful. Then tactical answers, which is where I go immediately: “Don’t pick it.” That is a good advice. But that is not advice usually for this moment where they’re worried about what is going on.

11. Positive Hygiene Routines

Vanessa Kroll-Bennett: It’s better to be forthright but not harsh or unkind. For younger kids, you can say, “ I don’t think I have ever walked you through what a nighttime routine looks like.” You wanna make sure you’ve covered the basics. With older kids who are dealing with really serious acne, that’s not a matter of hygiene for the most part. Kids need more intervention, it requires routine, it requires reminders, all of those things.

12. Empowering Kids to Take Control

Dr. Robyn Silverman: I literally say these words to my kids, ‘I can’t want this more than you. I can’t do this for you. You have to want it for yourself. So I can show you the way, but you know, and I can support you, but I cannot do it for you.

13. Changing the Narrative Around Acne

Cara Natterson, MD: They’re co-opting what was a negative thing into a funny positive thing, you see influencers who have acne. So I think there are a lot of ways in, the weigh-in that you just wanna avoid is either the accusatory weigh-in or the dismissing weigh-in because neither of those is an effective way to make your kid feel better or to make change.

14. Awareness of Body Odor

Cara Natterson, MD: Unlike acne, which is a universal experience, body odor gets tagged with an adjective that does not go along with the kid you wanna hire for a job or the kid you wanna give the A to in a class. It suggests some sort of indifference to the world around you, they may have no indifference to the world around them. They may really care and not have knowledge, but there’s this thing that happens where enough years in a row of body odor and it feels like an act of aggression against the adults in the house because you think they must know. They understand the power of the smell. They also don’t always understand how to fix it. But they are not sort of willfully negligent about body odor at a certain point. And it is on us (parents), to help them become aware of their body odor that is different from the approach to acne. How you do that in your house is gonna be different than how I do that in my house.

15. Peer Influence on Body Odor

Vanessa Kroll-Bennett: Body odor is a situation where peer influence is massive. All they need is one older kid, one sibling, one friend to be like, dude, “You stink, use deodorant.” All of a sudden the paradigm on it shifts. Suppose they don’t hear that then there’s probably sort of larger maturity things that need to go on. And it’s, the body odor is just like a toe in the water of a variety of things where they’re just like not mature yet and they’re not picking up on the social clues. So having those conversations is like everything else, different kids are gonna require it but some combination of the science of empathy and humor, yes, will get you pretty far, if not all the way into a successful conversation.

Notable Quotables:

  • “Tweens and teens are hilarious and brilliant and insightful and fun and empathetic and interesting. And I want the world to see them that way. If we have better skills and tools and information to understand what’s going on in their lives, we will actually bring out the best in them, rather than bringing out other sides of them.” – Vanessa Kroll-Bennett
  • “We want everyone, whether you’re going to have periods or not, to support people who have periods. The coolest kid out there is the kid who says here take my sweatshirt and just wrap it around your waist and Yes, I’ve got your back. That is a friend.” – Cara Natterson, MD
  • “Here’s my list of what not to say. “It’s gonna go away.” “Everyone else is gonna have it.” “Don’t worry about the acne on your face because other people might have it on their chest, backs, or butt.” Not helpful. Then tactical answers, which is where I go immediately: “Don’t pick it.” That is a good advice. But that is not advice usually for this moment where they’re worried about what is going on.” Cara Natterson, MD
  • I think the number one thing is actually acknowledging that it is normal (erection). That there is nothing wrong with them. I think recognizing what it is and why it happens, that it happens to lots and lots of people, that they won’t forever for the rest of their lives by getting spontaneous erections without any control. –Vanessa Kroll-Bennett
  • “Understanding what is happening in the body is the absolute key to not having anxiety around it. It diffuses the situation and brings the temperature down a little bit by understanding normal processes.” – Cara Natterson, MD
  • “There is this thing that happens where enough years in a row of body odor and it feels like an act of aggression against the adults in the house because you think they must know. And it is on us (parents), to help them become aware of their body odor that is different from the approach to acne. How you do that in your house is going to be different than how I do that in my house. ” – Cara Natterson, MD
  • “The trick is how do you balance worrying that someone might say something to your kid and make them feel bad with whether your kid is raising that it’s making them feel self-conscious or on the flip side that your kid doesn’t give a crap. And it’s there and they don’t care and they don’t wanna do anything about it because it’s like a non-issue.” – Cara Natterson, MD
  • “Kids need to be reminded and they need some help with the executive functioning. They might need a list on their bathroom mirror and they might wanna try something and they don’t like it, but they’re scared to tell you because you spent the money on it. That means lots and lots of conversations with older kids who are dealing with really serious acne that is not a matter of hygiene for the most part.” – Vanessa Kroll Bennett

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