Menstration and the daughter

I was talking to my mom the other night about my daughter’s horrible emotional swing she had had. It was Sunday afternoon and I had just gotten back from picking her up at her uncle’s house where she had spent the weekend. She immediatley wanted to hop on the computer and play a game. My husband asked her if she had studied anything this weekend or had spent time reading at all. She said no and he suggested that she did so before she just played around. He turned and walked away to do his own homework for his college courses. She just looked at me and the tears welled up in her eyes. They were these huge crocodile tears. She told me she didn’t have any of her books at home to study with. So I suggested that she get out some paper and write down her multiplication facts (which is an area she has some trouble with at school). She did, but the tears just flowed. It isn’t like he yelled at her or was mean in anyway. She just went from happy to bawling in seconds.
Later that night we were watching a movie and I realized it was quarter after eight. Her bedtime is eight, so I paused the movie and told her to get ready for bed. She tried to say she wasn’t tired, but that wasn’t cutting it with me…day light savings or not. I told her she could finish it the next day, and again the crocodile tears came a flowing.
So after talking to her grand mother about the recent events, she brought to my attention the fact that my daughter may be starting that wonderful part of life called…menstration. YAY! Wow, what a concept. It is hard for me to put in to perspective the idea of my little girl hitting that stage in life at what seems like such a young age. In reality, she is nine years old and it is common for girls to begin getting their period between the ages of 8 and 17. It just still seems unfathomable to me. Now I have to find a way to talk to her about these changes in her body and what to expect. (Damn, why couldn’t I just have had a son…really?) My daughter is the type to just blurt things out sometimes regardless of who may be in the room when she does. I would really be embarrassed for her if such an even struck her at school and she knew nothing of the subject. I could only imagine the horror she would feel if she found the awful stains in her panties after using the restroom and not knowing what was happening; then asking her teacher in a not so descret fashion while the curious ears of the classroom where nearby to overhear. The teasing and humiliation that would follow would be everlasting. As it is she can be very sensitive to even the lightest teasing about things. I would feel horrible as a parent on top of it.
So, after a day’s thought of the subject, I began searching the the ‘net for ways to talk to her about it and get some insight on what exactly to tell her in a way that would not freak her out. I was also trying to come up with a way of telling her what was happening to her body in a way that she could relate to. So it began. I found two sites that I thought did a good job at putting the explanation into terms she could understand. I kept the pages marked for later usage. My thought was to have her read the information and then we could talk about it together. (The sites I tagged are: http://www.iwannaknow.org/puberty and http://www.avert.org/puberty2.htm)

****It has now been a week since I had my daughter read through the information on the websites. After she was done we discussed what she had read and further talked about what to look forward to. She had a few questions about the information. We shall see if it sticks with her and keeps her from freaking out when her cycle hits. If not, we will just have to sit down and talk through it again. Time will tell…..