Worried about son's height

A dinky dot ☺️☺️☺️

If he's short he will probably find a nice short girlfriend! Like your DH did He won't have much luck on dating apps if he needs them when he's older but should be fine in real life!

I don't think 9th to 25th centile would be flagged as unusual or worrying though?

@vitDsunshine My 15 year old DS is very small still as he has been diagnosed with delayed puberty. We are under the care of an endocrinologist at the moment & at the next visit in oct will decide if to give testosterone or not although for him, puberty is progressing, just very very slowly. His bone age is 2 years behind at the moment which means growth is coming.

If you are worried, I would recommend getting in the system soon as it takes a while to get seen. It’s been really difficult for DS as his mates are all very tall & he feels like a freak at times compared to them as he’s still like a little kid at 15.

Please don’t have boys doing any real lifting until their own testosterone levels are fully in ie puberty is obvious. It won’t increase their muscle mass (it will increase the number of existing muscle fibres recruited for the activity) and can cause damage.

I’ve never heard that lifting promotes increased “growth hormone” production, but maybe it does?

At his age , he can start lifting. This will certainly boost his growth hormones levels. If you have the stuff at home , let him use it, if not, consider a membership at a gym near your home.

This stepping out of childhood can be combined with a stepping out of junk food. Instead of a soda, a glass of milk and a whole food diet void of processed foods.

even if it doesn’t make any difference in his height, it will make a difference on his palate and well-being.

When my sons have their “ bulking “ phase usually before we go to Europe in July, I leave in the fridge yogurt, hard boiled eggs, sliced meatloaf, cooked tuna steaks and other things like that that can be eaten cold straight from fridge to plate.
I buy bags of frozen berries for their shakes and sit back looking at them wondering when it all happened the going from boys to young men.

Oh and sauna! But only if done twice a week and not more. Increases growth hormones as it is a stressor. You don’t have a Scandinavian husband by any chance and a sauna in the backyard?

If I was a short guy I'd smash the weights for sure. You'd think people would see it as 'compensating' but in reality the short beefy guy is usually regarded as 'bigger' than than the taller spindlier guy.

I train at a proper muscle gym and there are some short guys who are stocky as hell.

How is his diet @vitDsunshine ?
Lifestyle ( exercise, sleep, …) and diet have an impact on height. High milk consumption, high protein intake, calcium , a few vitamin … all play a role in height.

He will be at least three inches taller than you but likely taller.

I was the person whose child's great grandfather was a jockey. His son though, his grandfather, was around six foot. My husband and his brothers were around six foot. His mother was tall and towered over me - part Danish. My family was average to tall. So it wasn't unreasonable to think that our son would be tall like his father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, uncles etc rather than picking up his great grandfather's short genes.

Now lots of short men are successful and I hope my son is too. But in the real world, some women won't date short men. Just because it is unfair and unreasonable doesn't mean that it isn't a thing. If you ask any man if he would rather be 6 foot 1 or 5 foot 1 then I think you'd get a very consistent answer. My son does get fed up being taken for much younger but he doesn't have a complex over his height. Yes, I think he would be delighted if he woke up one day and was six feet but he is not defined by his height.

I don't know if we would have done anything if something could have been done. Obviously we would have considered the risks and discussed them with him. We might have concluded that the risks weren't worth it. We did have his bones checked and they were perfectly normal so this was just his natural height. Actually, he was almost too tall to be a jockey at least on the flat.

My son is 12.5 and is a very similar height to your son. I'm not exactly sure of his height but I am 5ft 2" (157cm) and he is a bit smaller than me so less than 150cm. He is on the small side of average I think. He wants to be taller and from experience I know he won't be small - the men in our family are all around 6ft. When my two nephews were young they too were small and I can remember my dad telling them that he was a late grower and they would be too. He was right and they are both now in excess of 6ft. From what you say, I would imagine your son will be the same. Boys can grow massively in a short period of time. Get him checked out if you are concerned but I'm sure he will grow within the next few years

I know you don’t like the growth charts, but just to reiterate, your DS is on course for 5 foot 8 1/2 inches if 143cm at 12.5 years old.

I think you're sensible. You need just enough of an eye on it to make sure you don't overlook a medical matter, but not so much you become overly preoccupied with what can't be changed.
However tall he is, you need to keep in mind that having a great start with loving parents who will meet his needs, support his academic, social and emotional development, (plus a hefty dose of male privilege) means your boy has already won life's lottery. He has all the important things in place to have a happy successful future and height would just be the icing on an already very rich cake.

Without seeing the OP's son's red book, we don't know what sort of trajectory he is on. We know his height now. If we also knew it when he was a very small child, for example, we would have a better idea. People are talking of growth spurts later, but according to the book, most males do that, at about 15.

If you think height is the last bastion of acceptable discrimination you might want to pop over to the 'ugly women' thread going on at the moment. Or talk to a woman who is over weight. Or underweight.
The only reason a preference for tall over short gets such a hoo hah made about it is its one of the few areas in which men are judged for a physical characteristic. And while there may be some evidence that it can be a disadvantage at work in some sectors, the vast majority of the fuss made is around not being able to date women who prefer tall men.
If the worst disadvantage a man has, balanced against all his other privileges, is that some women he wants to date won't be interested, he's not doing too badly.

And it's true that getting clothes is hard. At the moment my son can buy size 28 jeans which fit him. But if he ever gets fatter, he will struggle.

Also comparing racism and homophobia to the hardships of being 5'4" is pretty offensive

No it isn't. Race and sexual orientation are protected characteristics.

Height, despite being something you have no control over, is not. It is the last acceptable bastion of discrimination.

On the plus side, if you are short, you don't have the problems with legroom on aeroplanes etc.

Hmm, the red book and who growth charts show the “normal” trajectory, what we are mostly discussing here is kids who have fallen far off that trajectory, so the fact that the chart says one thing and the child is doing a different thing isn’t really reassuring at all.

I didn't say I hope you've used... but I'm guessing you've used as in, I don't want to tell you something you already know.

There are height predictors on line which just find the mid point between the heights of the two parents, and these aren't accurate. There are accurate ones, including the paper chart in a child's red book where you can plot their height at any given age and track where they are likely to end up as an adult, with a bit of a margin of variation of course.

2.5 is supposed to be half adult height. I don't know how tall your son was at 2.5 but you mentioned his height now, so by looking in the red book, it gives a vague idea. But I didn't want to patronise you, so I said I guessed you'd already done it.