How can I support my teenage son feeling self conscious about height vis a vis girls?

[LowryPicasso]

NC for this. So, 15.5 year old DS is a great kid - smart, funny, engaging. Is on a lot of sports teams etc. Also a PITA obviously, he's a teen, but he's got loads going for him.

He's always been one of the smallest - although in the past 7 months he's grown a lot and is now just shy of 5ft 7'. He's got no facial hair yet, or underarm hair, so I'm assuming there's more growth in the tank. Or not. Whatever.

He's got lots of girls as friends, but the ones he like have wanted to stay friends. One, who he REALLY liked, said the girls at school think he's one of the best looking but he's too short for them.

I find this so upsetting on his behalf. It's brutal! He says that it's a thing. He moves between feeling resilient and resigned about it to feeling a bit upset, I think. More and more of his friends are hooking up and whilst I don't care - I'd actually prefer him to wait - I don't want him to internalise it and make himself feel bad.

So, what can I do to help and support him? I tell him all the time how great he is etc, and how school is tough, and it will happen for him. But he's like yeah, yeah, heard it before etc

My dc continued to grow until 18.

The number one sexiest quality is confidence. SO much easier said than done but he needs to project an attitude of not giving a fuck about his height/pretending in his head he’s 6’2.

Also that’s just one girl’s opinion, if he’s all the things you say there are probably plenty who have a crush on him but think he’s out of their league. He’ll come to get more of a sense of this as time goes on. Short confident guys have never been lacking attention in my experience. Some women will rule them out completely just as he may rule out dating a girl who’s 6 foot or who hates sport - most will not.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/zendaya-tom-holland-height-difference-b1974178.html

I like what Tom Holland has to say about this. IMO it’s a basically sexist assumption that men should be tall and women should be smaller/dainty/protected. There are plenty of shorter and attractive men, I think it comes down to developing confidence which admittedly is hard at age 15.

A good personality always beats height for the girls who are smart.

Thanks all - I'm totally with you. I never, ever thought about the height of the men I dated and I've also got male friends who are not even DS's height and never lacked - they were so charismatic etc.

But being 15 is totally about fitting in, being generic, not feeling different. It's a rough age

My DH is only 5ft 6. It worked out well as I'm only 5ft 1.
Personality is the best thing. If he's confident that is a start.

Show him Tom Holland and Zendaya. Also show him the interview when she's asked about it... this is the sort of girl he wants to aim for! Something as daft as height really shouldn't be an issue and if it is, their loss!

6ft 3in ds(22) best friend is a bit shorter than me (I am 5ft 8in).

It took him longer to get off the starting blocks when it came to girls, especially at school, but once at uni he saw a couple of girls which increased his confidence and has now been seeing a “lovely” (according to ds’s girlfriend) girl for a while now.

your ds might have problems at school where maturity is an issue, but it may change once he is out of that environment.

ds(22) was always tall, but also didn’t have a beard etc until later, and grew height wise right up until he was 20 (has huge horizontal stretch marks across his back from a late growth spurt)

But unless I'm on the wrong track, I don't actually think he's particularly short for 15 - is he?

You can listen and empathise, don’t tell him it doesn’t matter because it does - numerous times on MN short men have been ridiculed or written off, it’s a western society trope that men you date are taller than women.
my son went through all this (but is gay so not the dating) and is not sporty at all. It’s tough for them - they want to fit in and it’s (another) minus in the teen years.
I would compliment him and build his self esteem around all his achievements, his sport, whatever he has going for him and avoid dwelling on this.
he may or may not grow, we had the whole growth appointments stuff, they didn’t give him any and he remains 5’6 at 22.
however his friend group has evened out and stopped growing - there are tall girls, short boys etc amongst them all and it’s less of an issue in photos or nights out.

I wonder if it’s to do with photos on tik tok or similar -
can’t think of any men single because of height -can think of tall men single for other reasons

Entirely normal. They say boys start and finish adolescence later than girls. Ignore the daft lass who's probably looking for an excuse because there's no chemistry. And keep him away from the manosphere.

