Helping Your Daughter Into Puberty

 Guest Writer: Amy Hamblin

Amy Hamblin, one of our MIA guest writers is back! She is moving quickly into the next stage of parenting with her oldest - a teenage girl. Let us all have a moment of silence for Amy.......

In her first post back on Family Strong she is sharing a book that has helped her greatly in easing that bundle of hormones into puberty. If you have a daughter about to make the great journey, this just might be the ticket for you. 

My daughter is an interesting kid.  She has always had her little quirks.  Sleeping was never one of her fortes.  There was no smiling until she was at least 1 year old and she just has always done things her own way. 

This little lady is now on her way to being 13 and she still isn’t great at sleeping through the night.  She has a propensity for grumpy moods but I am happy to say that there is smiling on a regular basis. On our journey through this life that is my daughters we have learned a lot of things.  One of the biggest things that we have learned is that she always takes advice better from someone that isn’t me, even if it is the same advice that I would have given her.

When she was about 9 or 10 we noticed that she was having a real nail biting problem. She would bite those things down to the nubbins and her finger tips would bleed.  We tried all the old home remedies for nail biting; she wore gloves, she wore a rubber band around her wrist and snapped herself when she caught herself biting them, we put cod liver oil on it and we tried the pharmacy stuff too.  Nothing was working!!  Then a little miracle happened, our friend gave us a book called “The Care & Keeping of You”.  It was a book that she found at the second hand store for 50 cents.  Best 50 cents ever spent!!!

This book is AMAZING!!  I sat down with my daughter and went through this book front to back, every single page!  It talks about everything from nail biting to insomnia to having a period and what happens to your body during puberty.  We were starting to have those discussions too so this book came at a perfect time for us! 

If you are interested, you can find "The Care & Keeping of You" on Amazon HERE