The Menstruality Podcast - 235. How to Support Your Child Through Puberty, First Periods and Beyond (Amy Wilding)

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

1 in 2 girls in the U.S. say they feel embarrassed or ashamed about their period and only 22% of U.S parents feel “very comfortable” talking to their kids about puberty. We need to rewrite this script, and our guest today, menstrual educator Amy Wilding, has written a book to do just that. Amy has supported hundreds of families through her Period of Change programs, helping them reclaim menarche as a sacred and empowered transition. She’s also a queer and inclusive author, and today we’re chatting about her latest book, Period Of Change: Welcoming Your Daughter’s Period with Care and Confidence. As Amy says, this is not just a practical guide to puberty and periods. It is a call to reclaim what is our birthright: an understanding of our bodies and the framework for seeing the power and wisdom of our cyclical nature. Our chat today is full of practical guidance and tips to support the teens and tweens in your life through their menarche and beyond - my favourite were the conversation starters, especially when Amy shared the most important thing to say (and not say) to your child when they get their period for the first time. We explore:How to throw a Red Party for your child, and all kinds of ideas for how to celebrate together in big and small ways. The importance of how we speak about our bodies in front of our kids, and affirmations to help your daughter move through generations of cultural shame, silence and discomfort, and model how to honour our bodies and cycles. Amy’s journey supporting her trans kid and guidance for how to show up as a supportive parent and maintain a connection of trust with trans kids when they’re starting their periods.---Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardyAmy Wilding: @amywildingofficial - https://www.instagram.com/amywildingofficial/

Welcome to the menstruality podcast where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexander and Sharnie, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, change makers and creatives to explore how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hey, thank you for tuning in today. Did you know that one in two girls in the US say that they feel embarrassed or ashamed about their period and only 22% of US parents feel very comfortable talking to their kids about puberty? We need to rewrite this

script and our guest today, menstrual educator Amy Wilding, has written a book to do just that. Amy has supported hundreds of families through her period of change programs, helping them to reclaim menarche first periods as a sacred and empowered transition. She's also a queer and inclusive author, and today we're chatting about her latest book, Period of Change, welcoming your daughter's period with care and confidence. As Amy says, this isn't just a practical guide to puberty and periods. It's a call to reclaim what is our birthright, an understanding of our bodies and the framework for seeing the power and wisdom of our cyclical nature. My chat with Amy today is full of practical guidance and tips to support the teens and tweens in your life through their monarchy and beyond.

My favourite part was the conversation starters, and especially when Amy shared the most important thing to say and the thing to definitely not say to your child when they get their period for the first time. So let's get started with how to support your child through puberty, first periods and beyond with Amy Wilding. I'm so delighted to be with you. This book that you've written is such a treasure trove. It's amazing. I just want to start the conversation by saying, go and buy it everybody, because it's incredible. But hopefully today we can open up some of the yeah all of this beautiful wisdom that you've shared in this book and but let's start as we always do um with a cycle check in so where are you at in your cycle amy

how's it feeling today yes i do that would be our first topic um first just let me say hello it's so lovely to be sharing this space with you i love every conversation we have so i think this is going to be really juicy and amazing um where i'm out in my cycle well let me say i am on It's 53 years old, and I am very much in perimenopause. And up until just a few months ago, I was cycling fairly regularly. I was, you know, between 26, 28 days. Prior to that, had been 25 days for years. And so now I'm on day 25, and I'm feeling like I'm on day 25.

But the frustrating thing is now my cycles are not regular anymore. So I had a 29 day cycle and then I had a 15 day cycle. So now I'm at the tail end of that and I'm feeling exhausted. I'm quite honestly very exhausted. And you know that feeling you have when you're like, okay, I'm ready to start. I'm just ready for the hormone shift to kick in. I'm really tired. My brain is just really sluggish.

But now that I'm here in this paramedopause place, I don't know if that's going to be tomorrow. I don't know if it's going to be the next day or the next week. And it feels very hard to live that way, having been so connected to my cyclical rhythm for so many years. Everything was very predictable. And I knew what to schedule and when and how it was going to feel. And when you and I scheduled this, I did look at my calendar and I was like, oh, perfect. But, you know, my ovaries and my hormones were kind of on their own agenda.

So now life feels very arbitrary to me. I don't know how I'm going to be feeling at any given time. And it's hard to not be able to count on a certain level of energy or clarity that I had become accustomed to. So it is a very different experience to say today I'm on day 25 than perhaps if we had talked a year ago and I had said I'm on day 25. But same exhaustion. Yeah. makes so much sense and particularly in the context of the conversation we're going to have today, I've been thinking more and more about how perimenopause in these years running up to our cycles finishing

is akin to adolescence, puberty, when the cycles are starting and just getting established, like to the point where, and I'm really sorry our wonderful listeners, if this is too much information, but I smell different in perimenopause, like body odour stuff that I had when I was a teen. I'm like, okay, we're back in this term. are we? I'm like, it really reminds me of being a teenager and it makes me think that that uncertainty and not quite knowing where we're at and the unpredictability is a lot of what our girls, teens and tweens are feeling as they're entering this new part of their lives, right? Yes, very much so. And what's interesting about being in circle with mothers and daughters together

is that I'm seeing what the moms are going through in their perimenopause journey and I'm seeing what the girls are going through in their journey of puberty and adolescence. And it is very much the inverse. It is like we are on the flip side of the coin. The girls are slowly ramping up. They have the irregular cycles, the unpredictability, the mood irregularity. And here we are on the other side winding down with our unpredictable cycles, our mood swings, all of these things.

