When Dr Melissa Kang and I wrote the period guidebook Welcome to Your Period in 2019, there was nothing like it at the time. Ideas and language around period shame, period poverty and the need for period education to reach kids before puberty did – those ideas hadn’t hit mainstream.

So how do you prepare your child for getting their period?

The first thing you need to know is that sex and puberty education is different to when you were on the receiving end.

We now know as educators that you don’t get to teach it once and then forget about it. The conversations need to be ongoing. Update the info as your child grows. It could be monthly (which for period ed would be wonderfully on-brand) or bi-monthly, but it needs to be more than once a year, and it’s the sort of chat that will change depending on the age of your child.

Most kids get their first period about 12 years old, but “menarche” can commonly occur at any age from nine to 17. There are signs that may indicate the period is on its way: breast buds usually start growing two years before the first period, and vaginal discharge will........

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