What parents need to know about guiding kids through puberty

Underwritten by Tristan James Jr.

(CNN) Grown+ups tend to recall their adolescence as a highlight reel (or maybe, in some cases, it’s a lowlight reel): the first leg or face shave, the first kiss, the first bra, the first ejaculation or menstruation, and the first time you walked into a room and were treated like an adult.

It can flip quickly through our brains, a series of events — part humiliating, part liberating — accounting for one of our greatest stages of metamorphosis. Perhaps it’s the trauma that has compressed the experience. Or maybe it is that, once the final product — our adult selves — is realized, it is hard to trace it back to the starting point.

This long journey of adolescence becomes more manageable for all parties when we see it as slow and unique to each person.

CNN HEALTH

Parents need to start talking about puberty earlyBut for those going through it, adolescence is a long journey, beginning far before we might anticipate it and ending long after. And the variability from kid to kid is enormous. It’s possible for a group of friends to collectively spend close to 15 years in adolescence, with an early bloomer beginning at age 8 and a late one not wrapping things up until their early 20s, said Dr. Richard J. Chung, an adolescent medicine specialist at Duke Health.

A very rough timeline

Some kids begin puberty in late elementary school. Girls can start as early as 8 and boys as early as 9, timing that’s considered “precocious puberty” in both cases, Chung said. Other kids begin puberty as late as high school. For girls, the latest age tends to be around 13, and for boys it’s 14. The whole process can take between two and five years, though psychological maturity can take longer.

For boys, the first sign is testicular enlargement, which is gradual, said Chung. With girls, the first sign is what doctors call “breast budding” or small bumps under the nipple. 

Both of these are triggered by hormones, and are followed by a series of physical, emotional and cognitive changes, including body hair growth, as well as changes in muscle and fat mass. Two of the most notable milestones are the beginning of menstruation, or menarche, in girls and the beginning of sperm production, or spermarche, with boys.

Chung said parents may be inclined to attribute their children’s psychological changes to the hormones causing these physical changes, but the relationship isn’t always clear cut.