[Family stress for parents of girls with precocious puberty]

This study addresses whether precocious puberty influences the child-rearing practices of parents. Three patients groups, girls with idiopathic precocious puberty, with premature thelarche and with premature pubarche were studied. These groups were compared with each other, and with reference groups of 'normal' school children and children referred for asthma or referred for behavioural problems. The results showed that the parents of the total group of patients did not experience more family stress and did not appraise their child-rearing situation as being more problematic than that of parents of normal school children, and they had significantly fewer problems than the parents of children referred for asthma of for behavioural problems. Within the group results suggested that parents of girls with premature pubarche experienced more family stress than those of the two other groups. Parents reported specific physical and educational concerns about their daughters. Therefore we recommend that specific attention should be given through a programme of relevant information.