We really are just experiencing the mirror image of each other. And I think one of the things that is important to, for us to think about ourselves as moms and caregivers, but also in the context of having compassion for our children, is that we don't know. We may not know how we're feeling day to day. And so it's much easier to have compassion for our kids. And we also have the benefit of having been ourselves for, you know, a couple of decades, having cycles, understanding our whereas our kids don't have that. They have gone from a relatively steady state of predictability to this very intense state of not knowing what's coming

and not knowing when something is coming. And I think that's culturally where a lot of those really dismissive jokes come from is just the sense of like we don't know what's going to happen and unpredictability is a big shift. And so we as moms experiencing that ourselves, I think, can see our daughter's experience from a very close perspective. And I will be honest with you, I really don't have a very distinct memory of my puberty and menarche and early menstruation years and experiences. I have never until this phase of my life really understood what mood swings actually means. I can go from one mood to another within a day.

And that is not, that's not my typical life experience. So just having that recognition of, I, apparently estrogen is the driving force in my entire life and personality. So I can't wait to meet low estrogen, Amy. You're amazing. I can't wait to meet you. She, she is not going to be emerging because I am on HRT and I'm extremely unapologetic about it because it was really I went through over a year of my life,

really struggling with clinical depression, which I had never had ever in my life. And I've been through some shit. And so first recognizing that that's what it was took a little while. And then I did what I always do, which is, you know, changing my lifestyle in the ways that I could or seeing specialists. But what it came down to was like I was not functioning in my life. life and it was taking a toll on me very intensely, but it was also affecting my marriage. It was affecting my relationship with my children.

It was affecting my relationship with my community because I didn't want to do anything. I didn't want to do anything. And when I was in this experience, I was like, oh, this is what Anne Hedonia means. Like you just don't even have the energy. Nothing sounds good. Nothing sounds pleasurable, things that you used to like, you don't like anymore. And I had this clarity of like, oh, that is what I'm going through. And so I right away was like, okay, let's see what we can do about this in terms of HRT.

And I'm lucky enough to have found an amazing care provider here in Louisville, who I sent all the within to her. She's so amazing. But it really, it did take some time because I had to figure out the right dosage for me. And I also combined it with well, buterin. So I'm all for pharmaceuticals improving your life because I just was absolutely not myself. And it took some time that I gradually came back to feeling like, okay, yes, I am myself again. My brain works again. My feelings work again. So yeah.

So I do feel like us minimizing the experience of girls going through this experience is so detrimental. You know, we really have to understand and embrace and take seriously the physical changes, but the emotional changes that come along with puberty and the slow build up to a regular hormonal cycle because it's hard. Yeah, so hard. And thank you so much for sharing that, Amy. It's so important to hear a wealth of different stories about how people are negotiating the massive transformation around menopause.

and I'm so glad that you found a healthcare provider that's helpful, and I'm so glad it's working for you. It's so, so good to me. Cycle check-in-wise, the cycle I'm most connected to is that I am ill, and I'm inside a cold, and I'm, so that's making me feel double inner wintry because I'm also on day three of my cycle. And, yeah, it's just like I've, our family has just had two months of illness, basically, so we've been in this winter together.

And it always makes me really appreciate cycle awareness when a fallow period comes into life, whether that's because of illness or grief or some kind of other change or because of the outer winter in the seasons, you know, to recognize, okay, I feel pretty shitty right now, but I will feel better. Spring will come. So hopefully as my inner spring pre-ovulation phase starts, I might start to feel a bit better. But apologies for the start, everybody. It's hard to deal with one on top of the other. That's unfair. Very unfair timing.

But I had the most amazing weekend where I was with girlfriends and we were all, we did a, we were kind of workshopping together basically, working with this process called falling, which is like dialoguing with the different parts inside us and all around sex and sexuality. So I really got, it was very healing for me and very restful.

And that was just before my period. So I got loads of rest, loads of amazing woman time. So it's actually been a really lovely bleed, I think, because of that. Oh, how nourishing. That sounds amazing. Yeah, it was. But let's get to the topic of the day. And I'd love to start by asking a bit about your story, Amy,

because I actually don't know a lot about it. You and I've connected in a few different ways, but I'd love to hear about, like, what got you into this work. You know, you've been with mamas and daughters and kids going. through this transition for like over 15 years, haven't you? Can you tell us a bit about how you got into it and what made you write the book? Yeah, it was a very unexpected fork in the road for me. I was in a PhD program for cognitive science and linguistics, and that was, you know, the path I thought that I was going to take. And I got pregnant, my first pregnancy, which was very wanted

and very intentional. I was older. I was 29 at this point. So I miscarried that first pregnancy and I was really devastated. And it was very unexpected. I kind of went through the beginning of pregnancy, just assuming that everything was going to be fine and I was going to have this baby and it was going to be amazing. So the loss of that pregnancy was really unexpected and really, really difficult. And then I went on to try to become pregnant again, you know, relatively quickly. and I wasn't getting pregnant.

So I was really confused about what had happened why I was able to get pregnant initially, but then I was not getting pregnant. So I found the book taking charge of your fertility by Tony Weschler, and I see you nodding. It is a life-changing book. Yes. It opened a door to a whole world that I had never even thought of, literally. ever because I had, well, two things.

I had spent most of my reproductive years up to that point on the pill. I got on the pill when I was 17 years old and became sexually active. And I was on it all the way up until probably two months before I got pregnant for my first pregnancy. And so, you know, I wasn't cycling, but I didn't even know that at that time. I knew nothing. And I really only thought of my cycle as bleeding and not bleeding. And that was it.

Yeah. So learning the complexity and the intricacy of our cycle was so mind-blowing for me. And I went through a lot of different feelings with that. I felt so much awe and just amazing reverence at how magical this all was and how wise I was able to understand my body to be. And then, of course, I felt rage because this. information really should be a part of our growing up, I really believe that this information is our birthright and that it has been very intentionally kept from us as females to separate

us from our agency and power. So I kind of went through that whole process of reconciling where I was at that point in my life, what I had been led to believe or what I had not been exposed to. and so it really kind of shifted me. And by that time, I was pregnant, again with my second pregnancy, which is my oldest child, Leo. He was assigned female at birth and is my trans son, who is 20 years old. So during that time, something really awakened in me through understanding my cycle in this way. And I was able to see all the other ways that women are really separated from their agency

when it comes to our reproductive health in our bodies. So being pregnant, I was then aware of all of the ways that we are managed through pregnancy and through birth. And I did not want my experience to be that way. So I was really intentional about and very lucky in finding amazing community to support me into this transition of new motherhood. I could not have been luckier than where I lived and the people that I was in community with. It was just very blissful.

