Is there a good book about puberty for adoptees?

[nothingcomestonothing]

Hi MN adopters, I need to find a book about puberty for DD (10), and I want to make sure it's as appropriate as possible for her as an adopted child. Does such a thing exist? DD is bright and has good reading skills so that side of it isn't too much of a concern, but she is very delayed emotionally so I need it to be quite straighforward and not scare her. Obviously I also want it not to have too much 'when a mummy and a daddy love each other very much' type stuff, as she knows that's not really how things were in our case.

While funny and lovely in many ways, DD is oppositional, controlling and finds it very hard to trust me, and we already have daily 'discussions' about whether she needs to put on deodorant (believe me, she very much does!) so as much as I'd like to defer it, I need to be preparing her for the journey we are clearly heading towards. Any suggestions please? A book she can read to herself at first would be best, as anything we have to read together or I have to explain will be dismissed as 'no it isn't/shut up you don't know anything/I already know that/you're an idiot' etc etc. Thanks in advance!

Hi OP;
DS is the same age and similar attitude about my apparent level of idiocy, however we got "Lets talk about the Birds and Bees" by Molly Potter, covers relationships and how some families are different etc, as well as the physical development stuff but very age appropriate, and judging by some random questions lately he has definitely read it.

I used the Growing Up Book for Boys by Davida Hartman. I think she also wrote a Growing Up Book for Girls.

It has a subtitle - what boys on the autism spectrum need to know, but you could cover that up

The book focuses very much on puberty as opposed to sex education so no mummy and daddy stuff

So it covers - changes to the body, personsl hygiene, clean clothes, spotty skin. Emotions, crushes, friendships, a little bit on the intenet, how to say no
I found it very helpful, not too wordy, written in a bullet point style, just enough info to be helpful and prompt discussion

Ok am off to check those out, thanks both!

I would strongly recommend that you don't use a book aimed at autistic children for a child who is NT but emotionally immature. It would be a good thing to be teaching her a lot about the body, not just about puberty, so that she can put it all in context - for example, my eldest is 8 and watched youtube videos by Kids Health with Chloe and the Nurb about the whole body a couple of years ago. The whole series covers a lot - including the endocrine system - and is informative and interesting (I learned a lot) and it would give her a context - so far the only changes in my 8 year old has been a bit more squiffiness and a bit more hair but they are fully on board and excited about it all. The more your dc understands about her body, and other people's bodies, the more autonomy and confidence she will feel.

The emotional immaturity - this is a really good time to be talking about this, the differences between you and her physically, the differences between her reality and the reality of children who live with bio parents. It is really important to talk about it a lot because otherwise she cannot emotionally mature. And as time goes on that will make it harder and harder for her to be able to connect with her contemporaries. And long term, all sorts of problems are more likely. So if it comes up, embrace it, and deal with the fallout.

The fighting with you and being certain you are an idiot - it comes with the territory - I got called a nobhead 20 times the other day - but not every day - and if she is fighting with you every day, you need to work on your connection with her.

PS the series I referred to didn't cover puberty, but it provided a lot of information about how the body works and so dealing with puberty from the point of view of physiological changes was easy in the context of that basic body knowledge - more education about the whole subject is better than a limited introduction to puberty as it is easy to understand puberty in context and also gives confidence generally to the child, with a greater awareness of who they are as an individual and how they fit into the world around them.

Perhaps you should look at the book before dismissing it out of hand ? I've made a suggestion based on a book for boys. I would absolutely expect the OP to look at any suggestion for resources to see whether they are suitable for her child. One book or resource rarely covers everything- I certainly used a range of resourses and books, some aimed specifically at children with autism, others not.

I thought you were recommending it as something simple as that is what the OP had asked for, for her dd to read on her own, and my advice was to do things differently.

The book itself looks really good. I didn't form any judgement at all on how you had approached things. Sorry if it sounded as though I was being dismissive it wasn't intended.