teaching our daughters about cycle health & female wellness | how to talk to your kids about puberty | your toolset to navigate the period topic

Welcome to the Stellar Cycles Podcast! In this episode, we’re talking about how to talk to your kids about puberty in order to navigate the period topic with ease. We'll cover the importance of being the expert in your home, ways to normalize period talk, especially for boys, and the role of the internet in our kids' lives. The most important thing is to keep the lines of communication open with your kids and provide them with the tools and information they need to navigate these sensitive topics.

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 Recommeded Reads
1. “The Compleat Tween” by Nancy Van Pelt
2. "The Care and Keeping of You: The Body Book for Younger Girls" by Valorie Schaefer
3. "What's Happening to Me?" by Peter Mayle
4. "The Girl's Body Book: Everything You Need to Know for Growing Up You" by Kelli Dunham
5. "Celebrate Your Body (and Its Changes, Too!): The Ultimate Puberty Book for Girls" by Sonya Renee Taylor
6. "Puberty Is Gross but Also Really Awesome" by Gina Loveless.
7. "The Period Book: A Girl's Guide to Growing Up" by Karen Gravelle

Other mentions: Check out @thehealthyhophead on Instagram for single serving meal recipes. 

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Transcript

Alina Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Stellar Cycles podcast. Your hot girl database for all the things pertaining to your femininity, your cycle and wellness, and your walk in life. As a woman, I'm your host, Elina. And today we're talking about equipping our kids with knowledge of the female cycle. The goal of today's episode is to give you an understanding on how to approach the topic of the female reproductive system and menstruation. As the expert in your family, so many of our female health problems arise from a huge lack of knowledge and a hush hush culture. There's been a big response from the listeners saying, This information is so useful about the cycle, how can I teach my daughter this? So I wanted to give you all this episode in hopes that we can address and solve problems and questions regarding the sometimes scary topic of periods in an appropriate way and during the key time frame when it really matters. By the end of this episode, you'll have a firmer grasp on how to be the one your kids come to with any questions, concerns, experiences and more that will make your relationship with them stronger and create strong and smart kids who are able to navigate sensitive times and topics in their lives as well as become great advocates for themselves. Before we get into the episode, I'd just like to give you guys a couple current updates about me. And the first and foremost one is that I finally had the courage to take a break from social media yesterday. I had such an epic for Instagram, especially my personal Instagram, because people are just sliding into my DMS. No. Hello? No. How are, you know, how have you been? Just like where did you get this? Where is that from? What's your sales associates name? And it's just kind of like girl, bye. Like literally goodbye. I think we're all just monkeys on social media performing for each other, and I've just had enough of it, even to the point where I had such a bad headache yesterday because I was like, Okay, I'm going to deactivate Instagram, but first I want to go through all my saved things because I know there's a lot of really good stuff in there and I want to at least take down the links for the things that I really want to try or purchase. A lot of. It's cooking. Stop Home Inspo maybe some locations that I want to travel to or just some really funny memes. So just even the 2 hours that I spent on sorting and saving all of that info to my notion gave me the gnarliest headache of my life. And I just felt so unwell yesterday and I was like, okay, there's, there's no way I can go through all of my saved info. Let me just do this much and that's enough. Like anything else that I need to find, I'll be able to find. The Internet is my friend. But Instagram, I don't know. Not so much. So I did end up deactivating my personal Instagram. Haven't missed it one bit. Honestly, I was just. You guys know, it sucks so much of your time and your attention. So I will also be taking time off of posting on the Stellar Cycles Pod Instagram, but I'll still be able to read and respond to your listener messages or any questions that you guys have from my laptop. The point is, I just I don't have Instagram on my phone anymore so that it's so readily available. And in the meantime a while I'm off of social media. I think I will be putting my creative efforts more towards YouTube, towards these episodes on YouTube, as well as personal YouTube videos such as vlogs or conversations and answering questions and things like that. So yeah, looking forward to it. I don't know when I'll be back. Might take a month, might take more, but so far so good. I've had a fantastic day of not having Instagram. And another thing too that I've been doing more of is I've been cooking at home so much more. You guys know, I posted on the Stellar Cycles pod my high protein yogurt drinks that has about 40 grams of protein. So I'll make that for once. I'm done with the gym for my breakfasts. I've been doing Cream of Wheat, or just a really simple open faced sandwich with Russian bread, mayonnaise, some tomatoes and salt and pepper sprinkled over that. And it's just so simple, so good. I've also been laying off the caffeine completely. My skin hasn't exactly been happy with me. So I'm like, okay, let's do everything that we can to help the skin, right? So that looks like in the morning I won't go straight for coffee. In fact, I don't drink coffee at all anymore. Or matcha. I just make my apple cider vinegar with warm. Water and lemon and a sprinkle of salt and pepper and I put that into my