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Deodorant 101 for Preteen Girls
Teaching Your Daughter About Personal Hygiene
By Teri Brown
It's difficult to prepare preteen girls for adolescence. What can you tell them that isn't a bit, well, negative? That the assault on their body by hormones will impact them both emotionally and physically? That emotionally, they may feel happy one minute and upset the next? Or how about that they get to develop hips, breasts, suffer from acne and may even begin to sweat profusely?
Yvette Deluca Davis of Glendale, Ariz., says that being upfront and honest with your kids about the changes of adolescence and the hygiene these body changes require is the only way to go.
"I dealt with personal hygiene directly and honestly," says Deluca Davis. "I tend to be very upfront, open and direct with my kids. We talk openly about everything, and when there's a problem we address it quickly."
This is particularly important when body odor becomes an issue. Deluca Davis' 12-year-old daughter began using deodorant very early. She told her daughter that body odor was a sign of growing up and discussed the changes her body would make as positively as possible.
"We went to the store together and spent close to an hour as she smelled each and every deodorant stick the store sold until she settled on one," Deluca Davis says.
"Everything happens at puberty," says Dr. Eric Berger, a skin and laser specialist at Berger Medical Aesthetics, PC in New York City. "The profuse sweating that occurs during the preteen years is hormonally linked. Factor in the high levels of activity preteens and teens are involved in and you may have a real problem."