The Girls' Guide to Growing Up

Explaining menstruation and puberty and all of the changes that happen to a daughter with developmental delays is challenging. All of the books I have seen are written for typically developing girls, meaning with more words and text than I'd like, with visuals that are not as in-depth as I'd like for my visual learner.

Woodbine House sent me a review copy of The Girls' Guide to Growing Up, Choices & Changes in the Tween Years by Terri Couwenhoven, M.S.

The Girls' Guide to Growing Up is a 62 page paperback priced at $16.95. The book is written on a third-grade level, covers puberty, body changes, emotional changes, periods, hygiene, appropriate touch and what to do if someone touches you inappropriately. It talks about bras and shaving and pimples, sexual feelings, flirting.

The book is really well done. The page layouts are attractive and inviting with large print and not too many words on a page. (A page full of text looks daunting to my girl.) There are simple drawings of nude girls with labels and a task-analysis in photographs of what to do, step-by-step, when your period arrives.

The negative of the book, for me, is that I am not ready to discuss some of the topics with my daughter. Because her development is scattered, I am not sure she has thought about some of the topics in the book, and I don't want to put something into her head that is not there yet. Some of the content I'd like to avoid is important and necessary regardless of the fact that I'd like to be an ostrich and stick my head in the sand about it.

I will look at The Girls' Guide to Growing Up alongside my daughter in order to control what she sees and to be there to discuss the topics as she is ready for them. I do like having the topics available when she is ready for them so I don't have to go looking for them.

I am pleased to have been given this book, pleased to be able to share it with you. We own several 'growing up' type books and all of them are too wordy, too complex, for our situation at this time. The Girls' Guide to Growing Up presents topics simply, effectively, visually.

I am going to do something I have never done in a review. I am going to recommend another review item with this one. The Dot Girls Period Kit would be an excellent partner with The Girls' Guide to Growing Up for a young lady with developmental delays and intellectual disabilities.

Woodbine House sent me a copy of The Girls' Guide to Growing Up to review here. I get to keep the book. I was not paid for this review. I am not obligated to provide a positive review.