And I was also just devouring everything that I could to understand myself as a capable body for growing a human, birthing a human and nourishing a human. And I kind of fell in love with lactation at that point. So after, well, actually, I think I was, no, yeah, it was after my oldest Leo was born. I started looking into La Lece League and I became a certified La Leche League leader. So I was helping with community breastfeeding support. It's so important. When I was breastfeeding, I had a difficult time. And I relied so heavily on those.

And I was just so incredibly grateful that there were these really wise women that could come and, well, they couldn't come because it was COVID, but could speak to me on Zoom and support me. like breastfeeding is just it's so miraculous what happened i mean yes a whole podcast about breastfeeding because it's so freaking incredible the conversation that happens between the baby and the mom and like how the breast milk changes depending on what the baby needs and oh my gosh incredible yes it is incredible and so i i did that and i'm now a certified lactation counselor um even though it's not it's not my direct daily work but it's still something i love and advocate for so so much

And also from the perspective of this is information that we should all have and it should be supported. And, you know, because of capitalism, we are convinced to stop breastfeeding and supplement. And anyway, okay, so we won't go to that level, but I did feel very passionate about that. And I also was wanting to work as a birth dula. So this fork in the road for me totally changed the trajectory. of my life. And I left my PhD program with only my dissertation to write, which is not in common. And I just moved into this realm of women's wellness. And around that same time, I was introduced to the idea of sacred feminine goddess archetypes. And that was another piece for me that really clicked into

place and helped me to reconcile what was happening in the world around me and begin to really have language about patriarchy and about the sacred feminine and understand historically, you know, far beyond the beginning of patriarchy. There was so much more before that. And so I became basically a student of the sacred feminine and rites of passage and sisterhood and community. So I created a red tent here in Louisville because I wanted a sacred space for women to be able to come together with each other, to experience women's circles, to experience right of passage, ceremonies of all different kinds. And so I did that work for quite a while. And then my child was growing up as a young one with a uterus, who then at that time was identifying as my

daughter. And so we shared this journey together of what does it look like to create a space that is nourishing and that is educational and empowering and teaches our kids that they do have agency and that they do deserve body sovereignty. So period of change grew from that, from my own experience as a mother of a child with uterus that I, you know, I wanted my child to grow up, knowing all of these things that I didn't know until I was about 30 years old. So I started gathering with our friend group. We were doing things together regularly. And so I created this weekend retreat.

And what I realized was the right of passage ceremony is obviously so needed culturally. We need those experiences. But what I was also realizing was how little, information is transmitted even when people are kind of attempting to do a rite of passage around it. And what I wanted was for the girls and menstruators to enter puberty and adolescents with the knowledge already about what would be happening to them and what sequence things would be occurring. And probably what I think was most, well, the two things that were most important to me. one was learning and using correct anatomical terminology.

We can't have power over our bodies if we don't even know what our bodies are. So I thought that that was really, really crucial. And I also wanted girls and menstruators to understand that our cycle is for very distinct, identifiable phases. And that if we live in harmony with those phases, rather than resisting them, our life experience is so much more positive within ourselves. And so the curriculum that I created was really based on taking back, reclaiming this information, rewilding our cycle, and creating a space where we can have conversations

with ourselves as mothers and with our girls and our kids who are menstruators about what information we deserve and need and how to apply that information to live. in this body, in this culture. I think it's really important not only that we share this information, this very practical information, but that we guide our children and how to utilize this information while we are living in a patriarchal society, because we are so conditioned from when we're in the uterus, right? We're already, we're labeled and we are stereotyped and we're gendered in utero.

and that comes with a certain set of expectations for parents and for kids. So what I wanted was for us to kind of pull back the curtain and say, here are the messages or here is the lack of information or here is the misinformation. And we're going to talk about what is actually real and true and why that matters in our life, because it really, really matters. It matters so much. And this is why I'm so grateful for your book because not only do you, you cover a massive amount of really important topics for anyone that's raising a young girl

or teen or tween with a uterus. But you do it really concisely. I think there's one point in your book when you say, like your friends were saying, look, yes, Amy, we need all this information, but we don't need a dissertation. And you managed to distill all this information down into these sweet chapters. And I mean, I want to talk about all of it, but there are some specific ones that I think would be really good for us to touch on today. And a lot of them touch on what you just said about how to raise a young one inside patriarchy, especially, inside capitalist patriarchy. So I'd love to start by speaking about what to say when your daughter or teen or tween first gets their period. What to say in that moment. Maybe you're the mama, maybe you're the auntie like me.

I'm looking forward to, it's not going to happen for like 10 years, but I'm looking forward to my nieces and having this conversation with them. Yeah, could you speak into the first things to say? Sure, yes. And obviously this is like context dependent on your relationship with your child and your family dynamic, but I'm imagining that anyone who's listening to this is already contemplating this milestone with their child. and so it probably isn't going to come up as a huge surprise. But I think one of the things that's really important to say right off the bat is, I'm so glad you shared this with me.

I'm so glad that you trust me with this big change that's happening to you. And I would then go into a moment of affirmation. This is a sign that your body is growing and doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing. and then from there I would move into some open-ended questions like, how are you feeling about this? How's your body feeling? How are your feelings feeling? And then follow that with, what do you feel like you need right now? I think allowing some space in the conversation for the real feelings to come up is probably the most important things. So we don't need to overcrowd emotionally. We don't need to. to overspeak. We really just need to hold this moment like a container, knowing that this is a huge

change, even though we are, you know, we are prepared for it. We may know it's coming, but the moment itself can be really gentle. The moment itself can be very quiet and tender. It doesn't have to, it doesn't have to be a big production, but it can just be, thank you so much. I love that we are so connected and that you trust me enough to share this with me because I want you to feel comfortable sharing everything with me. And I want to know what questions you have and how I can support you. So just kind of coming at it from a very gentle angle of, I'm holding this space for you and I would love to support you in the way that feels best for you. I feel is the most affirming and respectful way that we can move through this milestone together.

