Puberty Ain’t What It Used to Be: Tips for Talking to Kids Today About Their Bodies and Their Selves

By Elaine Griffin

“The puberty of the past bears little resemblance to what kids live through today.” 

This stark declaration appears on the first page of “This Is So Awkward: Modern Puberty Explained,” a terrific new book by Dr. Cara Natterson and Vanessa Kroll Bennett. I interviewed Natterson to learn how parents can support children through the complicated landscape of modern puberty. 

I began by asking Natterson why she felt compelled to write “This Is So Awkward.” 

“I’ve spent my whole career in pediatrics, and I’ve also written a lot of books for kids,” she said. “I’ve found that it’s the adults who don’t feel they can engage kids in conversations,” she added. “Writing a book to help adults talk about puberty felt like a slam dunk.”

Some parents cringe at the thought of having The Talk with their children, but even those who are comfortable with candid conversations need to learn how puberty and sex have evolved in recent years. The timing of puberty, the nature of relationships, and the smartphone have changed the experience of puberty in profound ways. “The ground beneath our collective feet has shifted dramatically, making it more, not less, important to have factual, candid conversations with kids,” we learn in the chapter on sex. 

For those of us who experienced puberty before 1990, it likely began around age 11 and concluded three or four years later. Puberty now starts about two years earlier and lasts nearly a decade. A decade. (That’s not a typo.)

The 1990s Are So Yesterday

While the physical changes that define puberty remain the same, the social context in which puberty unfolds is largely unrecognizable to most parents. Those who grew up on ’90s rom-coms were influenced by social norms regarding sex and dating that are entirely different from those of today. 

Think about it. 

In “You’ve Got Mail,” a quintessential ’90s rom-com, Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) is searching for her one true love and finds him by engaging in witty repartee over email. Her exchanges with the dashing Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) are written in full sentences with impeccable grammar. At one point, Joe offers to send Kathleen a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils. This movie could not be written today for many reasons, the least of which is that the pencil has fallen out of favor.

Here are the bigger reasons. The notion of Kathleen and Joe scrolling left or right on Tinder or engaging in sexting is unfathomable, not just because this movie took place in a pre-smartphone world, but also because these practices would have been antithetical to this age's notions of romance.

Cue to 2024. 

Natterson and Bennett write extensively about youth culture. They explain that high-school students and 20-somethings are immersed in a hook-up culture that encourages multiple partners. More and more, young people are finding themselves in a “situationship” (yes, that’s a real term), which is essentially a non-committal relationship. 

One can connect this seismic shift to the introduction of the smartphone, which has not only refashioned views on sex, but also created new body image ideals and a new style of communication among its users. (As I write this, Australia has introduced legislation to ban social media for anyone under age 16. They might be on to something.)

Talking the Talks—Plural—in 2024

Because of this sea change, Natterson and Bennett provide updated advice on how to talk to kids about their bodies, emotions, and relationships. By providing the facts, they hope to give parents greater confidence when talking to their children.

I asked Natterson why adults often feel uncomfortable talking to their kids about puberty and sex. She explained that parents bring their own adolescent history into the conversation rather than focusing on their child’s lived experience. 

“Parents carry a lot of baggage,” she noted. “We remember the scary moments, the crush unrequited. We are afraid to talk about a time in life that carries baggage, but kids don’t have that baggage. They have highs and lows. We need to get over our own fear. Enjoy it. Laugh about it.”

Natterson believes that parents should have numerous, short conversations with their children rather than long, significant ones. 

Why? 

“Because they are going to leave the room otherwise,” she laughed. “If it’s a monologue, they are done! By and large, we all do better with shorter talks. Deliver your message and then get out.” She then provided an example of a short conversation one might have with a teen about safe sex: “Hey, I want to show you where we keep condoms in the house, and I want you to use them if you choose to have sex. Do you want me to show you how to put one on? No? Okay.” That’s it.

The talks parents initiate with younger kids should progress in sophistication as kids grow and mature. Even if children are unreceptive to some, they go a long way towards building trust around sensitive topics. Given that puberty is now starting around nine years old, talks about how bodies change are increasingly important to have with younger kids.

Handling Early Onset Puberty

I asked Natterson to explain why puberty now begins before middle school. She reviewed what she referred to as “three gigantic buckets.” 

“One reason is stress—academic stress, athletic stress. The stress hormone cortisol contributes to puberty. Second, there are antibiotics that are given to animals and there is excrement on fields so antibiotics are in the food chain. Antibiotics cause inflammation in the gut, which is associated with early puberty. Third, there are endocrine disrupting chemicals found predominantly in personal-care products, about 1,000 of them.” Natterson explained that such chemicals may signal the brain to trigger early puberty. Because endocrine disrupting chemicals are found in so many products, it can feel “overwhelming or even insurmountable,” but Natterson said there's a lot we can do to safeguard our own health and that of children. 

She suggests that we “modulate stress, get more sleep, and prioritize nutrition.” She advises getting off devices as much as possible and opting out of notifications. “Meditation reduces cortisol. Be social with friends. Institutionalize that!” 

Because of early puberty, Natterson and Bennett caution adults to treat kids by their chronological age. “Just because they look mature—and even if they sometimes act mature—their executive functioning skills haven’t ripened, nor has their ability to make smart, consequential, long-term choices,” they write. In fact, the prefrontal cortex—the logical, reasoning center of the brain—is still maturing throughout one’s twenties. Natterson told me that the prefrontal cortex “may not be fully online until age 30.”

