Is "8" The New Teenager?
At our annual wellness exam, the pediatrician asked if I had noticed any signs of puberty. At age eight. I laughed, thinking this was a joke and then realized it was not. “No, should I? Doesn’t that start later?” Nope, I was told, puberty onset often starts at age eight. When I told my husband later, he literally cut me off with an incredulous “NO!” I had to explain this came from the pediatrician, not my own random thoughts.
Just a reminder that I have a pretty strong professional background in child development and have worked for over a decade in medical environments, understanding the important role of physiology and hormones in child development. And I still felt completely blindsided by this possibility in my oldest child.
Several days later, my daughter and I had an interaction that felt like a time machine transporting us instantaneously into adolescence. She reacted to something minor with a sudden and intense outburst of sobs and accusations. Hmmmm . . . is that part of puberty? Because it sure felt like I was in the room with a 13-year-old.
I asked around. One friend of a 7-year-old gasped in disbelief that puberty could be around the corner. Later, she told me she asked her husband (a physician for kids, incidentally) and he agreed that this was common knowledge. Another friend of two girls, ages 9 and 7, nodded with a knowing smile, and just said, “yep.” I also checked with a close friend whose son is several months older than my daughter, and she shared her story of rushing him to the pediatrician when she saw a tiny physical sign, convinced something was terribly wrong. It wasn’t.
I had sort of heard that puberty starts earlier these days, but I realized I did not have a full grasp of what that meant. Earlier than when -- when I was a kid? How early is normal? When do we know It has started (i.e. – sudden emotional outbursts)?
So I used our old friend, Dr. Internet, to see what is out there for the regular parent whose concern dawns in a moment that is not conveniently during a conversation with the pediatrician.
Some interesting highlights from a review, distilled to bullet points for easy reading of what is a pretty tedious topic reminiscent of high school biology:
100 years ago, the average age a white girl (that’s who was studied) got her period was 17; now it is 12.6; this has changed only by a few months compared to 50 years ago
There are racial and ethnic differences: average age for starting a period in Mexican American girls = 12.2; average age for black girls in the U.S. = 12.1
“Normal” age for puberty onset is 8-13, and can take an average of 1.5 to 6 years (!)
The decline in average age for starting a period has plateaued BUT girls now develop breasts one to two years earlier than they did 40 years ago
The WHY for these changes is less fully understood, but there are some good reasons (eg, lower disease rates and better nutrition likely explain the lower age compared to 100 years ago) and some concerning reasons (eg, more exposure to “endocrine disruptors” from the environment and diet over the last few decades)
For all you parents of sons, it may or may not surprise you that a majority of the academic and media coverage of puberty centers on girls. There is a solid body of research showing that earlier puberty for girls can have many negative psychological and social effects, while the opposite is true for boys. Of course, this leads to a bigger discussion of why this would be true, and the differences in our society and culture of what it means to be a woman versus being a man. This is not the place for that discussion, but I think it’s important to tuck it away as possibly a part of understanding our reaction to the notion of our child starting puberty before WE are ready.
A New York Times article traced the history of medical research and recommendations. Based on 1960s studies of children in Britain, the average age of puberty was 11 for girls; an American Academy of Pediatrics study published findings in 1997 that the average age for breast budding was 9.96 for white girls and 8.87 for black girls. Another study published in Pediatrics in 2010 found that by age 7, breast development had started at different rates across racial and ethnic groups (10% of white girls, 23% of black girls, 15% of Hispanic girls, and 2% of Asian girls).
So, “normal” seems to have shifted over the last few decades, but what is abnormal and how do we know? Unfortunately, a routine pediatrician visit may not yield the definitive answer a worried parent seeks. This distinction between “normal” and “abnormal” onset of puberty has become blurred as the earliest age of onset has shifted. If you and a pediatrician are concerned, they could refer you to an endocrinologist who may recommend a bone age X-ray (a medical test that shows how well-matched one’s bone age is with chronological age). A mismatch between bone age and chronological age may indicate abnormally early or late puberty, an important marker for possible hormonal problems that could require medical intervention.
So, could my daughter’s outburst signal hormonal changes as part of puberty? Conventional knowledge would have said no, that first comes physical changes, kickstarted by a release of a hormone (GnRH), and that emotional changes are responses to coping with the changing body.
My daughter had not shown any sign of physical changes, so it would seem I could not blame hormones for her outburst . . . but not so fast!
Since I originally researched and wrote this piece in 2018, however, new information has come out of an Australian study of childhood transition to adolescence suggesting there is in fact hormonal changes to explain sudden moodiness in 6-8-year-olds. As reported in this article, scientists have found that children in 2nd and 3rd grades experience an increase in adrenal androgens, an important hormone for later puberty.
There’s even a name for this developmental phase that occurs two years before puberty starts: Adrenarche. So, apparently it is not coincidental that in the last few months my middle child turned 8 and her laid back, easygoing nature seemed to vanish into emotional outbursts never before witnessed, starting literally days before her 8th birthday.
This dramatic change felt like a light switch, taking us all by surprise. Apparently, there was a switch — of hormones flooding her brain to cause heightened emotions. With this new knowledge about adrenarche, I now see it as a 2-year countdown to puberty setting in, for better or worse.
So, it appears that not only does puberty start earlier than it used to, but this pre-puberty phase may be messing with our kids too! Maybe it’s nature’s way of giving us all some warm-up laps before the real deal.
Are you ready?