Resources for the Female Child

Here are a some suggestions of useful resources to help in parenting your young female child. These are only suggestions and are provided as additional tools for your consideration and should not be construed to mean our implicit or explicit endorsement of their content. Please use your parental discretion.

Care & Keeping of You: The Body Book for Girls

by Valorie Lee Schaefer, Norm Bendell (Illustrator)

About this title: This guide to health and hygiene for preteen girls covers such subjects as acne, menstruation, bad breath, and developing healthy eating habits. Color illustrations accompany the text.

Growing Up: It’s a Girl Thing: Straight Talk about First Bras, First Periods, and Your Changing Body

by Mavis Jukes

About this title: A humorous yet informative look at the changes and pressures that adolescence brings into the lives of girls. Topics covered include getting your period, buying a bra, sexual orientation, sexually transmitted diseases, birth control, and dealing with an unplanned pregnancy. Also discussed are general health topics, eating disorders, sexual abuse, and advice on handling the temptations of drugs, smoking, and alcohol.

Ready, Set, Grow!: A What’s Happening to My Body? Book for Younger Girls

by L. Madaras

About this title: From the award-winning author of the best books on puberty comes this book written especially for girls who have a curiosity about their soon-to-be changing bodies.

American Medical Association Girl’s Guide to Becoming a Teen

by Kate Gruenwald Pfeifer, Amy B. Middleman (Editor)

About this title: Becoming a teen is an important milestone in every girl’ s life. It’s even more important to get answers and advice to the most common health issues girls face from a trusted source. The “American Medical Association Girl’s Guide to Becoming a Teen” is filled with invaluable advice to get you ready for the changes you will experience during puberty. Learn about these important topics and more: Puberty and what kinds of physical and emotional changes you can expect— from your developing body to your feelings about boys The importance of eating the right foods and taking care of your body Your reproductive system inside and out Starting your period— what it means and how to handle it Thinking about relationships and dealing with new feelings.

Growing and Changing: A Handbook for Preteens

by Kathy McCoy, Charles Wibbelsman, M.D.

About this title: For more than 15 years, “Growing and Changing” has been helping kids cope with the transformation from child to adult. This new edition of the popular guide provides authoritative answers to kids’ most frequently asked questions. Illustrations.

What’s happening to me? : The answers to some of the world’s most embarrassing questions.

by Peter Mayle, Arthur Robins

About this title: Discusses the mental and physical changes that take place during puberty.

Puberty Girl

by Shushann Movsessian

About this title: Offering a fun, sassy, and girl-power-inspired approach to understanding puberty, this beautifully packaged guide offers tweens an appealing and fresh take on entering adolescence. This celebration of maturing bodies and spirits is invariably positive, while providing factual information on menstruation, pubic hair, acne, eating disorders, and other issues essential to girls entering puberty. The emotional challenges of this stage are also addressed, including information on sexual abuse, bullying, maturation reluctance, and conflict resolution. With straightforward and conversational advice on everything from tampons to teasing, “Puberty Girl” is a trustworthy resource for girls seeking answers to embarrassing questions and looking for a way to embrace their new selves. Inspiring photographs of real girls create a sense of shared community, while instructional illustrations teach young girls about their changing bodies.

It’s Perfectly Normal: A Book about Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health

by Robie H. Harris

About this title: Providing accurate, unbiased answers to nearly every imaginable question, from conception and puberty to birth control and AIDS, “It’s Perfectly Normal” offers young people the information they need–now more than ever–to make responsible decisions and to stay healthy.

What’s Happening to My Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents and Daughters

by Lynda Madaras, Area Madaras, Marcia Herman-Giddens (Foreword by)

About this title: Written for pre-teens and teens (with a special introduction for their parents), this in an introduction to the physical and emotional changes most girls go through during puberty. Topic covered includes body hair, acne, sexuality, and what happens to boys during puberty. Illustrations accompany the text.

Girl Stuff: A Survival Guide to Growing Up

by Margaret Blackstone, Elissa Haden Guest, Barbara Pollak (Illustrator)

About this title: Matter-of-fact yet friendly advice for girls. Topics covered include how to buy a bra, dealing with acne, and what to wear when you have your period. Also included is information on anatomy, sexual orientation, self-defense, and how to make good friends. Illustrated with drawings.

Helpful Websites

http://www.girlshealth.gov

www.kidshealth.org

http://www.lpch.org/DiseaseHealthInfo/HealthLibrary/adolescent/paf.html (for the parents)

http://www.teengrowth.com/index.cfm?action=info_article&ID_article=1346&category=body&catdesc=Body&subdesc=Breast

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/body/interactives/lifecycle/teenagers/

Family traditions can go a long way in helping to create and maintain a healthy family life.

