A generation ago, fewer than 5 percent of girls started puberty before the age of 8; today, that percentage has more than doubled. Early puberty is not just a matter of physical transformation—it’s also deeply psychological, with a myriad of effects that can put a girl at higher risk for behavioral problems and long-term health challenges. In this reassuring and empowering guide, Louise Greenspan, MD, and Julianna Deardorff, PhD—two leading experts on the root causes and potential consequences of early puberty in girls—deliver vital advice on how to prevent and manage early puberty. They explain surprising triggers—from excess body fat to hormone-mimicking chemicals to emotional stressors in a girl’s home and family life—and offer highly practical strategies, including how to limit exposure to certain ingredients in personal care and household products, which foods to eat and which to avoid, ways to improve a child’s sleep routine to promote healthy biology, and more. The New Puberty is an engaging, urgently needed road map to helping young girls move forward with confidence, ensuring their future well-being.

New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal Bestseller! Girls can rule the world—all they need is confidence. This empowering, entertaining guide from the bestselling authors of The Confidence Code gives girls the essential yet elusive code to becoming bold, brave, and fearless. Packed with graphic novel strips; appealing illustrations; fun lists, quizzes, and challenges; and true stories from tons of real girls, The Confidence Code for Girls teaches girls to embrace risk, deal with failure, and be their most authentic selves. It’s a paradox familiar to parents everywhere: girls are achieving like never before, yet they’re consumed with doubt on the inside. Girls worry constantly about how they look, what people think, whether to try out for a sports team or school play, why they aren’t getting “perfect” grades, and how many likes and followers they have online. Katty Kay and Claire Shipman use cutting-edge science and research, as well as proven methods of behavioral change, to reach girls just when they need it the most—the tween and teen years. Plus don't miss Living the Confidence Code! Packed with photos, graphic novel strips, and engaging interviews, Living the Confidence Code proves that no matter who you are, or how old you are, nothing is out of reach when you decide to try.

More children born today will survive to adulthood than at any time in history. It is now time to emphasize health and development in middle childhood and adolescence--developmental phases that are critical to health in adulthood and the next generation. Child and Adolescent Health and Development explores the benefits that accrue from sustained and targeted interventions across the first two decades of life. The volume outlines the investment case for effective, costed, and scalable interventions for low-resource settings, emphasizing the cross-sectoral role of education. This evidence base can guide policy makers in prioritizing actions to promote survival, health, cognition, and physical growth throughout childhood and adolescence.

Adolescenceâ€"beginning with the onset of puberty and ending in the mid-20sâ€"is a critical period of development during which key areas of the brain mature and develop. These changes in brain structure, function, and connectivity mark adolescence as a period of opportunity to discover new vistas, to form relationships with peers and adults, and to explore one's developing identity. It is also a period of resilience that can ameliorate childhood setbacks and set the stage for a thriving trajectory over the life course. Because adolescents comprise nearly one-fourth of the entire U.S. population, the nation needs policies and practices that will better leverage these developmental opportunities to harness the promise of adolescenceâ€"rather than focusing myopically on containing its risks. This report examines the neurobiological and socio-behavioral science of adolescent development and outlines how this knowledge can be applied, both to promote adolescent well-being, resilience, and development, and to rectify structural barriers and inequalities in opportunity, enabling all adolescents to flourish.

Only a generation or two ago, childhood in the United States was understood to be a unique and vulnerable stage of development; a time for play and protection from adult preoccupations and responsibilities. In recent decades however, we appear to have jettisoned these norms, and the lines that separate the lifestyles of even very young children from adults are blurring. As widely known experts on the team that created this book explain, children begin formal education now in preschool, dress like adults, listen to the same music, play the same video games, explore the same Internet sites, and watch explicit depictions of sex and violence on TV and in movies. What is the impact of immersing children in a sexualized world? The Sexualization of Childhood first explains the nature of healthy sexual development. It then describes the ways in which children are being sexualized, and the physical and psychological consequences. It then looks at the lower and lower age at which girls are experiencing puberty, that reduction being fueled by the pseudoestrogens in so many of our foods and products, as well as obesity. Finally, it examines what we can do legally, politically, and as caregivers to protect children from developmentally inappropriate sexual experiences.