What I will share at this point might get a bit technical. I'll try not to overwhelm you with details, although it is important to understand what is about to happen to your girls. So if you will, please consider these next few paragraphs very carefully as I describe a fascinating but complex developmental journey. The changes that are about to occur will affect the rest of their lives.
Immediately after the juvenile pause, puberty comes on like a house afire. The girl enters a period of intense physical, emotional, and neurological transformation. The timing of this new phase is genetically controlled, although it also appears to be affected by family stability and other factors such as weight gain.2 Ultimately, however, puberty is set into motion by signals from a remarkable area of the midbrain called the hypothalamus.3
This part of the brain closely monitors much of the body's internal environment, including temperature, blood pH, blood sugar levels, and the concentration of many hormones. If a particular chemical is deemed to be out of balance, a signal will be sent to other parts of the brain or body to effect needed changes.
When the time is right, the hypothalamus begins barking orders to the pituitary gland by the secretion of hormones. They are powerful chemical messengers that circulate through the bloodstream and tell the body and cells how to react.4 The pituitary is an aspirin-sized structure that sits at the base of the brain. In spite of its tiny size, it plays a very important role in regulating numerous body functions. It has been called "the master gland" because it controls a multitude of hormonal functions.5 Responding to the direction of the hypothalamus, among other glands, it secretes two hormones, LH and FSH, into the bloodstream that flow to the ovaries and cause the production of massive amounts of estrogen. Thus, the girl's brain is marinated for a second time in this female hormone, which begins to spur maturation and sexual development. Three other primary hormones are involved in puberty: progesterone, testosterone, and growth hormones.6 When they work in concert, it is like fireworks on the Fourth of July.
As LH and FSH stimulate the production of estrogen and progesterone by the ovaries, these hormone levels are monitored by a set of receptors in the hypothalamus and pituitary. In other words, a delicate feedback mechanism comes into play that fine-tunes the constantly fluctuating hormones in a specified fashion, thereby allowing the miracle of ovulation and, as some would say, the curse of menstruation. These elevated levels also influence a multitude of functions and emotions, including anger, sorrow, joy, memory, aggression, thirst, appetite, weight, fat distribution, the development of secondary sex characteristics such as pubic hair, and higher intellectual functioning. In short, they bring about a makeover of the body and the personality. It all begins happening very quickly. So brace yourselves, Mom and Dad. When you see "tiny green buds" appearing on your little girl's tree, you know that childhood is over and she is growing up.
Don't be surprised if your prepubescent kids have heard from older siblings or friends that something exciting and scary is coming, even if they don't yet know what it is. I am reminded of a ten-year-old boy who had a speaking part in a school performance. He was supposed to quote the immortal words of Patrick Henry, but he became confused at the last moment and shouted out, "Give me puberty or give me death!" For some parents, the choice seems to come down to those alternatives.
Once these developmental changes begin to occur, they can be deeply disturbing to a girl who hasn't been told what is happening to her body.
2. Ibid.
3.Alecia D. Schweinsburg, Bonnie J. Nagel, et al, "fMRI Reveals Alteration of Spatial Working
Memory Networks across Adolescence," Journal of International Neuropsychological Society 11, no. 5 (2005): 631–644; B. Luna, K. E. Garver, et al, "Maturation of Cognitive Processes from Late Childhood to Adulthood," Child Development 75, no. 5 (2004): 1357.
4.Gurian, The Wonder of Girls, 70.
5."What Is the Pituitary Gland?" University of Pittsburgh, Department of Neurological Surgery; see
http://www.neurosurgery.pitt.edu/minc/skullbase/pituitary/index.html
. 6.Gurian, The Wonder of Girls, 75.
Book: Bringing Up Girls
By Dr. James Dobson