So beautiful. And when it comes to finding ways to honor this moment or celebrate this moment, I think some of the stories that I've heard from the mamas that I know is, one thing I hear quite a lot is I planned this whole, like, beautiful ceremony. And then my daughter was like, absolutely not. Like I do. I'm like, oh man, I've been preparing for this for so long. Could you share, yeah, some of the ways that you've helped moms to go through this experience?

And maybe you can walk us into red parties a little bit because that was such a beautiful part of the book. Yeah. Sure, absolutely. And that actually, that chapter is where this book began because that is the question that I get over and over is what do we do? You know, how do we honor this? How do we celebrate this? What do we do? So it started, that chapter started this whole, it was a very domino effect of writing the whole entire book. But I think that one thing to go into this milestone with some consciousness around is we don't necessarily need to be the mothers that we wanted. We need to be the mothers that our

daughters want and need right now. And I will tell you that that is a realization that I had well into motherhood. I was very much being the mother that I needed that I didn't have. I didn't grow up with my mother. And so I was very much being the mother that small Amy wanted and needed. And it took me a little while to realize that is not the mother that my children want and need. And that's kind of, It's always a balancing act for me. So what I would say, backing up even before we get to this moment of like, okay, how are we going to celebrate is, is our daughter prepared for this? Do we already know, you know, does she have the basics of understanding her body and her cycle

and what this means moving forward? Because if she doesn't, that's a really good place to start. We want to start with allowing her to feel comfortable with what is going to happen in her body and what may happen emotionally, what is happening to her socially and culturally as she goes through this rite of passage. And we have been really cloaked in shame around our bodies and menstruation from the time, from childhood onward, from the time that we are pre-verbal onward. So of course, this is something that a lot of girls may not feel like they want attention drawn to because it is not something that we see celebrated. It isn't something that we see being

honored or even discussed. So yeah, it makes absolute sense if girls are feeling a little resistance to this. And I definitely say whatever you decide to do, your child's feelings should lead the way. So there are so many different ways that we can honor this milestone that reflects what our daughter actually needs, whether it's a small gesture or a literal red party. So some of the things that I, like little things that I've gathered over the years that I've really loved. So if we're talking very small or very intimate, something that I didn't make this up.

This was someone else's story, but I shared it in book because I think it's so beautiful. she had the important women in her child's life write a note of blessing, and she compiled them all in a scrapbook and gave that to her daughter. So it was a very supportive sisterhood community experience, but it was able to remain intimate and it was able to allow this daughter her dignity of not making this a public experience. And I've also had women share that they've had the women in their lives write notes about the most important book that they ever read, which I thought was really brilliant. And then creating a little scrapbook of that. Something that I also thought, think is really beautiful is when I was in the childbirth age, we were making birth bracelets for each other. So each woman would bring a bead to a baby blessing ceremony, a mother blessing ceremony, and we would string all the beads on a bracelet for that mom.

Whether she wore it or not, it didn't really matter. It was the gesture of our love and our support and sisterhood. So inviting other women or special people in your life to bring one bead to then string on a bracelet is a really lovely idea or to bring one flower and to create a flower crown. We do flower crowns in all of our period of change right of passage ceremony. And I have to tell you, there's nothing like a crown, Sophie. We love crowns. It's amazing how much fun it is to make the crown.

But it is just the most beautiful thing to see these girls' expressions. Yeah. When they put those crowns on, when their mom places the crown on their head and the moms are crying and their girls are crying. And I think it is such an important. coordinate symbol of our recognition of our body sovereignty. I'm going to pause my chat with Amy for a couple of moments to share two invitations. Firstly, if you'd like a copy of the Red School menstrual cycle tracking chart, you can download it for free at Redschool.net forward slash chart.

And if you'd like to begin a cycle awareness practice or deepen your cycle awareness practice, you can join Red School's free three-part course, which is called Love Your Cycle. Part 1 is a simple guide to the art of mental cycle awareness. Part 2 explores the four inner seasons of the cycle as a gateway to more vitality, creativity and leadership. And the final part three guides you how to live your cycle in a non-cyclical world. You can register for free at Red School.net forward slash me. love. That's redscore.net forward slash love. Let's get back to the conversation with Amy.

And you also get that really sweet, like quiet crafting moment or like with giggles and chatting where the flowers are being woven together and it's, I think crafting together. I mean, I know many listeners will agree because they'll, they'll be knitters or crafters or crocheters, I imagine. But that quiet crafting together is such a lost art, like particularly amongst women. I think it's so nervous system regulating just to quietly, you know, fucks with something alongside each other. So beautiful. I love that idea. I love all these ideas. That one feels really special. I love that for that reason too. And yeah, any type of craft. And I will tell you that tweens and teens love crafting. So any craft that you can think of that would be symbolic of this is going to be

appropriate and probably very well received. And so then if we move into a more public welcoming type of situation, you can have a red party where everybody dresses in red and all the foods are red and you have red decorations and this can be anywhere. It can be in your house. It can be in, you know, a shared space or a yoga studio. And the purpose of it is to just recognize that there has been a shift. I will mention as a side note that we may not want to use language like, oh, you're a woman now. You've become a woman. I think that that can be a little intimidating, particularly as we see the age of monarchy decreasing. And, you know, when we're talking about an 11-year-old, we are not talking about a woman. We are talking about a tween. So I think the language

that I use is, oh, now you are welcomed into this circle of women. You know, you have this knowledge, this womb wisdom that is shared with you by your female elders, and now you are welcomed into this space of knowledge and understanding. But we do not use any type of language about now you're a woman. Congratulations. But we can still honor that transition as like, oh, you are, you have taken a step on the pathway to a womanhood. That's really, really big and important. And it's going to unfold at the pace that is right for you because it is true that for a lot of girls, this feels like a huge transition that they may not be ready for. And we don't want to add to that experience of anxiety around it by using language like that.

