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| Puberty In Girl Child |
Puberty is a key process, when it comes to
human development into adulthood, and this usually involve the most rapid
physical growth the human undergoes except for pre-natal and neonatal growth.
(Brooks, 1988).
The force behind puberty is hormonal
changes and this is responsible for girls’ first menstrual experience
(menarche), and boy’s first ejaculation (semenarche) (Brooks, 1988).
The
changes that occur during physical growth are usually accompanied by new and
complex emotions, including sexual desire and gender identity. The differences
that exist between boys and girls become pronounced (WHO and BzgA, 2010).
Young adolescent are able to integrate
bodily changes into their self-identity, and to incorporate other responses to
these changes into that self-identity. Peers become important at the onset of
puberty as someone to talk to, and also, bonding between peers increases,
reducing the relationship and closeness of the young with parents (Brooks,
1988). Puberty is also the time when adolescent increases their intellectual
capacities and experience, moral development (WHO and BzgA, 2010).
Puberty means the onset of menstruation
for considered a private issue, making it difficult to speak about it in
public, for instance in classroom, many girls are not properly prepared.Studies
show that a very high number of girls start menstruating without having any
idea what is happening to them or why it is happening to them (Neginhal, 2010;
Jothy and kalaiselve, 2012). Since it has become difficult for parents to speak
of sensitive and sexual issues with their children, even while admitting it is
also their responsibility , (Risi, 2000; Goldman, 2008). School usually have
special role in puberty education. This role involves more than just educating
girls, but also boys.
THE ROLE OF EDUCATION
The proper understanding of education
equips one with the knowledge of the importance of puberty education.
Adolescent should understand the profound change they are experiencing and be
equipped with the skills to cope with it. Therefore, education enhances one’s
life and makes sense of day-to-day realities in works by authors, researchers
and practitioners all over the globe. It is from this tradition that we draw
the mandate for the education sector to teach about puberty (Mérieu, 2002).
The important of education gives us the
basic importance of puberty education. Adolescents need to experience and be
equipped with the skills to cope with it. Thus, education should develop the
knowledge, attitudes, values and skill needed to live a healthy life (Mérieu, 2002). Those skills are usually focused at
raising self-esteem and self-confidence, (Elliot, 1996), therefore helping
young individual to resist peer pressure and increase their health-seeking
behaviors. Teaching puberty in schools can help educate young adolescents in
better understanding of themselves and deal with the changes they are
experiencing, and this helps them to gain the self-esteem to overcome their
every day challenges which they may be facing with teachers and peers in
school.
Adolescent also become one more conscious
of socially- constructed myths and taboos that surrounds puberty, such as
negative perception of menstruation or dismissal of emotion as un-masculine
(Elliot, 1966). Without the right information, adolescents are at risk of
contracting sexually transmitted infections (STI’S), unwanted pregnancies and
abuse. Puberty education should also offer learners useful information on
relationships, feelings, contraception and STD’s including HIV (Otieno, 2006).
Menstruation is a vital sign of
reproductive health, yet the main massage is often that it is a problem that
must be managed privately, with an implicit suggestion that it is unpleasant
and shameful, and should be hidden. This portrayal of female puberty reinforces
negative psychology repercussions on girls. At the same time, the lack of
legitimating of female sexuality can implicitly suggest that girls who
naturally experience awareness of their awakening sexuality do not have proper
control of their bodies; this can lead to anxiety or self-doubt. Furthermore,
it confines girls and women to traditional gender roles as future mothers
(Otieno, 2006).
Adding the ‘pleasure’ dimension to girls’
puberty education brings balance and normalizes the issue. It can help girls to
feel, and be perceived as, equal to men and to be more conscious of their
sexuality and its implications in their life, beyond reproduction (Johnston-Robledo,
2013).
Male puberty, in
contrast, is often exemplified as the onset of sexual desire and power that
boys can enjoy (Wood, 1998). Erection and wet dreams, while also potentially
embarrassing occurrences are not usually embedded in the same narrative of
shame that girl’s experience.
Overall, the studies of pubertal
experience and menstrual knowledge of adolescents are very important. This work
is therefore going to examine the different attitudinal reaction of adolescent
secondary school girls in Abakaliki Ebonyi State, Nigeria.
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