My son hates being short.

Yes that’s very very true x

I don’t my SIL thinks it is.
That’s you

Also look for a chinese chopshop where they will break your son's legs and stretch them out as they heal. A boy can never be too tall nor a girl too thin!

Because you’re telling him that he’ll be like his dad and grow taller after 15. But he might not. His dad isn’t all that tall, maybe just above average and you’re short. Your son might just be short and stay short. Stop telling him he is going to grow. He might, but you don’t know that.

I don’t think it’s helpful to tell anyone not to care about their height. You care about what you care about abs absolutley there can be prejudices around short men. You see it all the time even on here . It’s been my experience that the teens around here are all outgrowing their father so I think your son will probably end up at least 5.8’ and probably an inch or two more.
my teen grew loads during the summer when he could sleep in ( don’t know if was the growth making him sleepy or the sleep making him grow) but some mornings he got up visibly taller .

My Husband was one of the tallest in friendship group until he was about 15 . His freinds overtook him one by one, and he is now the shortest, he's about 5 ft 7. A boy's height at 14 doesn't really mean too much - certainly comparative to the heights of others.

Also short men do end up in relationships too. I work with three men who are all about 5 ft 4 and they are all happily married.

One of my DS's friends was very short at that age. 25 now, still a little on the short side. However, he's handsome, funny and very engaging, has a good job and a GF. Your son will be fine. I think keeping him engaged with sports is important.
If he's into rugby, he'll make a good scrum half.
But yes, kids can be cruel but you're giving him all the right support.

Indeed. I’m not unusually tall for a woman, but I’ve had plenty of comments about the fact that I’m a few inches above the average. It is what it is.

A short man may often be depicted as undesirable when it comes to dating, but the same goes for tall women. It’s hardly unusual for men to be uninterested in dating women taller than them, but those men are rarely criticized for this in the same way that women uninterested in shorter men are.

One of my sons had a very short boy in his class. My son told me (after they’d left primary) that this boy would get mocked by one of the girls there. I was very shocked as I always thought this girl was one of the nice ones (her mum seemed lovely, well educated, decent). Primary school was over and I don’t think there was anything I could do anyway, but I remember feeling very angry at that girl. That was around 15 year’s ago and whenever I see her mum in passing (we aren’t close, it was just school gate chat) I still wonder if her dd feels any shame about it (she’ll be in her 20s now).

People comment on tall people full stop. Tall women have comments constantly too.

My son was always one of the short ones too - the year he was 14 he literally grew 6 inches, really quickly overtook me and now is 15.5 and about 5'8".

He will grow some more I expect as his dad is nearly 6ft - it's just slowed down now.

Boys do often grow in a massive spurt as mid teenagers so there is time yet!

THIS!

A thousand times this. I can think a few physical traits I have that are dealbreakers for a fair few men.

I just accept that just as not everybody would date me I would not date everybody and learned to live with that. If everybody learned to do this I think people would be a lot more content.

It’s funny you say that as I went through a few years hating not being the same size as my pocket sized female friends. They were so small and dainty and had small feet and I felt like Shrek in comparison.

I though, like you, got over it and learned to ignore comments on my height and the many men and women who like to tell me I am “too tall” to wear heels (too tall for what??)

1. Why do you think you nephew’s lack of height is why he has never had a girlfriend?

2. 20 is nothing. I think I was about 19/20 when I had my first “boyfriend”

I actually find it quite sad that a 14 year old is so focused on finding a partner to the extent it is impacting their self-esteem.

This thread has really screwed me up. I never used to care about height but tonight I'm going to go home, measure the boy, plot his, mine and his Dad's heights on a centile chart and make some predictions about how he'll turn out. Possibly also hit the dark web for some HGH.

The problem with height “banter” is that it carries on throughout adult life. Yes at school everyone gets picked on for something but you rarely find adults laughed at for wearing glasses (for example).

I guess the ginger teasing may be the one that does persist too

I get he's upset but he's only 14! My husband looked about 11 when he was 14 but he is now about 5 foot 8 and very handsome! He was probably about 18 when he took his last big stretch. He didn't have a girlfriend until he met me at 19.

Lots of teenagers don't date until they are into their later teens, its perfectly normal not to dated at his age. However your son's concerns are not his fault its just the world we live in. When I grew up I felt hideous because I was more hourglass shaped and curvaceous when all I wanted to was to look like Kate Moss. I was sure I was unwanted because I was "too fat" when I was nothing of the sort. Now both girls and boys are online and receive all this harmful messaging which affects their self esteem, body image and ideas about where they should be in life. I see all these very young boys in my gym working out because the pro-gym messaging online is so strong. Its great they want to be fit but at that age I'm sure playing a team sport or athletics would be more fun.

I asked my husband how he felt about being small as a teen and he said he just focuses on other things he liked such as playing football and the subjects he liked at school. I think their was less pressure back then for boys though.

He will be fine I think its just this insane pressure kids have coming out of their smart phones at them that does so much damage.

Yes, they seem generally harsher in that respect, bullying under the guise of banter. If you show it affects you it gets worse.

My son is autistic, others banter about him being little, but then he’ll come back with some personal insult thinking it’s just banter but then gets in trouble because he’s upset someone - it’s very difficult to explain that it’s borderline bullying and they know exactly how to push his buttons and that’s the point of it rather than jokey banter. It’s very unfair.

I have explained to him that there’s a psychological issue at play, that even if he was tall they’d almost sense another of his perceived flaws and tease him about that instead.

It makes him an easy target, and as it’s true it’s hard to come back at or not let it bother you. People think boys aren’t bitchy but in my experience they can be much worse.

in my experience of bringing up 3 boys who were all shorter than me (5”7) until the age of 13-14,they are now 5”11, 6”2 and 6”3 it did seem to happen suddenly around that age, tell your son it takes time to grow to perfection

Have not RTFT so might be repeating others but if he’s analytically minded it might be worth showing him the data on percentiles and average puberty ages, especially between boys and girls. I’d pretty much finished growing age 14 (at 5’11!) and so towered over most of the boys in my year. By the time we finished 6th form most of them were taller or as tall as me. None of the ‘short’ boys stayed short but they didn’t spurt until 16/17.

Always so much to unpack in height threads, they bring all the crazy out of MN.

Focusing on the actual OP's son, it would NOT be helpful to reassure him he might grow tall - he might not, but that reinforces the idea that being short is a negative.

What he has to do is what everyone who doesn't measure up in some way to an ideal of conventional attractiveness has to do - own it! The "short king" meme was a few years back now but that's the idea - to be able to hold your head up and not just accept you're short but embrace being short. His mindset needs to be that his height is a great thing - and it is, being short is an advantage in many ways - and if anyone doesn't appreciate it, it's their loss.

The logical next step in his mind will be to realise that a lot of supposed conventional masculine/feminine ideals are actually bullshit in real life. Generalisations and blanket statements about what men want or what women want are nonsense. Plenty of women don't care about height.

Andrew tate is very popular and has really seeped into the mainstream. Even without mentioning his name, jokes and casual misogyny are really easy for the young to access

I'm not saying that he's a bad kid at all, but height anxiety and worried about girls is what that lot prey on

I suspect if the banter wasn’t about his height it would be about something else he feels insecure about and that would be the problem to solve.

This isn’t about his height this is about his self esteem.