So when we're having a red party, we can just keep it really fun and celebratory. So there's just such a wide variety. Oh, and even gifting your child with some kind of symbolic jewelry, like a necklace with a red pendant or like a garnet or something like that, or jewelry that has moonstone is very symbolic. Anything like that, that is just a special moment between you. It's completely adequate. We don't have to overdo this.

We can just really hold this space and know that even those small gestures are so, incredibly meaningful and your child is going to carry that with them forever and that that will be part of their story. Yeah. What I'm really hearing from you so far is to really follow them and what they need and want depending on their personality and then there's a wide variety of things that you can do from the small and quiet but equally meaningful to the big red gorgeous big parties and everything in between. Yeah. Thank you, Amy. There were some, you share affirmations at the end of each chapter. You also share like conversation starters, which you've been modelling in the conversation that we're having today, but they are so helpful as well. Like I just, I'm so grateful in any

uncomfortable moment in life to have some kind of script, you know, some kind of sense of what is a good thing to say right now. So they're great. But a couple of the affirmations that you are sharing, particularly about body and like helping girls and young ones to move through this cultural shame that shrouds this whole topic. There is no shame in my body and there is no shame in talking about it. By teaching my daughter the truth about her body,

I am healing generations of silence. Yeah, even you reading that to me gives me goosebumps on my arms because I want to really emphasize the work that we're doing in creating this new normal for our kids is huge work. And it is challenging us to come to the edge of our own comfort, our own shame, our own embarrassment, our own internalized everything that we grew up with. and to step over that line, even though we may be feeling that discomfort or anxiety or shame within ourselves, but modeling something different for our kids so that we don't pass on that shame. And that is such a huge piece of doing this work for me is holding the space for women to process. A lot of these things that have been buried within them all of these years that they don't really think about, they don't examine, haven't been processed. And these are very significant feelings and

experiences that are brought up for mothers, particularly because what we're talking about is often their relationship with their mothers and the support they did or did not get during their own adolescence, during menarchy, during early menstruation. And so it brings up a lot of different feelings. So if we are able to guide and support our kids, Despite what we might be feeling inside without passing those feelings onto our daughters, we are literally changing the mother-daughter legacy. And that is no small thing. And I mean, even I in moments in circle will have to swallow and just say the words,

you know, say what needs to be said, answer the question. I'm not going to pretend that I don't have little moments of like, oh, shit. but I also have kind of really mastered the art of, you know, like a duck on a pond. I'm smooth on top and I might be paddling like crazy down below. And I think that that is something that we kind of have to embrace in this stage of our parenting journey is we are going to say all the words. We're going to say vagina. We're going to say vulva. We're going to see all of these things that we might just feel so many feelings.

things about. And we're going to talk about pleasure. We're going to talk about sexuality and we're going to allow our girls to know that they have a clitoris, which is the only human organ whose only purpose is pleasure and only female bodies have them. Yes, we talk about that even with the seven to nine year old girls that I sit with because that is so crucially important for us to know as we inhabit this body. So what I would say is the conversation starters and the affirmations are there, for you to practice saying those words, for those words to be in your mouth without, you know, breaking out in a cold sweat or having any sense of backing away from these conversations that we know that we want to have with our kids and we know that our kids need and deserve to have of us.

Yes. Can we talk about the early years when the cycle's just getting established? Because there's a lot of things that can go on here. was important to mention some of them irregular cycles, headaches, menstrual cramps, emotional shifts. Like, can you speak to some of what we can expect in these early years? And maybe also walk us into the 110-20 rule, which was like, oh, that is so helpful to know. Right. So what we want to be expecting is the unexpected, unfortunately. most girls are not going to begin their journey of menstruation with having regular cycles. The body is kind of coming online with this new process of regulating hormones and of ovulating,

of shedding the uterine lining. These are all things that our body has to learn how to do. And the fluctuations of our hormones are not on a. regular predictable cycle. So what we can witness in our kids is having their first period and then having periods following that that are heavy and they can be very heavy and that are spaced out, you know, in kind of odd times. It might be a couple of months after the first period until the next one course, or it could be within just a few weeks. So all of those things, are within the realm of normal.

But what we want to be looking for is when girls are soaking through a pad more than one per hour. So that's considered heavy bleeding. If they are bleeding for more than 10 days in a row, and if their cycle, if they start one period and then fewer than 20 days later, they start another one, those are all signs of concern that we might want to go speak to a practitioner about. But it is normal to have periods that are heavier, periods that are lighter, periods that last several days, periods that are just spotting for a couple of days. These things are all very normal for a new cycle as the body begins to regulate the hormonal

communication in our body. So it's really helpful to know what we, what we can say, yes, this is really unfortunate, uncomfortable, unusual. We don't, you know, we don't know exactly what this is going to look like. But what we know is that most kids are not going to start their period and have a regular 27-day cycle right off the bat. That's very uncommon and that it can take up to two years for that cycle to find its regular rhythm and that we know that there are certain things that we need to look for in terms of supporting our daughters. they are outside of that curve of normal.

Yes. There are so many topics in this book that feel really important around this whole phase of puberty, like nourishment for menstrual health, eating disorders, how to recognize them, how to support them, what to do if your kid is prescribed birth control, like you really brilliantly take on that whole conversation, which is huge.

