This is a picture of young girls who have just completed a Celebrate Puberty Workshop with me. I asked them to organize themselves into the correct sequence of events in a menstrual cycle.

My favorite part of this exercise is sitting back and watching them debate with each other about where their descriptive card should place them in the cycle. These girls are about 10- to 11-years-old and it is remarkable how much they learned about something that has yet to happen in their body.

I feel confident these girls have a solid foundation they can draw from as they learn about the changes happening in their body during puberty and be prepared for their first period. By building one concept on another, it is so important that we walk with them through the few years they are in puberty. By the time they are about 15-years-old, they will have completed puberty and are sexually mature. The teaching needs to meet this new need but it should still happen by us walking with them, step by step.

If your daughter is close to starting her first period, I suggest that you purchase my book “I’m a Girl, Hormones!,” and using the book to help her put the events of the menstrual cycle in order. If she can do that, she has built a great foundation of understanding about her body and what will happen next.