I asked Natterson if it was possible for adults to help kids make smarter decisions given the nature of their brains. “Yes, they absolutely can,” she assured me. “We can encourage kids to take a deep breath, step out of the room, or call someone to do a check and balance before doing something risky.” 

She continued, “We all know those kids who make smart decisions. What do they do? They are giving their brains time to make a thoughtful decision. A lot of neuroscientists have written on the relationship between time and good decision making.” 

But exactly how much time do impulsive kids need to make a smarter decision? 

“Just a few extra seconds, not a ton of time, not 40 minutes,” Natterson said. “Even adults who take just a few seconds to think before reacting make different decisions.”

Social Media Harms Kids. Period.

Given that kids’ brains are wired for more impulsive decision making, managing smartphones and social media can be especially challenging for them. As a middle school head, I’ve known really good kids who have sent nudes, posted an insensitive meme, or sent a cruel text only to regret it moments—not days—later. 

Natterson expressed her concerns about social media’s impact on body image. 

“In medical school, we were taught that dysregulated eating was a girls’ issue,” she said. “But that’s not true at all. It’s a 50/50 split. The risk for everyone is high. Sure, body image ideals have been around for centuries, but with screens we are now inundated with them. Girls at least have more than one ideal today. Boys have one. We all know what that is: chiseled, a six pack, a full head of hair or a shaved bald head. It’s hard for boys because none of this is talked about.” 

Today, a third of people diagnosed with eating disorders are male. Natterson knows a lot about boys and body image because she wrote a full chapter on it in her previous book, "Decoding Boys."

In this new book, Natterson and Bennett discuss the investigation of Instagram in 2021, which exposed that its designers were acutely aware of its harmful impact on young users. The negative publicity earned Instagram a new moniker: Thinstagram. In their book, Natterson and Bennett give readers very cogent advice on the topic of body image: “Fostering positive body image in kids takes ongoing inordinate self-control from the adults, who need to keep their mouths shut and their hearts open.”

We are living in a society that is simultaneously obsessed with weight loss and suffering from a chronic obesity epidemic. Parents often worry about the weight of their children as they progress through puberty. Natterson advised putting weight into perspective. “Some kids grow before they gain weight. Some kids gain before they grow. Just know that adding your judgment about their weight contributes another layer to the message the world has already given them about their weight. It’s best to let it go.”

The Growing Influence of Porn, Even Among Kids

In addition to contending with social media’s message to be thin, kids are up against the messages of online pornography. If you think that pornography isn’t impacting young kids, consider a startling statistic Natterson shared with me: Common Sense Media reports that 15% of kids have seen porn by age 12. 

The online porn industry is quickly fashioning a new body ideal, especially when it comes to hair. While the growth of body hair is a normal process that accompanies puberty, pornography showcases a different social norm: actors who have no hair below the neck. 

This means that young viewers, already uncomfortable with new body hair, may feel that this hair is abnormal or unattractive. Natterson and Bennett encourage parents to begin the conversations about pornography early. “No matter how awkward, uncomfortable, or utterly mortifying this topic may be, it’s become non-negotiable.” In the book, they provide openers to these conversations with a sensitivity to a child’s age.

I asked Natterson to comment on pornography’s harm to adolescents. Her instinctive response: “Do you have a year?!” She continued, “Porn today looks nothing like it did when we grew up. It’s video after video of sex acted out on screens. It’s violent, aggressive, and non-consensual. It shows idealized bodies that don’t exist in real life. This is not the sex any parents want their kids to have.”

When it comes to older adolescents and relationships, Natterson said that “pornography is replacing sex-education because kids see it before they hold someone’s hand or kiss someone. The pornography industry will write the narrative for these kids if their parents don’t intervene.” Natterson then shared a disturbing sex trend among teens covered this year in the New York Times: the increasing popularity of suffocation. “It’s risen at astronomical rates and it’s life threatening.” Teens are imitating images they’ve seen online.

Natterson cautioned any parent reluctant to initiate the porn conversation to consider that the porn industry will gladly step in and do the sex-educating for you. “When building formative ideas about sex, we don’t want porn to be their textbook.” We want to convey that healthy relationships are respectful, consensual, and safe.

At the conclusion of our conversation, Natterson spoke with excitement about her new website: Lessawkward.com. It contains a lot of resources for parents. It even has an AI bot trained to answer parents’ questions based on the content Natterson and Bennett fed it. They’ve also launched a sex-ed curriculum for parents because many parents want to learn about the current science and cultural context of puberty. 

Finding the Joy: Toward Better Relationships

By talking openly with kids about friendship, intimacy, and love, parents can influence their children’s perspectives and decisions. Parents can transmit their values, too. Yes: Reading “This Is So Awkward” often made me feel awkward. And yes: There were times when it just made me want to cry. But, there were also times when the authors’ sense of humor and playful tone made me laugh out loud.

We can decry how awful the world has become. Or we can seize our opportunities—and, yes, prerogatives—as parents and educators to offer alternative visions of how we might be together with each other in the world, in ways that promote love and kindness.    

In terms of inspiring parents to talk with their children about puberty, Natterson feels that her website is “a joyful way to get started.” So is this book. Both give us tools that can help us strengthen our relationships with our kids through better and more honest communication. Reading and implementing the suggestions in “This Is So Awkward” will ultimately make you feel less awkward. And it will help our next generation to love what’s best and most healthy about their bodies and themselves. 

About Elaine Griffin:

Elaine Griffin has worked at University School of Milwaukee since 1998, serving as the head of Middle School since 2019. Previously, she served as the assistant head of Upper School and taught Upper School English. She has both a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in English, and served as the president of the Whitefish Bay Library.