thermos and as I take Nova for her morning walk. I just walk around and I drink that. And that seems to wake my system up enough. And I also know that it's really good for my gut. I am still on my roasted sweet potato game is such a good midday lunch for me. I'll usually make a salad, maybe have a yogurt along with that, maybe a beef stick. I have a hard time eating a heavy lunch because that will make me absolutely pass out for the afternoon, so I've got to keep it a little light. I've also been trying a bit more of air fryer recipes, but not as much as I've wanted to, because by the end of the day I'm decently tired and I've made all of my meals at home. That dinner has been kind of hard for me. Plus my appetite is just not what it is during the day when I get closer to bedtime. I also want to give you guys a recommendation. If you're interested in making some yummy recipes for one like single serve, things follow at the healthy hop head on both Instagram and Tik Tok. Her little recipes are so cute and inspiring and it's not like overwhelming. Like you have to make it for a bunch of people. So if you are a girl that lives alone or maybe you have roommates and you mostly just cook for yourself, the healthy hop head has really, really incredible recipes from savory foods, lasagna sushi bake to no bake cheesecake, that sort of thing. So, so good. I highly recommend her, but that's pretty much it for my updates. Apart from that stuff, I am very excited to be going back home to Spokane, Washington for 4th of July. I'll be seeing my family, most of whom I have not seen since Christmas New Year's time. So you can imagine that's a very, very big deal for me. Of course, I've seen my mom and dad on occasion when they've come to California like one or two times since New Year's. But I'm going to see my grandma, my grandpa, aunts and uncles and all the kids, as well as my brothers. So I'm just so, so excited for some good family time. And of course, we're going to bring the dog with us, too, so she can experience a summer and we take her to the lake and all the good stuff because right now, she's a California beach dog, so we got to round her out a little bit. But anyway, that's enough of that. Let's get into today's conversation for today's episode. why do we need to talk about such a grown up topics such as periods with kids? Why do we need to teach our daughters about the cycle before they've even started theirs? I think those are really great questions and in my opinion, the answer lies in a few parts. In the age of the Internet, every kid has a phone and access to the web, but that doesn't always translate to them receiving and absorbing the right information. as you guys can imagine, there's a lot of noise, there's a lot of just garbage on Instagram and tik tok that fills the kids brains. And yes, even though we live in the age of information and you'd think that giving your kid a phone and access to the Internet is going to have them sitting there learning stuff all day, like a little Einstein. That is just not the case. Even us as adults, we get pulled towards what's entertaining, right, or what we can fill our time with. And again, as much as we have access to, we're not sitting here researching big topics. So especially a kid with no self-control or self-discipline, they're not going to do that either. this is why it's really important for you as the parent to be the expert in your home on sensitive topics so that your kids can feel comfortable and safe sharing with you, knowing that you are wise and can help them avoid very painful or confusing situations. Another reason why we're going to get into this episode is because we really need to normalize period talk, especially for boys. And also we just can't depend on schools these days, no matter how good the school is. It doesn't matter if your kid is in public school or Montessori school or a charter school. They just don't cover these bases properly when it comes to sexual education or puberty, education or even menstrual education. everything starts in the home. And that's why you as a parent should take this into your own hands to be the authority on the topic in your kids lives. And also, I really believe girls need to be equipped with cycle knowledge early on so that they can know what to expect, know that their health is in their hands so that they can avoid being put on birth control as early as 14 just to, quote, regulate their cycle, which we all know. Birth control does not regulate your cycle. It shuts down and suppresses it so that you don't have to deal with the problem, so to speak, until the problem gets so bad several years down the line that you're forced to address it as an adult. We also want our girls to have body confidence early. This is so important because again, in the age of the Internet, all they're seeing is perfectly airbrushed, skinny models that don't even look like that in real life. Right. So it's really important to instill body confidence in them very early on and teach them that everybody is unique. And as long as you're healthy and happy and well, then you have a good body and your body is perfect. We also want girls to be able to speak up for themselves, avoid being taken advantage of, and having this knowledge kind of helps them spot situations that they're maybe not supposed to be in or are improper for them. And of course, for them to have the tool set to begin cycle tracking and cycle healing from the very beginning right when they get their period. And it's very important for them to understand that it takes a few years after you start your period for your period to actually balance out and become what it's truly going to be. So yes, from the beginning, it's not going to be perfect, but we also don't want them to wait 15 to 20 years down the line after suffering to every issue to finally take their health into their own hands. We also really want to normalize that. This is a very, very