In this blog for The Leak, Celebration Day for Girls (CDG) workshop creator, Jane Bennett, workshop facilitator, Nicole Tricarico, and mother, Ingrid Petterson, reflect on why girls may not want to come to the CDG workshop on positive puberty preparation (for 10-12 year old girls and their female carers). What happens when they come anyway?

Celebration Day for Girls (CDG) is a beautiful program, launched in 2000, designed for girls 10-12 years old to support a confident start to menstrual life with positive period preparation.

For some kids it is difficult to imagine what could be fun about spending a day on puberty and periods, and for others the idea is intriguing. Sometimes they’ve heard from older girls, often sisters, what a fun day it is. This obviously helps!

With years, decades, of experience we have found that even the most reluctant girls relax and settle within a short time and all leave with a new confidence and comfort with themselves and their changing bodies, as well as a great new mutually supportive bond with their mother or female carer.

Many mothers present the Celebration Day for Girls as a non-negotiable event, and others prefer to ask their daughter if she wants to attend. For many participants the Day is simply a class curriculum event.

Nicole Tricarico, a naturopath and CDG facilitator from Shepparton in Victoria, has expressed the issue in a recent newsletter like this:

‘“My daughter doesn’t want to come…” You’re not the only one who’s said this.

Sometimes it’s resistance’
Sometimes it’s shyness.
Sometimes it’s already feeling the weight of body shame or discomfort around “the period talk.”

But here’s the thing: resistance often means it matters.
And it tells us what she’s already internalised.

 Celebration Day for Girls isn’t just cute gift bags and giggles.
It’s a powerful interruption to the silence.
It’s a chance to meet her at the threshold of change with warmth, truth, and dignity.

Girls who start off quiet often leave smiling.
Mothers who were unsure often say,

“I wish this had existed when I was growing up.”

If she’s hesitant, that’s okay. We meet that with gentleness—not force.
But know that this day is often exactly what girls need—especially when they think they don’t want it.

Because our girls deserve more than awkward talks and shame.
They deserve initiation with reverence.’

From another angle here’s Ingrid Petterson talking about her daughter’s experience attending Celebration Day for Girls:

“My daughter was full of enthusiasm and confidence the evening after the workshop and was desperate to remember and tell every little detail that she had experienced, to me, and her brother and father, a great change from the apprehensive daughter I dropped off in the morning.” 

So, what to do? 

We don’t expect our children to understand, initially, why they need to go to the dentist, or why eating fresh vegetables is so great for their growing body. Through our experience over the past quarter century running Celebration Day for Girls workshops we know how beneficial this program is and how the shift it creates and the support it offers facilitate lasting change. These changes are: strengthening and refreshing the mother-daughter bond at a time when it often frays, increased confidence and positive body image through increased body literacy, hearing stories and participating in facilitated conversations, and generally enjoying a day with a trained facilitator who is warm, comfortable and knowledgeable about all things puberty and periods.

Whatever your or your daughter’s situation or concerns may be please feel free to contact us for a chat at enquiries@celebrationdayforgirls.com. We are based in Victoria, and have facilitators in all Australian states and territories, plus a further 29 countries around the world.

You can also sign up for Nicole Tricarico’s newsletter by visiting her webpage here: https://nicoletricarico.com/