“By the time they’re in middle school, they think they know everything because they’ve looked at the internet. Some schools teach it in fifth grade, and that’s just too late,” Dr. “Puberty is starting earlier for both girls and boys. Girlology’s puberty classes target fourth-graders, but third-through-fifth-graders may attend. Holmes, who was affiliated with Prisma Health but stopped seeing patients two years ago to concentrate on Girlology full-time. “Between our two families, we have five girls,” said Dr. Trish Hutchison, the other co-founder of Girlology. The second doctor was Charleston pediatrician Dr. Having parents attend also helped them feel more comfortable continuing the conversations at home.” Having two doctors have that conversation with their daughters was important to them. It’s just that they wanted it done right, and they wanted it done accurately. “We struck a chord in the community with moms who wanted help with this conversation,” said Dr. After that session ended and word spread, she received calls for days from other parents asking her to offer another session. Holmes’ office on a Saturday afternoon for a puberty class. Soon after, 11 sets of fourth-grade girls and moms gathered in the lobby of Dr. She agreed but told the woman to invite all of her daughter’s friends and their moms, too. Then Holmes realized the woman was serious.

At first, Holmes laughed off the request, telling the woman that she was sure she and her husband, a gynecologist, could handle it. Holmes was a practicing OB-GYN in Charleston in 2003 when her boss’ wife asked if she would talk to her daughter about puberty and periods. Melisa Holmes agreed to talk to her boss’ daughter about puberty, she had no idea that it would lead to Girlology, a nationwide program that has provided age-appropriate sexuality education to hundreds of thousands of girls.ĭr.

Girlology by Melisa Holmes