“When You’re a Baby You Don’t Have Puberty”: Understanding of Puberty and Human Reproduction in Late Childhood and Early Adolescence

Abstract

Basic knowledge of human reproduction can help youth prepare for puberty and make later classes focused on advanced reproductive health topics manageable. With the intention of potentially informing the creation of learning materials, we conducted a needs assessment among children ages 7 to 12 in our suburban Chicago community to ascertain their current understanding of, and beliefs and misconceptions about, human reproduction, and to determine their needs for additional reproductive health education. We held qualitative focus group interviews with local children. Participants primarily reported learning about these topics from their parents prior to receiving school-based education in fifth grade. Their level of understanding was relatively low. They had little knowledge of internal sexual organs, expressed a range of beliefs about conception ranging from inaccurate to accurate but incomplete, and voiced concerns about transitioning into adolescence. This suggests a need for additional resources that provide comprehensible descriptions of reproductive health processes and mitigate puberty-related concerns.

'A New You, That’s Who': an evaluation of short videos on puberty and human reproduction

“…As children mature throughout adolescence, they can continue building upon their foundational reproductive health knowledge, which can lead to stronger learning about more advanced human reproduction topics, such as family planning (Goldman, 2011;UNESCO, 2009;LeCroy et al 2018;Stubbs, 2016). Unfortunately, children's reproductive health knowledge usually falls far below recommended educational benchmarks-at least in the Midwestern U.S. where the present data were collected- (Hurwitz et al 2017), and youth in early adolescence are rarely the focus of educational intervention (LeCroy et al 2018).…”

“…Moreover, UNESCO (2009) specifies that, by age 12, both boys and girls should be able to describe menarche, the menstrual cycle, and the hormones regulating this cycle. In the U.S., children's knowledge of these topics typically falls below these benchmarks (Hurwitz et al 2017), which may be because many educational programs in the U.S. focus primarily on AIDS/sexually transmitted infections, and contraception or abstinence, at the exclusion of other topics (Schmidt et al 2015).…”

“…Only about two-thirds of young adolescents in the U.S. have learned about puberty in school (Hurwitz et al 2016a). Some youth in early adolescence are not even familiar with the term "puberty" (KRC Research and Consulting, 1991a;Hurwitz et al 2017) or assume only children of their own sex go through puberty (Hurwitz et al 2017). By age 10, most children have some knowledge of changes that occur during the transition from childhood to adulthood (even if "puberty" is an unknown word).…”

“…By age 10, most children have some knowledge of changes that occur during the transition from childhood to adulthood (even if "puberty" is an unknown word). Familiarity with secondary sexual developments (i.e., pubertal developments not directly linked to human reproduction, such as increased body odor) is much higher than primary sexual developments (i.e., changes to reproductive organs) (Hurwitz et al 2017). Some gender differences seem to exist, with boys eagerly anticipating pubertal developments, and girls tending to be more apprehensive (KRC Research and Consulting, 1991a;Hurwitz et al 2017).…”

“…Familiarity with secondary sexual developments (i.e., pubertal developments not directly linked to human reproduction, such as increased body odor) is much higher than primary sexual developments (i.e., changes to reproductive organs) (Hurwitz et al 2017). Some gender differences seem to exist, with boys eagerly anticipating pubertal developments, and girls tending to be more apprehensive (KRC Research and Consulting, 1991a;Hurwitz et al 2017). Both boys and girls sometimes desire reassurance that the timing and individual nature of their transition to puberty is "normal" (Forrest et al 2004;Stubbs, 2016).…”