Family traditions can be an avenue for family members to get together and fellowship with one another. Such gatherings tend to foster a better family relationship, unity, and understanding.

If you do not already have family traditions, now is the perfect time to start a ritual, celebration or habit of your own.

Your family can celebrate the holidays in many ways. Here are a few examples of traditions that may work for you:

• Prepare special foods that honor your family’s ethnic, religious or cultural heritage
• Create at-home activities that everyone gets involved in: decorating the house, making dinner, eating together, watching a favorite video, playing games or cards, singing carols.
• Take a family outing; they can be as elaborate as ski vacations or as simple as trips to a local museum or attraction
• Volunteer some time for a charitable cause: serving food at a soup kitchen or shelter, visiting residents of a nursing home
• Attend worship services together as a family

As your family marks holidays or special events, be sure to talk to your children about the specifics of your family celebration. Make sure your children help plan the celebration and assist with preparations, such as helping to choose the menu and activities, set the table or greeting guests.

As your children grow older, you can provide more details about how your family traditions got started and why they are important. These details will help your children understand the traditions so they can carry them on when they are adults or adapt them to their own lives as they get older. Traditions provide each generation with links to the past.

For some, memories of holidays and special events may not be pleasant. If that is true in your family, try to establish different traditions that give new meaning to these special days.

Whether it is with special foods or one-of-a-kind activities, traditions create fond childhood memories and bring everyone in the family closer together.

There are several reasons to schedule checkups or health physical examination for children. It may be time for routine vaccinations. There may be a particular physical or behavioral issue of concern. It may be a requirement for participation in sports or camp. Whatever the reason for the appointment, all checkup visits have the same goal: to evaluate your child’s health and educate both parent and child for optimal growth and development.

Before your checkup, make a list of any concerns you want to discuss with the provider. Gather pertinent records (vaccine records, information from other physicians), any camp or sports forms that need to be signed, and names and dosages of current medications. For infants 2-18 months of age, you may give a dose of acetaminophen (Tylenol) before the visit as they may be getting vaccines. Click here for dosing guidelines.

We also encourage you to get online and read up on vaccines.

All checkups start with vital signs: weight, height, head circumference for babies, blood pressure for children 3 and up, and heart rates before and after exercise for sports physicals. Children ages 3 and up will need to provide a urine specimen. Kindergarten physicals also include hearing and vision screens. The nurse will then ask some questions concerning your child’s development, nutrition, any recent illnesses, or concerns you would like the provider to address.

The provider will evaluate your child’s growth, development, and immunization status. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU PROVIDE US WITH AN UP-TO-DATE COPY OF YOUR CHILD’S VACCINES. Then all children receive a head-to-toe examination (this includes teens for sports and camp). We allow our teen patients to decide whether or not they would like their parent to remain in the room for the exam. (helpful hint: if your child is embarrassed to be examined in their underwear, have them wear a bathing suit instead) Afterwards, we can discuss any concerns you may have about your child. Again, for teens, we request some time for the patient to have the opportunity to discuss any issues alone with the physician that they may not want to discuss in front of their parent. Remember, many of the things teens ask us about in private are NOT the world-changing issues you may be worried about.

NOTE:

• For parents who have extensive concerns about their child’s behavior or school problems, we suggest a “parent conference”. We schedule these immediately after lunch so we can have extra time to discuss these complicated issues.
• After the provider is finished, the nurse will return to perform vaccines and blood work. Most infants will receive vaccines at 2, 4, 6, 12, 15 and 18 months. Children typically receive vaccines at age 4 or 5 years, then again when they are 11 or 12 years old. You can follow the links provided to get more information about the different immunizations offered at each visit. You can also visit the CDC website, www.cdc.gov,  for additional information.
• Please remember to bring your pre-participation forms for sports or camp, so we can fill these out during your visit. Make sure to complete the “medical history” section prior to the checkup (it MUST be complete before the physician can sign off on the form). For school sports in Georgia, you can download and print the sports physical form here on our website.
• For infants and toddlers receiving vaccines, we recommend giving Tylenol every 4-6 hours for the 24 hours following the injections. The most common vaccine side effects are fever (usually low grade), crankiness, sleepiness, minor swelling at the injection site. Your nurse and physician can discuss vaccines with you in more detail during your visit.
• Checkups should be fun (at most ages) and informative, not just a requirement to be completed. Please feel free to ask ANY questions regarding your child. We’re here to help you and your child.
• You may want to print the Sports participation forms from our website, fill them and bring them with you. This will shorten the time you spend during your visit.