By Jean Nash Johnson
The Dallas Morning News

Brittany, an energetic fifth-grader, loves riding her bike fast. She and best friend Jennifer giggle awkwardly during suggestive moments in PG-13 movies, and until recently they adored TV's "Rugrats."

The girls still play with Barbies and Brittany's collector's dolls, and the two get a kick out of singing along with their CDs. When the two mouth Britney Spears' "I'm Not That Innocent," they're mimicking a phrase that is ironic.

Brittany is 11 years old, 5 feet 5 inches tall, 130 pounds. She got her period two years ago, shortly after turning 9. The "shy-until-you-get-to-know-her" schoolgirl has all the physical signs of womanhood. She has curves in all the right places.

"A child in a woman's body," her mom says, with a hint of sadness. "I had to tell my baby that she was becoming a woman when she was 8 years old. That made my heart ache. But I stayed positive, kept it on a high note explaining to her that every young girl has to go through it. For her it just came earlier. She's very smart. She understood as well as an 8-year-old could."

It was a loss of innocence for a little girl who still very much wants to be a kid. Brittany's last name has been omitted to protect her identity. For Brittany's reserved mother, the girl's accelerated physical maturity has been alarming but not unexpected.

"She always was fast (physically). As a baby she was early with everything. When she was 7, going on 8, I knew I had to talk to her about becoming a woman," she says.

The young black girl started showing signs of puberty right after her 7th birthday. She had pimples and had started to develop breast buds, two signals that menarche, the onset of the menstrual cycle, was imminent.

"At first I thought she was abnormal, until I started talking to other mothers," she says.

"Her best friend, Jennifer, was 8 (when her period started)."

Many pediatricians believe that girls like Brittany are normal and part of a growing number who are experiencing early puberty. Signs of puberty have been spotted in white girls as young as 7 and black girls as prematurely as 6. While the textbook age for menarche is around 12, the age of puberty has been falling dramatically for a decade, experts say.

In 1997, the journal Pediatrics published a study conducted from July 1992 to September 1993 of 17,077 girls, ages 3 to 12, strongly suggesting that outward signs of early sexual growth appeared by age 8 in 15 percent of the white girls and close to 50 percent of black girls. The study did not evaluate boys or other race groups. Some pediatric endocrinologists, however, say more research is needed to define precocious puberty.

There is no definitive answer to why early puberty occurs, although health professionals and scientists strongly suspect obesity. Among children ages 6 to 11 in this country, 13 percent are overweight. That's almost double the number 25 years ago.

Brittany's mother worried when her daughter started gaining weight. "When I saw that she started growing abnormally at 7, she was the tallest in the class, I knew something was not right. My family used to say how much bigger she was than I was at her age ... When you look at her now, she looks like she's 16."

But Brittany isn't 16, and that's the problem. Girls who are precocious physically often don't have the mental maturity to go along with their physical development, says Dr. Drew Alexander, a Dallas physician who specializes in adolescent medicine. That's why parents need to stay engaged, he says. It's tricky, because without sensitive parents, a young girl can have difficulty coping and adjusting.

The reality of a pregnancy has occurred to Brittany's mom.

"I mean, she still wears ponytails and acts and dresses like a little girl," she says. "But I see how guys look at her. I have to be afraid of the older neighborhood boys trying to hit on her. Men today are less respectful of little girls."

Brittany had an incident involving a 19-year-old man who lives in the neighborhood. She was riding her bike home from school one day when the man made advances. She was so frightened that she left her bike and ran home to her mom in tears.

"She was terrified, crying, asking me why. I could see the fear. It was something she just didn't understand. How do you handle something like that?" she says.

It's clear she has told about this painful incident many times. "I keep telling her to come to me whenever she's confused or scared."

Open communication is key to handling early puberty hurdles, says Charlotte Reynolds, the health service coordinator for the Cedar Hill Independent School District, outside Dallas. Reynolds has 30 years' experience in the school-nursing field, and she has seen the changes in attitudes about puberty in young girls and boys.

"Over the years in doing my little talk at the elementary school level, I've noticed that younger and younger, they know the jargon. The girls who were once wide-eyed while watching the (hygiene) film, over the last few years are telling me what the answers are."

Young girls do seem to handle menarche, early or later, with greater ease than the previous generation of women, Reynolds says. "I try to encourage it. They are a lot more take-charge and self-assured about it. None of that whining we all did."

But parents should not let the self-assuredness usurp their guidance or authority during this important milestone. Because many girls are young when they get their periods, it is essential that parents and educators tune in — "the earlier, the better."

"We've had girls as young as third grade (begin their periods), but most of the early cases are in fourth grade. We used to show the film at the end of fifth grade, but several teachers have told me that's too late. We now show it at the beginning of fifth, and that's probably still too late for many."

Brittany's mom says it saddened her to have to talk to her little girl about such a serious subject so early. "I had no choice. I talked to the pediatrician, and he agreed. There was hair under her arms and other places. She handled it (the talk) well. When the time came less than a year later, she knew exactly what to do."

Brittany's mom was right to stay positive, says Reynolds. Fortunately, Brittany shows no tendency to grow up in a hurry.

"Her dad and I do spoil her a bit. She will always be my baby," says her mother, who also has an older son, 20. Brittany is well-disciplined and well-adjusted, she says.

It's good when girls don't have an interest in boys at this time. It would be too confusing, Reynolds says. "They don't know how to handle boy-girl relationships that early.

"They are so much younger now when they want boyfriends. It's all the exposure to media. The early knowledge that they have about sex and all the exposure to (inappropriate) TV. It scares me the things that come out of young people's mouths.

"The sex appeal comes in a TV commercial. Then, the precocious girl looks at her body in the mirror, and she says, 'This is for me. My body is looking like that.'"

The next thing you know, there is a pregnancy, she says.

"Sadly, these young girls are really proud that they are having a baby," says Reynolds. "They don't even understand the emotional development. To them it's like having a little human doll to play with. If there's any component of this early puberty that's really sobering, it's that these little (pubescent girls') bodies are ready to have babies."

The sooner parents talk to their children about puberty, the better, says author and puberty educator Lynda Madaras. She advises parents to arm themselves with knowledge. Then, instead of the Big Talk, they can have a series of conversations that happen naturally.

Madaras co-authored a parent-daughter guide with her daughter, Area, called "The What's Happening to My Body? Book for Girls" (Newmarket Press; $12.95). Parents should take particular care not to overwhelm a younger child who isn't ready for talk about sex but who needs to know about her developing body.

For example, on the way to soccer practice, your 9-year-old daughter brings up her moodiness. Tell her about the hormone changes occurring inside her body. If, when you're tucking her in at bedtime, she mentions pubic hair, use the opportunity to talk about the physical changes that happen during puberty, Madaras says.

"Kids of this age need lots of reassurance that what's happening to them is perfectly normal," Madaras says. "It's been my experience that kids are enormously grateful for such reassurance."

June 26, 2001

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