What if their cycle starts late or early? navigating periods with confidence at school, I have such vivid memories of being really embarrassed at school and finding it already awkward and I really could have done with some help with that. But one that feels really important, like speaking to one of the things you said at the beginning of the conversation is the fact that all of this is unfolding within patriarchy and boy, is patriarchy kicking off to next levels right now. Yeah. So how to, support healthy body image throughout puberty inside patriarchy. You speak to this so beautifully. And I just love to chat about it now with you. I mean, I'm thinking of something that happened this morning actually

with my son because I woke up and I had these like crease lines on my chest from sleeping. And now they just stay there for longer because I'm 44 and I have less collagen in my body. And I'm and he was like, Mommy, why have you got these lines? And I said, it's because I'm getting older and I'm getting more wrinkly. and it's what happens when you get older. And he said, wow. And I said, yeah, it's just, it's a real privilege to get older. Like, it's so, I'm so happy. And I thought, like, I could have said something really different there

if I'd been a little bit less, like, menstrually blissful. I feel, you know, I could have said, well, don't talk about that. Or, you know, I could have let my shame about aging come out. But I had a good moment there. I don't always have good moments, you know. Yeah, but could you just walk us into some of what, you feel is really important for us to share supporting our daughters and young ones with their body image around this time.

That's so hard. It's just so hard because the way that we live is so unnatural for humans. We are not living in the way that humans are designed and evolved to live, which is in community with each other, seeing every different type of body shape and size and color. That is not our regular human experience. And instead, what we have in our face all the time is a very, very, very narrow representation of the female body. And in general, what we see is the sexualization of the female body, which we are all feeling very, shoo, we're feeling very sensitive to that right now.

This is a really hard time to be a woman in our culture and a really scary time to be raising girls. Like, I feel it myself. It's absolutely horrific. So it's hard to counter all of the images and messages that our kids grow. We are swimming in it. Like we are in the water. We don't even see it around us. But what I think is important to emphasize, well, two things.

One is noticing what amazing things your body can do and noticing how you are growing into, you know, a new beautiful version of yourself. And the other is recognizing that we are not given a fair representation of the difference of human variety in what we see and experience every day. And we know that the science actually shows us the detrimental effect on self-esteem that looking at Instagram specifically has on young girls because of things like filters, of things like, you know, having extremely curated poses and things that are very unrealistic. So I think it's probably really important at the earliest stage possible to begin to acknowledge the amazing things that your body can do. What is special and unique about your body, what you appreciate

about your body, but also we need to be having conversations about how unrealistic it is that we only see a small fraction of, you know, human variety. And I don't like to use, and I don't like when people use the term real women. We're not seeing real women. Those are real women that we're singing, you know, whether they are digitally modified or whether they are surgically modified, they are still real women. And there are real women out there that are grown women that weigh 115 pounds and that is okay. Well, aside from eating disorders. But I don't ever want to, I don't want to create a dichotomy of real women versus not real women because I don't think that serves our kids either. So I think it's really important to say, you know, we're seeing this

tiny, tiny slice of what some people can look like. But what we're not seeing is the other, you know, 99% of the full human expression. And so we, if we look our right, us in the world, we can see, you know, many different things, but it's just really hard because our kids don't really care what we say. Our kids really care what Instagram says. And so having conversations like, let's look at this image. Does this image look like it's been altered to you? Does this look like it's been filtered? Why do you think people are feeling that they want to alter or filter their photos? What do you think makes people feel that they need to do that? And I think just kind of demystifying how unreal a lot of what we see around us is,

especially now that we have AI, I mean, there was a window there where we could look at something and be like, well, that's AI, but I think that that window is closing. And other than if you're looking at AI people's freaky, freaky hands, we may not. So weird. It's so weird. Yeah. We may not know of something. is real or not. So I think keeping our kids grounded in reality of actual, you know, true human-to-human interaction is really important and to allow them to see and recognize what is amazing about them is another way to do it. But it is hard. And I don't,

there is no silver bullet that is going to take care of this. It is a daily resistance to the forces outside of us that are pushing in on our children. And they just do not have, have, we barely have the emotional and psychological resilience to deal with this. Like we can't expect our kids to either. So setting a really positive example of what we are saying to ourselves about ourselves in front of our kids is huge. And in fact, that has a bigger impact on our girls' sense of self than what they see in social media or the world around us is how they hear their mothers talking about

themselves. So just like you were saying that a conversation with your son, it is. a privilege to be able to grow older or you know my body is so amazing and I made space to grow you and I nourished you with this body and that's kind of why you know I don't look like a girl anymore I don't look like a teenager anymore because my body grew as I made you and I'm so thankful that my body could do that or you know recognizing how anti-ages our culture is and at least trying to set examples that our kids can see of, I accept and appreciate my aging body and I don't have to change anything about it because that's all our culture is telling us to do is change.

And this is something we talk about in circle is what is the benefit to a capitalist society in making us feel like we have to change? We're going to spend money on changing. And I also think it goes beyond that. If we are shifting women psychologically so that they're policing themselves, they are not paying attention to what else is happening around them. And that is incredibly intentional. So allowing our daughters to have a little bit of liberation from that self-policing, I think, is it's a huge gift for one thing, but it is an ongoing practice that we have to sort of be

spiritually prepared to take on. Big time. Such big truth bombs there. Thanks, Amy. It makes me think, too, of our own menstrual cycle awareness practice and how that can be a resource for us, because that daily coming home to how am i doing today on this cycle day how am i feeling that reclaiming of our own mental space and focus towards ourselves actually checking in to see what's really going on experiencing our bodies that body literacy is the ground for all of this isn't it oh so much so it is like we have a an extra sense and test and tapping into cycle awareness and cycle tracking gives us so much more information about ourselves on any given day that now, now that, you know, I've been living this way for however long,

you know, 20 years probably, when I see that women aren't, that they are, that they are completely disconnected from their cycle, they don't have the awareness of the phases of their cycle, they're not tracking their cycle. I have this moment of like, how are you living? How do you How do you survive? How do you know what to do? Because it is that integral. And the experience of the women who come to circle with their daughters in when I, you know, I teach this in a very, very specific way.

