Menarche is a time of profound change, the beginning of 35 to 40 years of fertility, cycling and menstruation.

This is a time celebrated in many cultures as a rite of passage into a new stage of life with new rights, responsibilities, knowledge and possibilities. Menarche is a vulnerable time, as are all thresholds, and attitudes and circumstances at this time can impact negatively or positively on later menstrual experiences.

Commonplace as menstruation is, the transformation of a child’s body into one that can bring forth new life is momentous. Although your daughter is unlikely to be planning to have her first child just yet, nor is it likely her practising-fertility body would be able to conceive yet either, however this unfolding capacity is nonetheless powerful and transforming in and of itself. As you guide your daughter on her journey towards menarche and the menstrual cycle, be open, creative and honest. Foster an environment where it’s easy to communicate about menstruation.

If you don’t know something, give yourself time to find out. Being open about menstruation from the beginning will encourage curiosity - your daughter will ask questions as they naturally arise and you can answer them in an age appropriate way as you go along. As she approaches menarche it’s important to think through what she needs to know and to address the particular concerns she may have.

Some girls sport a convincing air of knowing-it-all, if this is your daughter you can be sure that she doesn’t. A girl who has a positive experience of menarche and her ongoing menstrual cycle is able to grow into the in-drawing centredness, the confidence, the groundedness, that conscious, positive and healthy menstruating can offer.

Menstruation is an aspect of her blossoming sexuality - an inward time to be with herselves, a time to explore her changes and start to get to know the fertile and infertile times of her menstrual cycle - before she embarks on romantic and sexual relationships. As women exploring our own experiences of menarche, menstruation and fertility, the influences of family and culture, and by getting to know, make friends with and honour our own cycle we’re able to help our daughters, and other girls in our care, achieve a healthy menstrual experience.

By honouring menstruation we can vastly improve our own experiences, discover the hidden creative potentials of riding the emotional and energetic rhythms of our cycle, and bestow upon our daughters the experience of menstruation as a blessing, rather than a curse.