Boys Handle Puberty Differently, and Author Has Advice for Parents

By Janice Gaston, Winston-Salem Journal, N.C.

Jun. 3–By the time parents notice that their son is entering puberty, he may already have been struggling with physical and emotional issues related to his changing body.

The signs of puberty in girls are immediately noticeable. They shoot up in height. They develop breasts.

In boys, the first changes are to the genitals. Their testicles grow, then their penises. Once a boy’s body starts to change, he is more likely to avoid letting his parents see him naked. He will seek privacy.

If you haven’t already talked to your son about puberty, a sudden penchant for privacy is a sign that you should, said Lynda Madaras. Madaras, a sex- and health-education teacher for girls and boys in California, is the author of several books on puberty and sexuality for teenagers and young adults. Her latest book about puberty, On Your Mark, Get Set, Grow! , was written for boys ages 8 to 11.

People tend to think that puberty isn’t such a big deal for boys, she said, but she receives almost as many letters about puberty from boys as she does from girls.

When she conducts workshops, she said, “For every little girl who has a question about her period, a boy has a question about erections and wet dreams.”

On average, boys begin going through puberty at 11 1/2 , although the range can go from 9 to 14, said Dr. Daniel Krowchuk, a local pediatrician. The process usually takes about three years. Girls start their growth spurts about two years earlier than boys.

When a boy begins to grow into a man, his body goes through changes that he might not welcome or understand. He will grow body hair and develop body odor. He will sweat more and will most likely break out in pimples. His voice will eventually deepen, but it will go up and down for a while and may “crack” at just the wrong time.

He may be embarrassed by spontaneous erections and nocturnal emissions.

Parents need to talk to their boys ahead of time so that they will know what to expect, Krowchuk said. “You want to be honest and open, and hopefully these discussions have begun at an earlier age.”

The best approach parents can take to such conversations is to be offhand about it, Madaras said. Parents might bring up something that they remember from going through puberty or they might ask, “Do kids at your school ever talk about puberty and what happens during puberty?” A single mother might say, “Gee, I didn’t go through male puberty, but I sure know how to find out the answers to your questions.”

Talking over a book about puberty can help parent and child work together as a team, Madaras said. Her book gives suggestions for coping with some of the body changes. She tells them to disguise a spontaneous erection by tying a sweatshirt around the waist or sitting down. She tells them to wear all-cotton socks and leather or canvas shoes to combat foot odor. Boys generally get more pimples than girls, she wrote, and they sometimes try to fight them by washing their faces repeatedly during the day. Too much washing simply makes the skin produce more oil — and more pimples, she said.

During puberty, a boy will gain about half of his adult weight and grow about 20 percent of his adult height, Krowchuk said. “Other than early infancy, there is not a time in your life that you end up growing more than your teenage years. Boys can grow 4 or 5 inches in a year.”

Growth begins in the feet first, then moves to the arms and legs. Madaras wrote that boys may feel clumsy until their bodies catch up to their limbs. Breast tissue will swell in the bodies of about half of all boys. The swelling could last for a year or two.

The changes that puberty causes aren’t just physical, Krowchuk said. During puberty, girls and boys begin to move from being dependent on their parents for almost everything to being independent and thinking for themselves.

“This is a process that moves fairly slowly,” he said. Some people make the mistake of thinking that teenagers who become physically mature early should act as adult as they look.

“That simply isn’t true,” Krowchuk said. Many teenagers, especially those in their early teens, don’t have the ability to think abstractly and to realize the consequences of their behavior. Research has shown that areas of the brain that govern problem-solving, responsible behavior and recognizing consequences don’t fully develop until people reach their mid- to late 20s, he said.

Knowing that their children aren’t adults even when they look like them can help parents be more supportive.

“It helps folks understand that kids are doing the best they can with the equipment they’ve got,” he said.

Janice Gaston can be reached at 727-7364 or at jgaston@wsjournal.com.

For more information on boys and puberty, check the Web site www.kidshealth.org/kid/grow/boy/boys_puberty.html.

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