normal thing that every woman goes through for decades in her life, sometimes 30, 35 years, and how we can kind of think to make room for women and support them in their cycles rather than screaming at them. You're on your period, aren't you, when they're acting irritated or out of sorts. So part one, I really want to talk about the World Wide Web and how kids can get caught in it. the harsh reality is that a lot of kids are seeing pornography before they even learn about puberty, menstruation and sex in a healthy controlled way. this can really throw off expectations. And why are the brain in a way that can be dangerous to development and harmful to their relationships? guys as great as the Internet is, its ability to be hazardous, harmful is even greater, especially for young, malleable minds. My personal opinion, and this is going to vary from parent to parent, but this is just my take is that kids shouldn't have personal access to the Internet, even social media, until they're like 60 and maybe even 18. But that's just me. And I know it's seemingly impossible in today's world, but I do think it can be done. I also feel like we're entering into an era of parents who have seen the iPad kid generation happen. And I think they're going to be a little bit more careful about what they expose their kids to and how much access they give to them. Personally speaking for myself, there's some things that I wish I hadn't seen that had wormed their way into my computer, and that was with extremely vigilant and careful parents that I had who were very on top of this stuff. I wouldn't say that altered me very much, but it did kind of put things into my brain that shouldn't have been there until I was much older. I just kind of want to touch on my experience to give you guys a little background of what it was like for me learning about this stuff, what worked, what did it, and what I would probably do differently with my children. So me as a child, I was always very interested in sex and reproduction and everything that people seemed to stay very tight lipped about. when I was still a little kid, I would say between the ages of seven and nine, when my mom was off at work working with midwives, delivering babies, I would crack open her textbooks and look at the diagrams of pregnancy, anatomy and so on. And I still had no idea how the baby got there. Right? I was just looking at pictures of a baby in a woman's stomach. And if you guys have listened to my episodes before, you know that I would get in trouble at school for drawing naked people. But I wasn't trying to be dirty or weird or perverted. I just truly was so fascinated and interested in human anatomy. my parents, were accurate, but not all the way descriptive when answering the Where do babies come from? QUESTION And another thing too is my parents put an extremely heavy emphasis on virginity. In fact, that topic was covered more than anything regarding the actual monthly process of menstruation or any emphasis that boys must remain as pure as woman. So this was kind of like the point that they would always hammer home. However, at nine years old, I was finally given a book from my parents on puberty, and it was called The Complete Tween by writer Nancy Van Pelt, who has since passed away. Rest in peace, Nancy. But in her lifetime, Nancy Van Pelt conducted seminars on family relationships across North America and around the world. And she was a personal friend of our family, certified as a family life educator and family and consumer science professional. She has written more than 20 books on family life. That includes dating, marriage, sometimes separation and divorce, and also books for teens and tweens. just this book alone covered more than anything that I was taught in school and actually open the subject of sex and how babies are actually made. So at this point, at nine years old, through the very age appropriate book, the diagrams and drawings and descriptions, it finally clicked. Okay, like this is how babies come into the picture. I just felt so much more equipped after reading this book. By the age of 13 now, I was dying to get my period and become a woman. After all, I knew so much more about it than my peers. And sure enough, at 13 and a half I got my period, which again was an exciting thing. But my biggest obstacle was that it was supposed to be this big secret, so I couldn't really connect to people about it in the way that I was so looking forward to. first of all, I was not allowed to let any men in the household know what I was experiencing. I was never supposed to say, I'm on my period. They were never to see any of my feminine products in the bathroom. And this is someone coming from a family where I didn't have sisters. me and my mom were the only girls and I had brothers and I had a dad and I had a lot of boy cousins. surprisingly, men were the most protected people in my period experience, which was just so crazy to me. I was like, Why is this such a huge secret from them? another thing, too, was because of the emphasis on virginity. My mom said I was not to use tampons until after I got married, which I thought that was ridiculous and I use them anyway because if there is any sort of hymen, how are we bleeding through it? Like just think about it. how is blood able to escape if we have something blocking our vaginas that's like medically not okay and usually has to be removed by a doctor. So I mean, we could talk about the myth of virginity forever, but that is not the topic of this episode. So this was my experience from the ages of pretty much high school at 17 and a half, halfway through my. Senior year, I went on birth control for the very first time to help me with my cramps because now three, four years into having a period, I was. Very inconvenienced by the amount of pain that I was experiencing. And my mom, probably not having known better and just having this be part of her experience, was kind