Growing Up Too Soon: Early Puberty Family Stories

Inside this volume

Fifty first-person accounts describe early puberty, told by parents, grandparents, step-parents and young people who went through it themselves. The first signs vary: breast buds, a six-year-old asking why she smelled different, bleeding at five or six, a moustache before the last baby tooth, a boy everyone called just tall, months of tears with no obvious cause. The voices include a grandmother in Nairobi raising her granddaughter, an emergency room nurse of twenty-six years who missed it in his own daughter, a mother on a zero-hours job in Auckland and a father driving three hours each way across Idaho, from Leicester to Manila. Families describe stimulation tests, injections every three months, arm implants and their yearly replacement, headaches that led one family to switch treatment, numbing cream and diner pancakes, and decisions to watch and wait or to decline treatment. Some found another explanation: a thyroid problem, a cyst, a parent's skin gel, or nothing at all. Insurance denials and appeals, an adopted child with no family history, autism, and worries about height and future fertility all appear. Not every story is settled: one family is still waiting on a result, a woman who was never treated stopped growing at eleven, and one boy developed a second condition alongside the one he was born with.

Who it's for

For parents, grandparents and step-parents facing early puberty in a young child, and for young people and adults who went through it themselves and want to hear from others who did.

Format · Instant download · PDF & EPUB · Fifty first-person accounts · PDF: 280 pages

A collection of personal testimony, offered as companion reading — not medical advice.

• 50 single-author testimonies from real people
• A short, plain-language introduction to the topic
• Editor's note, contents page, and curated resource list
• Professional interior typesetting and an original cover

Every purchase includes a print-quality PDF (best for desktop, tablet, and printing) and a reflowable EPUB (best for Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo, and phones). Files are DRM-free. You can download both instantly from the order-confirmation screen, and we email them to your inbox as well, so your books are always within reach.