Puberty and sex education to girls: experiences of Gorganian's mothers

Puberty and sex education always is one of concerning issues in child training, as many of parents are not easy in discussing it with their children. Traditionally, mothers have the main responsibility of child health training are and care health decisions. The aim of this study was to explain the mother's experiences with sex and puberty informal education for their own children.

This qualitative study, conducted in 2012 over 24 mothers with 6-18 year old children. The sampling method was purposeful with maximum variation. To evaluate reliability and dependability, the credibility, transferability and conformability were used. The data was gathered by individual semi-structured interactive interviews, recorded, transcribed and was analyzed according to Morse' content analysis method.

One of the analyzed data was "motherhood tasks and girls preparation for the puberty". Sub-themes were "menstrual hygiene training", "respect for religious issues", "gender roles" and "hidden training of sex issues. The last category consists of two sub-themes. "In preparation for the role of gender" and "vulnerability of the opposite sex".

Formal adult education in the nation's health care system is essential. Despite the cultural changes puberty on Iran, the dominant secular culture of family and community, the puberty are discreet and quiet.