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Preteens

Hormones and Sexuality

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blueredgreenorange · 09/01/2013 13:38

My daughter is 11 and a half and has recently started her periods. She is far more developed physically than most of her friends is tall for her age (5 ft six ) and up until now has been a fun-loving exuberant personality. Her hormones are no doubt all over the place and she seems very confused about her sexual identity. She is concerned that most of her friends have 'boyfriends' and she has never been asked out. She is worried about feeling sexual attraction to her friends, which we have told her is very usual - but more concerning to us is she says that she is constantly imagining 'touching' them and although she hasn't, she day dreams that she has, and then feels upset and worried. My partner and I have talked to her at length and said that if she was touching friends inappropriately they would react, and that she should stop punishing herself - but she seems unable to stop creating this false reality. This has been going on for the past couple of days and she is off her food with worry. We are keeping a close eye on her, but as she has been prone to attention seeking in the past, we are trying not to indulge her behaviour too much, and tell her that she has the choice regarding these thoughts, and she must take responsibility for them. I was wondering how unusual this is and whether other parents experience 'unusual' behaviour as sexual awareness dawns on their children?

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DifferentNow · 10/01/2013 13:35

I have an 11 year old DD too. You sound to me as though you're dealing with it in exactly the right way. We bought DD a Kindle Fire for Xmas and I was horrified to discover that she had downloaded 2 'sex positions' type apps a few days ago. With DD and all the other girls in her class at the moment, you can quite clearly see that it's all drama, hormones and questions. You sound like you have an environment at home where your DD feels comfortable about openly discussing her feelings and really all you can do is try and keep this going for as long as you can. I agree with keeping it simple, factual and sensible and not indulging drama.

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