Hey y'all. Let’s talk about an unspoken topic: Student hormones. Yes, this 4th grade teacher has some experiences like no other.
I’ll start with my girls, spoiler alert! The girls will sync up with each other and cause your cycle to get wild too. I strongly recommend with this age to let the parents know and then the students know it’s okay and normal. I also share with my girls only girls have this problem and boys don’t need to know anything about it. For my parents, I assure them it’s not entirely easy at home or in the classroom. Maybe create a period box at home, much similar to what I have in my classroom. My period box is a safe, discrete place for the girls to put their pads in and I have extra ones just incase too. At some point, the boys will catch on and that’s when I strongly recommend they don’t say anything to the girls about the box, otherwise they’ll be having to explain to their mom why they’re being rude and nosey.
Now for my boys, well they don’t have periods - clearly - but they will get uncomfortable in their seats! Nothing like teaching angles and they have a body part… angling… as a younger female teacher, I had not a clue on what to do with this. Male teachers are the school’s secret heroes, we need more of them! When only manly things happen to boys, they need to hear it from a man. Ask the male teachers to give a pep talk about how body’s change and they need to let their parents know changes are happening. It’s extremely important to not give the details on WHY there’s changes, that’s up to the parents or the highly qualified teachers in middle school (y’all are a strong breed). I had my awesome male colleague call the students’ parent and talk to them. At a small school, I’m privileged to have understanding parents!
Thanks for the opportunity to share the knowledge!
~Chaos Corner
