CoachPuberty is the stage in which a child’s body becomes an adult’s — above all, an adult’s in Chapter 54’s sense: the reproductive organs mature and begin producing gametes, and the body takes on its adult form. It is the biological core of adolescence (Definition 15.1).
Examples
Example 56.5 (One signal, many building sites)
The blood carries a hormone everywhere at once — which is why puberty is a coordinated rebuild: voice, shoulders and hair follow the same messenger, on one schedule, though the sites lie half a body apart. No nerve wiring connects a voice box to a beard; the bloodstream’s broadcast does (Chapter 61 makes this system a chapter of its own).
Example 56.8 (Questions have addresses)
Puberty raises questions — about timing, about bodies, about feelings — and they have proper addresses: school nurses and doctors answer them daily, confidentially and without surprise; trusted adults have all been through it; and this book’s chapters are built to be reread. What deserves no trust: playground legend and the internet’s worst corners, which trade on exactly this age’s uncertainties.