Put your mind at ease

Did you feel a lot of anxiety when you started your period? OK, it's fair enough to say that most girls have anxiety about a lot of things in their early teens, but one thing that looms above all else is the start of menstruation. The girls I know feel anxious about two things in particular: the unpredictability of their period, and the worry about whether or not they are normal or fitting in as compared to their peers. For girls who are negotiating their way through adolesence in two cultures, the girl world seems particularly problematic.

As I set out to brush up on my knowledge of this topic, I was reminded about how frustrated I was about getting information about my period. I had been given the most basic facts: the movie, an accompanying booklet with illustrations, and not much else. My mother was far too embarrassed to tell me more. I remember her avoiding my questions with short answers that lacked substance. I wanted to know if I could use tampons. I wanted to know why my period came at such wildly erratic intervals. I worried that people would know I had my period and it embarrassed me. A lot. That was in the early 1970s, and I like to think that things have changed.

Some attitudes have changed and some have not. There is a lot more information--good information--available to girls and moms now. When I was a kid, there was no Internet, there was nothing in the school library, and most of what I learned came from Teen and Seventeen magazines. Online forums provide a venue where girls can educate themselves and let go of some that lip-chewing anxiety.

Some resources for you if you need them:

First periods, early teens, body changes, social considerations

• A mother's questions about her daughter's first period
• Questions from teen girls
• The facts, written in a friendly, accessible style for teens, from TeenHealth.
• From the teens' section of Discovery Health Channel's Website, another teen/preteen article about the nuts and bolts of the topic. This one actually mentions that at menarche, a girl's body is capable of becoming pregnant (gasp!). You may find during your own research that this little factoid is often absent from the larger discussion.
• More links, more info from About.com
• Children's Hospital has a really nice site for girls called the Center for Young Women's Health. This might be an appropriate site for parents and girls who feel uncomfortable discussing all things girlie.