My son hates being short.

To be frank, if he's not been diagnosed with a growth disorder, there's fuck all that can be done

Speaking as someone less than five feet tall, life is shit at this height, but I've learned to cope

That's all he can do, really

I'd be very careful about all this 'he might still grow/shoot up later' stuff. It feeds in to the whole thing. He might not. Boys are sometimes shorter than both parents as adults. I'm glad you're focusing on supporting his self esteem no matter what his height turns out to be.

You were so desperate for your son to be taller you lied about his father's height to a doctor?!

Can you imagine what that did to your sons confidence?

Times do change, and at a mixed school, dating starts quite early, even if it's just texting, etc.
Concentrating on sports and friends might not help - My son's friends made his life hell about his height, with constant teasing, and my son found sports hard when he was constantly told 'could have got that if you weren't a midget', etc etc

Height needn’t hold him back from getting a girlfriend. Remind him about Tom Holland and Zendaya. Or Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner (admittedly they are now divorced, but I suspect that wasn’t to do with his height…) Or Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas. Short kings are having a cultural moment!
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/21/praise-short-men-king-toxic-masculinity-jaboukie-jonas-brothers

Even if you try the private route you wont be given growth hormones, we saw an nhs dr privately and they take the height of both parents into account - I didn't take my husband and lied that he was 5 11 - the dr still said my son would be viewed within normal height due to the height of his parents. In the UK they will only 'grow you' to your possible height.
My nephew is 5 4 and 20. He is gorgeous, funny, sporty, and clever, but his height affects him hugely, and he hasn't had a girlfriend yet because of it. The NHS put him on growth hormone, but they waited too long before taking him to the GP, and his plates had fused, so it didn't work.

Wanted to add as well, my oldest son was small until he was 16/17 (people would think he was 12/13) and then he grew.
He’s 5’9 and doesn’t look short at all.

Some children grow slower than others. Humans are meant to be a range of different sizes.

Yep I am flummoxed by a 14 year old being desperate for a girlfriend. Dating was not even on my radar until I was uni age!

Tell him to STFU. He’s 14. Honestly, what is it with kids these days? At 14 I was playing the playground, and sports. He should focus on friendships, and hobbies. It isn’t (wasn’t) normal to have girlfriends at 14. And if he thinks it is, he is clearly on the Tate (or whomever) podcast nonsense. Stomp it out.

Yep - if you are breathtakingly beautiful
you can maybe get the “supermodel” label but if you are plump, stocky, well built then you are a “man”.

So I can empathise with OP’s son as I had the same height hang ups from being “too tall” with huge feet and hands.

And see the same panic from my brother and his wife towards their daughter who is 5ft 7 at 11 and a friend who barely disguises how distressed she is by her teen daughter approaching 6 feet and growing out of her size 9 shoes…

Playing basketball doesn't make you taller ffs

Tall people play basketball because being tall is an advantage

Similarly, swimming didn't give Michael Phelps long arms and legs, he already had them which meant he was a supernatural swimmer

My son feels similar. He’s 14 and 5’1, all his friends are taller. His dad is 5’7 so he’s unlikely to be tall.

The problem is how he feels about himself not his height. I know loads of short men who don’t care about it and are attractive, fun to be with, never had any shortage of girlfriends or boyfriends. I know one whose height (5’6) has been the sole focus of his life, and he’s really bitter about it and that shows in everything he does.

I’m trying to encourage my son to not think about it - he has no control over this, but focusing on things that make him feel good feed the part of him that makes him a well rounded and self-contented person, which is far more important than his height.

That’s true. Taller women seen as masculine while shorter men seen as feminine.

I used my own brother's term there. No offense intended.

I feel pretty 'meh' about the idea of a height filter on tinder. In online dating all you have to really go off on that initial impression is looks. It sort of forces everyone to make a quick, shallow judgement. I think most people are far more open when they meet people in real life.
If you'd have asked me when I was younger I'd have said tall men are sexy. My husband is 5ft8. I never gave his height a moment's thought though - he's good looking, funny and I was immediately attracted to him.
So for me there is a vast difference between thinking 'tall is sexy' and 'I would never date anyone under 6 foot'.
And believing that short men are somehow a problem that needs to be fixed is just insane.

As a taller woman tall is not always viewed as good. We are often framed as masculine, “hefty” or “mannish” and my experience is just as many men have height dealbreakers as women (when it comes to being comfortable with a woman towering over them” or they become very fetishistic.

@MacmillanDo I know very few adults smaller than me so i just "nice things come in small parcels" I am 5 feet nothing.

One of my brothers grew a few inches in his first year at university! Not easy for a teenager to be patient but it is true that boys can carry on growing up into their late teens.

Social settings are far better as attraction is much more complex than online can handle

Maybe some swimming and basketballs. I don’t think gym is particularly helpful for height.

Tinder does have race and weight (or rather “size”) filters - photos.

And people act on these regularly as plenty of data shows. But in those instances people defend it because “you cannot help what you find attractive”. Height needs a filter as height cannot be viewed from a photo.

Not having a height filter will not stop men and women filtering on height. They will just ask upfront or have lots of first dates and no second ones.

Isn’t it just better to have people who would never date you hidden from your sight?

I have fancied short men in the past (I’m 5’6) and the one thing they had in common was confidence (not arrogance). I knew a short guy once who blamed everything on his height and I just kept thinking, if you focused on building confidence your height would not be so much of an issue. It’s like Barbra Streisand and her nose, it wasn’t a problem for her so her belief in it made film producers ok with it too (despite initial kick back from them).

I have never been one of those women who refuse to date someone unless they are much taller than me. The one thing that would put me off is if they lied about their height. Be an honest 5’4 not a lying 5’7.

Thinking about it now the last man I was attracted to was barely 5’6, he may even have been shorter.

This may sound shallow but there is truth to it. If he is going to be short then it’s better to be ambitious and successful. Not for the money aspect but for that aura of competence and intelligence, which I personally find very attractive.

I think if women could filter men on weight and penis size there would be as much fuss as men being able to filter on weight and breast size, yes.

I don’t know whether you are replying to me- hopefully to the individual I was replying to.