A childhood belief about periods

My niece always looked at me for advice. She was getting of age and we talked about menstrual stage. When her period finally started, she was at school and she called me to see what she should do. In that I couldn't break away from work, I simply told her to "put paper down there." She called me back several hours later and said that the paper was hurting her. I don't know if I asked her why or what, but her response was that the notebook paper was hurting her! I guess when I told her to put paper down there i was assuming she knew I meant toilet paper and not knowing at such a young age of 9 yrs old, she put notebook paper instead of toilet paper!