And it does correlate to the four seasons of the year. And that each phase of our cycle is represented by how we experience that season of the year. And when women learn this and they really integrate it, they say every time without fail, this is life changing. And I wish that I had had this when I was my daughter's age. This would have changed my life. And so I think for me, that component of it is so fundamental, normalizing, understanding where we are in our cycle, normalizing talking about our cycle, normalizing what we can expect from ourselves during that phase of our cycle. It is so crucial to our well-being. And actually just yesterday, Alisa Vidi published that she had participated in the

creation of a research study that looked at the well-being of women, particularly with pre-menstrual syndrome experiences. What shifted for them when they practiced cycle sinking? So moving according to your cycle, eating according to your cycle, sleeping according to your cycle, so many ways that that we can modify our lifestyle in accordance with where we are. And the results were absolutely amazing. It was over 95% of symptom reduction when people sink their cycles. And I think this is really important for us to know because yes, yes, in multiple different ways. And she was also including people with endometriosis, having fewer endometriosis symptoms as well.

So this really is just further evidence that this culture does not support the way that our bodies are designed. We live in a very linear culture where we are expected to be in outfacing, extroverted, productive aspect of ourselves all the time. And that is so unnatural and it is so depleting. It's no wonder we are all so freaking exhausted and so depressed because we don't have community and we are not living in sync with our. cyclical nature, which is what we should be doing for our psychological health, our physical health, our emotional health, spiritual health, all these things. So if we can bring our daughters into this practice from the beginning, it is giving them this gift of knowing themselves and caring for themselves in such a deeper way than we were ever taught to do. And even for me, changing the

language around it is really important. So one of the things I share is that I don't use the term premenstrual syndrome to talk about the normal fluctuations of our energy, of our mood, of our cravings, of our sense of wanting to be connected or disconnected from people. Those are not signs of a syndrome. Those are signals that our body is sharing with us to communicate what we need at that point in our cycle. And it is no different than the signals that our body sends us when we are hungry or when we're tired. So when I'm talking to girls, even girls as young as age seven, about, hey, what

signals do, does our body send us when we're hungry? They can list 10 things right off the bat. And same thing. What signals does your body communicate when you're tired? Again, they can list them very quickly and very easily. And then I say, so what happens if we ignore these signals? Do they just go away? Like we're just to decide we're going to push through what happens. And they say, oh, the signals get louder. We feel worse. And eventually sometimes our body just decides for us. Like, you are going to go to sleep. That's what's going to happen. So when I set that foundation that our body sends us signals, then we can start shifting our language from talking about a premenstrual syndrome, which, you know, is a cluster of disorder to our premenstrual signals that tell us, oh, it's time

for me to slow down. It's time for me to nourish myself in a different way. I need stillness. because we don't say that we have pre-eating syndrome and we don't say we have pre-sleeping syndrome, we just say we're hungry and tired, right? So when we connect this to the other cycles of our body that we experience on a regular basis and importantly, are supported culturally, right? We raise our kids saying, tune into your body, tune into your body. Do you need to sleep? Do you need to eat?

Do you need to pee? What do you need? Go ahead and take care of your body by doing these things. This is how we raise our kids. But yet this part of the conversation is completely absent. And if anything, we are telling kids and modeling for kids, oh, I have to ignore this and I have to push through this. And this is a syndrome.

Something is wrong with me. That is absolutely completely the farthest thing from the truth. Our bodies are doing what they are designed to do. And it's very wise. And I think it's very magical and beautiful. And this is what I want our girls and our menstruating kids to understand about their bodies. It may be not always joyful to have a period.

It may be uncomfortable and it may be inconvenient because of this life that we have to live. But I at least want them to know that the problem is culture. The problem is in us. The problem is culture. I totally agree. Thank you. I'm just electrified by this conversation

because when I think about the potential of it, I just, I want to like burst into teeth. and run around, like jumping and laughing at the same time, because in terms of crafting a world where especially women and girls feel safe and strong and connected to themselves, like this is such a portal for that. So it thrills me. Just in closing, for our final question, Amy, one of the parts of the book that really moved me was when you shared some of your experience with your son.

was assigned female at birth and you said because there's a whole chapter around honouring gender identity and menstruation for LGBTIQIA plus youth he said this chapter is deeply personal for me not just because I'm a gay woman

and not just because I'm the mother of a trans son who came out of 14 but because I know how much these moments matter they shape our parenting journey and children's lives in ways that ripple for decades so impactful we're going to

have a whole conversation about this as well, but I'm just curious what you would share for parents of trans kids who are going through their first periods and yeah, some words, words for them. Yeah, it's just you reading that kind of brought tears to my eyes. It is a very special journey and it is one that I think more and more parents are aware that this might. be their journey and I think it's great that we have a bit more general conversation around this topic because I'll be honest with you, I was completely unprepared. I did not expect this at all. And so I definitely had a deer in the headlights moment. And that's part of the reason why this chapter was so important to me because what I hope to share in writing this chapter is this

could be anybody's parenting journey. It could be a anybody's parenting journey. And so I do invite everybody to just leave a tiny space in your consciousness of your child that, you know, we might expect the unexpected. On the other hand, this might be something that you're like, oh, yes, I saw this coming. We had no doubt about this. But whatever the lead up was, I think it is important to recognize that this can, this meaning menstruation and having a hormone cycle, this can add an extra layer of discomfort, resistance, shame, and dysphoria for our kids who are assigned female at birth who identify as boys or feel that they are non-binary and that it just feels like it doesn't fit.

It's wrong for their human experience. That can feel very hard. And so I think there's several layers to it. And one of the layers is, what language do we want to use to talk about this? Do we want to call it your period? Do we want to call it bleeding? Do we want to call it your cycle? Some words are just more typically associated with the experience of being a woman.