It was actually the smaller lads in my friendship group as teens who all the girls fancied. Sometimes the tall ones had sort of lanky/not great looks to go with it.
All my crushes were on the shorter lads and none of the shorter lads were ever single for long.

Tell him that a huge part is confidence and also humour. The girls loved the lads who seemed confident in themselves but who were fun.
Also, nice aftershave! We loved the lads who smelt nice 😅

DH is 5'6". I never thought about his height, but had a thing about from the moment I met. Now , thinking about it, I'm 5'3" and not sure I'd want someone towering over me.

My BIL is only 1" taller than me, obviously I'd never look at him romantically, but I absolutely love him as a BIL and we get on really well - I'd be really upset for him if he hadn't met someone for that reason - but luckily him and his wife are very happy even after 34 years together (they're like a young couple, not a couple in their 60s).

Just shy of 5’7” so he’s 5’6”? That is short for a 15.5 year old boy and he likely won’t have a huge growth spurt at this point. As long as he doesn’t have little man syndrome and isn’t self conscious of his height, he’ll find a girlfriend. Loads of teens don’t date at secondary school. I think average height of a man is 5’9”.

He’s still growing, but 5’7” isn’t that short anyway, especially when you consider average for women is 5’4”.

My DH is 5ft7in, I think he's gorgeous. My daughters boyfriend is similar height, she thinks he's hot. It will happen. X

No.
And obviously, he will still grow.

He’ll 100% grow more, even if just a bit. I’m sure most blokes I know kept growing until they were late teens, probably just into their twenties even! Ultimately I do agree with a poster upthread who suggested focussing on his general self esteem and outward confidence, his other strengths etc. I think that does make all the difference, we have a 16 year old apprentice working for us at the moment who’s only about 5’7, ish, no taller than I am anyway, and he’s certainly not short of offers, seems to have a new girl on his arm every other week (too far the other way, I fear!) but he’s also ridiculously confident, very self assured and acts (or maybe it’s genuine!) like his height has never even crossed his mind so why should it cross yours? iyswim.

I don't think that's particularly short for 15 no, I'm only 5ft7, have very small hands and feet for a man, think that's down to genetics, I've never really been able to grow much body hair, it's never been an issue dating women but when younger and still now I get some comments off men saying you have girly features, but I just let it go over my head.

But 5ft7 for s 15 year old I don't think that's a big issue to worry about.

Thats really not short. The average woman is 5 ft 3 in the UK. Girls really dont put a lot of stock in men being really tall in my experience either.

OP my DS is 15.5 too, and he’s 5’6. He also has no underarm hair so I’m assuming he’s not through puberty yet and has some growing to do. He worries about his height too, although he hasn’t mentioned it for a while. A few weeks ago he was approached by a girl from a different school he’d never met before, and asked on a date! So clearly not all girls are looking for someone taller, I feel confident they’re not all that shallow.

My eldest is 5ft 7 fully grown. But I dont think its that short.

Im 5ft 1 and my husband is 6ft 5 so I guess my kids hover in the middle. Reckon the youngest may hit 6ft though.

I mean literally just below 5ft 7', not 5ft 6.

And just out of interest - how do you know he won't have a huge growth spurt at this point?

And lastly; little man syndrome - you could have chosen your words more sensitively, no?

FWIW I was a ‘height matters’ girl when I was 15 too. My first boyfriend was a boy who was 6’6, 3 years older (omg so cool, he has a car 😍 etc…) and gorgeous but with whom I had basically nothing in common. We went along alright for a couple of years but it fizzled, as you’d expect, and he was a bit of a nasty bastard by the end. By then I’d grown up a bit and matured.. a bit and height didn’t matter half so much, and I think that’s probably reasonably common. You care far less about the aesthetics (shall we say) and far more about what really matters, and if he’s a good guy, that’s where he’ll come into his own.