Why does puberty happen? (A child-friendly explanation)
Have you ever been asked by your child ‘why does puberty happen’? Well, it all has to do with hormones.
So how do you go about explaining hormones to your child without getting all confused yourself? And when you don’t understand how it all works yourself?
Well, you can take a big breath and relax because I’m going to take you on a nice, simple tour of how our hormones make puberty happen.
You’ll find more information about puberty on my Puberty 101 page.
Let’s get started!
Why does puberty happen?
Puberty happens because of your hormones.
Hormones are chemicals that all bodies make. Your body, my body, all bodies.
Hormones travel through your body in your bloodstream, from the place where they are made to the place where they will do their work.
Their job is to start something working. During puberty, the job of some hormones is to make your body capable of reproducing. Which means that you will be able to help make a baby.
So you could think of hormones as little chemical messengers that kickstart puberty, i.e. tell your body to start developing into an adult body.
Find practical tools to educate kids about puberty in the Sex Ed Shop
The pituitary gland
It all starts with the pituitary gland, a small gland found at the base of your brain.
One day, when your body says it is ready, your brain will send a message to the pituitary gland, telling it that it’s time to start releasing growth hormones into your bloodstream.
The hypothalamus produces a hormone called gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH). This hormone stimulates the pituitary gland to release two hormones: follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH).
In bodies with testicles, these hormones travel through your bloodstream to the testicles (testes) to make the hormone testosterone and to start getting ready to make sperm.
In bodies with ovaries, these hormones travel through your bloodstream to the ovaries, telling them to start producing progesterone and estrogen. This causes the egg (ovum) to be released from the ovary.
The pituitary gland is the master gland (the boss) that tells all the other glands what to do. It tells the other glands to start making the hormones needed to turn you from being a child to an adult.
Hormones are the chemical messages that allow different parts of the body to communicate with each other. Think of it like a telephone line, where wire cables connect everyone’s telephones, and we can send messages (talk) through the telephone lines. The body has its own telephone lines (bloodstream), where the glands send hormones (chemical messages) to the different parts of the body.
What do the hormones do in males?
A NOTE ABOUT SEX AND GENDER. Sex and gender exist on spectrums. This page will use the term ‘male’ to refer to sex assigned at birth. It will use the term ‘boy’ to refer to children who are cisgender i.e. a child who was born with testicles and identifies as a boy. The information will also be relevant for nonbinary children born with testicles. The information will not be relevant for transgender boys as gonads drive puberty, and their gonads differ. Click here to learn more about sex and gender.
So why does puberty happen for males? The changes for bodies with testicles are a little different because their body needs to do something different.
Follicle-stimulating hormone
Follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) has an important job to do. When FSH reaches your testicles, it will start the growth of the seminiferous tubules, which is where your sperm will be made. Over the next couple of years, your testicles will slowly grow bigger, while all this new growth happens inside of them.
This can take a couple of years to happen. Once these tubules are fully grown, your body will then be ready to start maturing the sperm so that they are ready to help in making a baby. This means that you will be able to ejaculate, and semen, which contains the sperm, will come out of your penis.
Luteinizing hormone
Luteinizing hormone (LH) has a different job to do. It triggers special cells inside your testes, called Leydig cells, to start producing hormones called androgens. The main androgen that the Leydig cells make is called testosterone. People with ovaries have testosterone too, but not as much as people with testicles. Androgens are hormones that tell your body that it’s time to mature or grow up. It helps to make the masculine changes that males usually have, things like a deeper voice, face/armpit/pubic hair, and the start of their sex drive.
Testosterone helps to get certain parts of the body, like the prostate gland and the seminal vesicles, ready to care for and carry the mature sperm. When everything is ready, testosterone will then tell your testicles that it is time to start maturing the sperm to be ready for reproduction via ejaculation. In bodies with testicles, this means that they will now be able to ejaculate, and semen, which contains the sperm, will come out of their penis.
You can find a more detailed explanation, with diagrams, inside my book, The Parents’ Guide to Puberty.
What do the hormones do in females?
A NOTE ABOUT SEX AND GENDER. Sex and gender exist on spectrums. This page will use the term ‘female’ to refer to the sex assigned at birth. It will use the term ‘girl’ to refer to children who are cisgender i.e. a child who was born with ovaries and identifies as a girl. The information will also be relevant for nonbinary children born with ovaries. The information will not be relevant for transgender girls as gonads drive puberty, and their gonads differ. Click here to learn more about sex and gender.
So why does puberty happen for females? The changes for bodies with ovaries are a little different because their body needs to do something different.
Estrogen and Progesterone
These important hormones have different jobs to do. Estrogen is responsible for the growth of your breasts, the changes in your body shape such as hips, legs, and breasts, and the development of your reproductive organs. Together, progesterone and estrogen will prepare your uterus for menstruation (periods) and pregnancy (making a baby).
Ovulation
Your eggs have been inside your ovaries ever since you were a baby growing inside your birth parent’s uterus.
Estrogen tells your ova (or eggs) to mature. It also tells your ovaries to prepare an egg (ovum) for release into your fallopian tubes. This egg will travel along your fallopian tubes and into the uterus. This whole process of ripening an egg for release from the ovary is called ovulation. Ovulation is when the eggs stored in your ovaries begin to ripen, with one being released every four weeks or so, plus or minus a few days.
Menstruation
While the egg is ripening and getting ready to come out, the lining of your uterus will start to thicken, just in case a sperm joins with your egg, which means it could make a baby. If the egg is joined with a sperm, the body will begin preparing for pregnancy. If the egg is not joined with a sperm, the lining of the uterus will start to dissolve. This dissolved lining comes out of the vagina and is known as a period, menstruation or menstrual blood. Two weeks after the period, another egg is released, and the whole process of ovulation begins again.
You can find a more detailed explanation, with diagrams inside my book, The Parents’ Guide to Puberty. And don’t forget that boys need to know about periods as well!
More puberty resources
Don’t forget that you can find more puberty resources in the Sex Ed Shop.
Like The Parents’ Guide to Puberty, which will help you to wrap your head around puberty and how to help your child as their body changes.
Looking for more puberty resources? Then visit my Puberty 101 page!
I hope that helps you to explain why puberty happens to your child.
Happy talking!
❤️ Cath
References
- Adolescence and Puberty. Edited by John Bancroft and June Machover Reinisch. 1990. Oxford University Press. New York.
- Gender Differences at Puberty. Edited by Chris Haywood. 2003. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.
- Handbook of Child and Adolescent Sexuality: Developmental and Forensic Psychology. Edited by Daniel S. Bromberg and William T. O’Donohue. 2013. Elsevier. Academic Press. Oxford.
- Puberty: Physiology and Abnormalities by Philip Kumanov and Ashok Agarwal. 2016. Springer International Publishing. Switzerland.