And so those terms may not feel comfortable. So we can talk together about what feels comfortable. And the same goes for anatomy. me, we want to recognize that there are correct anatomical terms for our body and know what they are and what our functions are. But if we want to use terms that feel more comfortable for our child in this experience, then I think that's completely appropriate. The other thing is sometimes using products that are internal that have to go in the vagina, like a tampon or a cup or disc, can add to that dysphoria of like, oh, I actually have a vagina. This is not really what.

This is not what I want to be experiencing. So using things like pads or period underwear might feel a little bit more comfortable, but it really does depend on your child. And the thing to really kind of keep in mind through all of this is that these things can change. Things can shift. So what might work and feel good in one phase may shift and maybe something different in another phase. And that does not mean that you did anything. anything wrong or that the experience wasn't real or that they don't know what they're talking about.

It just means that as humans, we shift and change and especially this is a huge time of growth and development for them, of discovering who they are and what works for them and what doesn't work for them. I really just would say allow space for them to communicate about what works for them and what they need and be willing to educate yourself to find community of other parents and to not shift any feelings of anxiety or worry or even your ignorance about it onto your child. And that's what I mean by this moment shapes your relationship with your child for decades. And I truly mean that showing up as a supportive parent in these moments and saying, hey, let me support you in the way that feels good for you to be supported is how we maintain a

connection of trust and respect with our child so that they know that they can come to us in the future as things progress in their own life. So, you know, this may not be every parent's journey, but I actually, you know, I've been leading mother-daughter circles for so long. And I've had the privilege of maintaining relationships with these kids over the years. their mothers. And what was unexpected for me was as the years went on, learning that some of the kids that were in circle with me were actually trans or non-binary and they, you know, came out later. So it really influenced the way that I use language in circle because, you know, if a child is 11 years old, they may not realize that they're non-binary or trans, but when they're 15 or 16 and

they look back at this experience with me, I want them to look at this experience and remember that it was inclusive and that they were seen and that that space was safe for them. And it can be the same with families, right? We may not expect or know that that is going to happen, but we can set the stage for love and acceptance and support ahead of time. And I think that that includes our conversations about menstruation and puberty and anarchy, whether we think that that's the path we will go down or not. Yes. Thank you so much.

some of the conversations that you, sorry, some of the conversation starters that you included in this chapter were, if you ever want to talk about gender or identity stuff, I'm here, I'll listen without judgment. How can I support you better when it comes to how you feel about your body or changes that you're going through? Is there anything you've been wanting to talk with me about, but have felt worried about how I might respond? So good. So good. Yeah, and I kind of wish somebody had to share those with me. I remember the moment that my son came to talk to me about it. I was folding towels in my bedroom. And he, I mean, I can just picture it so vividly.

He waited for that moment because I wasn't distracted. There was nothing else going on. His younger sibling, my younger son, was busy doing something else. So he knew that he had my full attention and that my energy wasn't scattered. And I think it is really important for us to create spaces like that. Whether it's about gender, identity, sexuality, any, we are at a stage in our children's development where we need those little pockets of connection

to let them know, you can talk to me about anything anytime and to model that for them by creating times and spaces where conversations can flow organically because one thing we know is that they don't necessarily want to talk about it when we want to talk about it. Right. But we can let. let them know that we can always create times and spaces for that connection, for those really

deep and meaningful conversations that don't come up all the time. And I have found for me, driving in the car with my kids is the conversation time. And now that both of my kids are driving, they have their own cars, I really miss those moments of connection in the car. So if you are a parent and you are still driving your kids to and fro perhaps have a special time with just one kid and just let the conversation flow naturally it's just it's such a beautiful experience or you know keep your door open when you're folding towels oh thanks amy how can people connect with you if they'd like to do more work with you or if they want to get in the book yeah so i um have a website it's period

of Change.com. And it is a treasure trove of all that I do and all that I offer. So it shows local events and it also has resources for parents like downloadable resources. I created a beautiful four-season cycle tracker because I couldn't find one. And I created it to give to the girls and the in the period of change circles. And so that's available for download. I also have a list of things you might want to include in a first period basket. That's a free download also. And something that I created a while ago, people in circle were always asked me,

okay, what's your favorite this? What's your favorite this? What book is what would you recommend for this? So I have a whole page on my website. It's period of change.com slash favorites where I list all my favorite. things and it is regularly updated so you can find that there you can find the book on the website as well and i do offer one-on-one coaching for parents if they're needing extra support and that link is also on the website um i am instagram again i'm getting back into the flow so i'm on

instagram at period of change and also at amy wilding official on instagram so i'm out there Amy and I often talk about our love-hate relationship with Instagram, don't we? Oh, gosh. Yeah, it's... Mostly hate. It takes too much space in my life. This conversation has been amazing, so generous for everything that you've shared, so helpful and practical. Yeah, thank you so much for everything you do, Amy.

Thank you. Thank you. And if I can make one request of your listeners, what I want for, us right now is to disperse this information as much as possible. We need to kind of consider ourselves like the underground. We are shifting a movement so that we can create a better culture. And we are, you know, sharing this information so that our children and the children in the next generation don't have to experience the shame, the embarrassment, the lack of information that we have. So I would love to have you all to be the change and to share as much information as you can about your cycle, about hormones, about your body, with anybody who will listen.

Share that information with your best friends. Share that information with the other women in your life, with the girls in your life. And if having this book will help you with understanding and sharing that info, please get the book and share it too. Beautifully said, I'm totally with you. I will keep talking about my period until I'm blue in the face for everyone who will listen. Thank you so much. As we should, as we should. Totally.

Thank you so much, love. Thank you. Thank you, Sophie. Thanks for being with us today. I hope that conversation inspired you. If you know someone that is in this phase of life and has a teen or a tween in their life that's starting their period soon, please do forward it to them. and it really helps us if you could leave a review and a rating at Apple Podcasts. It really supports the podcasts to reach more people.

All right, that's it for this week. I'll be with you again in a couple of weeks' time. And until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.