What Parents Need to Know
The first sign of puberty for girls is breast budding, which occurs between the ages of eight and eleven, with the average age being ten. Menstruation begins an average of about two years later, but one study found that 30 percent began menstruating before age eleven (Lisa Miller and Marav Gur, “Religiosity, Depression, and Physical Maturation in Adolescent Girls,”
Body fat triggers the pituitary gland, which plays a role in puberty, so lack of exercise and excess body fat may explain why heavyset girls get their periods before lean girls. Race is also a factor; black girls mature an average of seven months earlier than whites. The father-daughter relationship may also play a role. Girls who are close to their biological fathers from birth to age five go through puberty later. Exposure to the scent of unrelated men such as stepfathers may accelerate puberty while exposure to the scent of a biological father inhibits it, as is the case for other mammals. Psychological pressures on girls to grow up quickly may prime them to develop faster, too. Here are some other facts every parent needs to know:
Fifty percent of sexually active teen males had their first sexual experience between age eleven and thirteen.
The birth rate in 1998 for children aged ten to fourteen was one birth per 1,000 girls.
Thirteen percent of all U.S. births are to teenagers. Approximately three-quarters of teenage mothers are unmarried.
Each year, 20 percent of sexually active teenage girls become pregnant.
A sexually active teenager who does not use contraceptives has a 90 percent chance of becoming pregnant within one year.
The mortality rate for infants born to teenage mothers is about 50 percent higher than that for those born to women over age twenty.
The U.S. teenage birth rate is the highest in the developed world. This is due to fewer comprehensive sex education programs, less access to contraception and abortion, and fewer confidential services for teenagers.
Every year about 25 percent of sexually active teenagers acquire a sexually transmitted disease.
The risk factors for having sex during the tween years are poor self-esteem, poor academic achievement, a poor parent-child relationship, and poor peer relationships.
From a single act of unprotected sex with an infected partner, a teenage woman has a 1 percent risk of acquiring HIV, a 30 percent risk of getting genital herpes, and a 50 percent chance of contracting gonorrhea. Up to 29 percent of sexually active teenage girls and 10 percent of teenage boys tested for sexually transmitted diseases had chlamydia.
While the emotional and physical dangers of sex cannot be denied, neither can its pleasures, as your child will soon discover. In helping your son comprehend the workings of the human body and unravel the mysteries of sexual love, you are ushering him into the world of adults. It can be hard to have your baby grow up, but if you're lucky, you may someday be rewarded with grandchildren. With your good influence and guidance, that “someday” won't come too soon.
