jc+and+ni+Puberty+The+basics

Puberty is the process of physical changes to make a child's body capable of reproduction turning the child into the man. Puberty is initiated by hormone signals from the brain to the ovaries and testes(gonads). The gonads produce a variety of hormones that stimulate the growth, function, or transformation of brain, bones, muscle, skin, breasts, and reproductive organs. Growth accelerates in the first half of puberty and stops at the completion of puberty. Before puberty, body differences between boys and girls are pretty much the same besides the genitalia. During puberty, differences of size, shape, and use develop in many body structures and systems. The most obvious of these are referred to as secondary sex characteristics. In a sense, puberty refers to the bodily changes of sexual maturation rather than the social and cultural aspects of adolescent development. Adolescence is the period of psychological and social transition between childhood and adulthood. Adolescence overlaps the period of puberty, but its boundaries are less precisely defined and it refers as much to the psychosocial and cultural characteristics of development during the teen years as to the physical changes of puberty.  media type="youtube" key="hWUB4LjEWCg" height="385" width="480" align="center"
 * __Puberty: The basics__**