of like, listen, like we get our periods, we suck it up, we take an ibuprofen and we work through it. there wasn't necessarily any sort of notion in my household that you can take time off during your period, that you should be resting, that you don't have to go to church or anything like that. It was just kind of like bulldoze through it. when I was on birth control at 17 and a half, it did clear my skin. It did put a little bit of weight on me, but it also made me a raging bitsy age to everyone in my family. So shortly before turning 18, I got off of it and cut to being an ultrasound school. At 21, almost 22, I discovered the book period repair manual by Dr. Laura Bryden, and my true exploration and healing journey began and ultimately led to this podcast five years later. So that's a little bit of a background on my experience. what tools can I give you to navigate this topic with your kids and hopefully have the best outcomes possible for them their reproductive and sexual health? first off, I just want to emphasize why it's important to become the expert in your home. until your kids become teenagers or get the Internet in their hands, you as the parent are the voice of authority in the home. your word is law. Kids ask you questions because they think Surely my mom and dad know everything there is to know. And while it's okay to admit that we don't know everything, we can make our kids feel confident that we can help them figure out the answers together. So how do you become the expert in your home? First of all, you want to create an atmosphere that invites your kids to ask you all sorts of questions. if they have questions for you, I know it can be exasperating and annoying when kids have like a million questions a minute, but try to get into the habit of not shutting down those questions, because when you start shutting down their questions, you're telling them, don't ask me, don't come to me with these things. I can't help you with this. And you want to build that trust with them early on. as early, early as you can I know kids, as soon as they start talking at two, three or four years old, they can already formulate some pretty gnarly questions. So even though it can be funny, entertaining, do your best to build that trust with them and answer their questions as big or small as they can be so that they know to come to you. You also want to show them that you are capable of researching something that you don't know and including them in on that process. So if your kids asks you something and you feel afraid to say, oh, I don't know the answer to that relinquish that fear and show them, hmm. I don't really know. Let's see what we can do to find out about this and take them through the process of researching and finding that answer. Kids are going to feel so independent and feel so good about themselves, have that confidence when they see you modeling that for them, that, hey, we don't have all the answers, but we have all of the resources that we can go to and find out. And also this is so important. So, so important, but you want to teach them the anatomical names of their body parts. Also, very early on I had on sex therapist and pediatric psychology nurse Taylor Stafford on my podcast, I want to say a few months back and she said that the more kids knew about their bodies and could name certain body parts and had high confidence, the less vulnerable they were to predators. So think about how important it is for your kids to be loud and proud and not be an easy target for those predators. Another way that you can become an expert in your home is to educate yourself, right? really equip yourself with that knowledge that you want to pass down to your kids. You can get acquainted or reacquainted with cycle knowledge through doing your own reading, which I have plenty of book recommendations on this stellar cycle Instagram by listening to this podcast and other podcast, and of course, using that seasonal approach to teach your girls about the phases in their monthly cycle. Because while many of these books for kids, they cover the cycle, but they don't cover the fact that there's multiple phases in the cycle that you go through and that you're going to feel different during each one and that that's okay. So when I mean use this seasonal approach, I am saying teach them that, okay, your period is your winter, your follicular phase is your springtime, your ovulatory phase is your summer and your PMS luteal phase is your autumn or your fall and all of that kind of how those seasons happen in a year for the planet. All those seasons will happen in one month for you, and it's okay to embrace and utilize each season for different things. Of course, you can also get acquainted with cycle knowledge as a parent on watching YouTubes, maybe watching how women go through this, how they do their phases, what do they do on their luteal phase or what do they do on their menstrual phase or follicular or ovulatory? YouTube is a great wealth of information to another way to educate yourself is to proofread the books that you are going to give your kids. I have some suggestions of books coming at the end of the episode, and of course you'll become such an expert when you do some cycle tracking yourself so that you can truly have a good grip on what you're going to teach your kids. finally, becoming an expert in your family means giving your kids an informative judgment free zone with boundaries, of course. And you will see that they will want to share sensitive questions and experiences with you because you give them the safety to do so. Part three. Normalizing periods for boys. In today's world, boys are way too protected from periods. They don't know how to treat the ladies, even when they're like 35 and fully grown men. I think we can really remedy this as parents. And you'd probably thinking, okay, well, how are we going to normalize it for them? They're not going through it. Well, just because they're not going through it doesn't mean that they can be insensitive or uneducated about it. They literally live and share lives and share this planet and share workspaces and school spaces with women, with menstruating women So it's super important to break up the taboo of the period, especially when it comes to boys. So how do we normalize it for them? Do it as young as possible when the boys are young. Don't hide your period from them. As a mom, I don't mean that you have to be super outright about it. But and this might be a really controversial topic because I don't know many moms who do this, but their care and concern for you as a mom goes a really long way, especially when they're little and when they see blood, they might be worried that you're hurt. But this is a really good chance, an opportunity for you to reassure them that you're okay. And this is something every girl goes through every month and it's healthy. And before you know it, they'll be helping you and treating you while you're on your period and taking up some of that concern and you know, actually caring. this, of course, will continue through to their adult relationships in the future. And can you imagine, the chances a guy will have when he knows how to treat a PMS in girl rather than blaming her for acting out when she's on her period? I mean, that guy is going to have a lot better chances and dating than his, friends who don't know anything about this. another thing you can do is give your boys books to read that not only cover their portion of puberty and what happens to them during puberty, but also what's happening to their sisters and their female friends. it's totally okay and necessary for them to read up on what girls are experiencing. you can also teach your boys that it's never okay to put down a girl or make fun of her for having a period. all in all, the less that we taboo something, the less it becomes an actual problem. Once something is explained simply to kids, they don't obsess over it anymore because it's no longer some crazy, big, wild, secret part for bringing the education home. Like I said earlier, because we can't depend on school systems in the USA to adequately cover sex education or even period education. You as a parent get to take this sort of education into your own hands based on statistics having the sex education in the home actually reduces engagement and sexual activity too early. It reduces chances for predatory situations or grooming. It reduces chances of teenage pregnancy, reduces chances of too many sexual partners at an early age, and reduces erratic or irresponsible sexual behavior. Some books that I want to recommend for you guys to help your kids understand the female cycle. the first book that I talked about, the one that I read written in 1985, the complete tween by Nancy Van Pelt. Another book is The Care and Keeping of You the Body Book for Younger Girls by Valerie Schaefer. This it's a popular guide for girls aged 8 to 12, and it offers practical advice and information about their changing bodies. Another book is What's Happening to Me by Peter, Male or Male? May Ellie. This classic book uses humor and simple language to explain puberty to children, making it accessible and less intimidating for readers aged 9 to 12. The fourth book I'm recommending is the Girls Body Book Everything You Need to Know For Growing Up You by Kelly Dunham. So it's kind of similar to the Boys Body book, but this version is tailored for girls aged 8 to 12, addressing their specific needs and concerns. Next, we have Celebrate Your Body and its changes to the Ultimate Puberty Book for Girls by Sonya Renee Taylor. So this is an empowering guide for girls aged 8 to 12, and it covers the physical and emotional. Changes of puberty with a focus on body positivity and self-acceptance. Eight is puberty is gross but also really awesome by Gina Loveless. And again, this is another humorous and informative book for kids aged 9 to 12, it provides a candid look at the changes that come with puberty. it seems like people are leaning towards making this more lighthearted and less scary for kids, which I really love. final recommendation is the period book A Girl's Guide to Growing Up by Karen Gravelle. this book is specifically focused on menstruation, providing girls or boys with detailed information about what to expect and how to manage it. In conclusion, dear parents, you've got this. It can seem like a daunting task. But you know mom or dad, how necessary this is and how many problems We could have avoided if only we had the right tool set at the right age. To wrap things up, we've covered a lot today from the importance of being the expert in your home, how we can normalize period talk, especially for boys and the role of Internet in our kids lives. This is a journey and it's okay if you don't have all the answers right now. The most important thing is to keep the lines of communication open with your kids and provide them with the tools and information they need to navigate these sensitive topics. Remember, you're not alone in this. There are resources and communities out there to support you, including this podcast, Stellar Cycles. So let's keep the conversation going for the sake of our daughters, our sons, and our future generations. Thank you for joining me for this episode. I hope it was really informative to you. Please follow along on Instagram at Stellar Cycles pod. You can download the free grocery guide I have for you based on the phase that you're at in your cycle. And if you have time, please give us a five star rating. And if you really enjoyed this podcast and you're feeling extra generous, please leave a review. I love to read anything that you guys have to say about this show. Until the next time, spread the good word about stellar cycles to your fellow woman. And let's all elevate our lives, cycles and dreams together. Till next time. Stellar cycles out.