To be really worried about DS 13 height

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DS 13 hasn’t really grown in over a year. All his mates are now considerably taller than him and he’s getting really upset about it especially as they are all constantly telling him how short he is.

I am assuming he is due a spurt- he’s only just 13 and hasn’t hit puberty yet so still looks like a little kid. I looked at the WHO growth chart & his predicted height is about 5’10/ 5’11 ish but at the moment he’s still tiny.

Aibu to worry? I think it’s the constant comments that are getting to him. He just doesn’t seem to be growing at all.

My DS1 was short..and the same height as his one year younger sister for years and years. I honestly thought he was going to be 5 ft 1 as an adult like his Grandad.
But at about 14 he started to grow. He's 5 ft 10 so not super tall but between 14-17 he shot up.
Dh was 5 ft 7 at 18. Joined the RAF and grew 3 more inches!
DD1 was 5 ft 7 at 18 also.. went off to uni and also came back 5 ft 10!
DS2 hit puberty early and is the only one to have made 6 ft but has stretch marks up his very thin back from how fast he grew.
DD2 hit 5 ft 3 and stayed there and is cross about it She's expecting her first baby now and the scans have measured the baby as... short!!!!

They all grow at different rates. My dh's parents were both so short we had a chance of having garden gnomes for kids !

My brother was an underdeveloped little shrimp with the voice of a 10 year old until he was at least 14. He is now a 30 year old man who towers over most at 6'3", and is happily married to a nice tall American lady. I'm sure your lad will be just fine.

My daughter's best mate has been with her through primary school- always a small kid. Last year he was a head shorter than her. This week he stood next to her and is a head taller- so about 40-45cms growth in a year.
he is heading towards 15 years old.

Such a huge range of heights at this age. Give him time.

Like many have said there's a huge range at 13.

Ds1 is 13/Y8 and 5ft 5 which I think is fairly average.

In his year they have two Jacobs - called 'Big Jacob' and 'Little Jacob'. When you see them together, Big Jacob literally looks like Little Jacobs dad 😂 - he's well over 6 foot, broad, broken voice, fairly respectable effort at a mustache, the lot. Little Jacob would easily fit in with the 10 year olds in primary and still looks very much childlike, he's about nipple height on Big Jacob! And he's actually the older of the two too.

All of ds's friends, including him, are somewhere in between...they each get their growth spurt at different times, it will happen at some point.

My son was small and boyish at 13 and he seemed to stop growing so was referred for growth scans. These showed his growth was about 10 months behind his age. He’s now 15 almost 16 and he’s 5 foot 11 and still seams to be growing, considering how much he eats! He has size 12 feet. My nephew is a few months younger and he’s always been short but he’s shooting up now too. Please tell your son not to worry.

Apart from him being a bit upset at certain comments, does it really matter if he is small.. I dont understand the issue apart from the comments from other kids, but if it wasnt his height it would be something else. As long as it doesn't become bullying.

He's not hit puberty yet. So there you go.

I think you are focusing on the wrong thing. The real problem is his friends being arseholes and him taking it to heart. Hard not to when you're a kid but say he didn't grow? Then what.

Thanks everyone - I’d be worried if he wasn’t going to grow anymore as he’s not even 5 ft yet I don’t think and his voice hasn’t broken etc. He still looks like a little child. I will get him checked out though as he does have asthma but I already talked to doctor about that and unmanaged asthma is a greater risk to height than managed asthma according to doc.

I was also worried about my DS - he was 5 feet 1 at 13 and then just seemed to pause while all his friends shot up past him - he didnt really grow more than a couple of inches for a couple of years and his feet stayed the same size. He still had a baby face and soft skin.

He hit puberty late and finally had his growth spurt at 15 and a half and is now six foot one.

My DS was not a big eater around that time and very slim and I do wonder if that delayed things in terms of puberty. I started giving him extra calories via glasses of milk and so on - it could be a coincidence but he seemed to put a bit of weight on and grow outwards first and then suddenly shot up.

I remember mine and his friends at that age. He was 6' but one friend was really short. A couple of years later his friend was 6'3" and mine was still 6' (which he still is).

Please don't worry, your son will shoot up soon. Are you and husband tall/average height? Nothing wrong with average height, it's actually quite nice. Children usually take after parents in height though sometimes if one parent is very tall, they are a couple of inches shorter.

Try not to worry op. My ds was 18 last month and is 6ft2, has always been big and tall ( is a size 13 shoe ) and he has a large group of friends who are very different in height.

He was at primary school with a boy who was so small he looked 2/3 years younger when they left at 11. They went to different secondary schools and lost contact until a year or so ago. The boy is now 17 and a giant! I couldn’t believe my eyes when ds showed me his picture.

When ds was in year 8 he met his best friend who towered over him and they’re still best friends to this day. The other boy stopped growing around age 14 and ds is way taller than him now.

There are around 12/13 boys ( men?! ) in ds’s friendship group and every single one of them has grown rapidly since I first met them. Lots are still growing and I don’t think ds is even done yet. Enjoy your lovely boy as he is, he will soon be moody and smelly and be bending down to kiss you 😘

Two examples for you..

I went from under 5ft to 5ft 9 in year 9.... I’m a female.

A boy in my form left year 11 as a short boy. Saw him in a club when we were 18-19 and he was well over 6ft.

Do not worry. Boys are always behind us women...

DS was 5'2" at 13. He's just turned 15 and is now 5'10". He grew last year in lockdown.

Another one: I was 5'2" when I left school at 16, and 5'10" when I left college at 18.
It was shit at the time, but I've gone on to live a reasonably normal life.

There's such a variety of sizes at that age. We have the opposite worry with DS2, who at 12 (13 in December) is 5ft 7, shaves twice a week (beard and tache) and has a deep voice. He towers above his peers - most around 5ft1/2. He's gone into puberty on the young side so concern is now that he won't actually get that tall in the end - which will upset him in a house of tall people. We just try and reassure him that he's got more growth to do yet.. 🤞

Poor kid. 13 is a hard age to be. And if he wasn't having a hard time about that, he'd probably feel self-conscious about something else, but of course that is no help to him, and of course, height is so very visible.

I hope you're reassured by all the stories of growth spurts here. That's presumably the most likely thing to happen. But I also think it's worth exploring what you can with him about feeling comfortable in his own skin as far as possible. I'm trying to stress to my kids that height is something you can't change about yourself, so your best bet is to learn to live with it. I'm very small, so there's at least a chance some of them will be too. And my DH is 6' now, but was one of the very last boys in his year to grow, and still looked like a child at 15/16, so I think either way, my DS (12, and generally the smallest boy in any given situation) is in for an uncomfortable couple of years. I'm trying to encourage him to just cope with the teasing he gets, and I've said it will likely get worse as he gets older. He's good at sport, which helps, though does mean his friends tend to be the big, 'exuberant' ones, so he gets knocked around a fair bit.

Basically, this is a long-winded way of saying, I know it's hard, and solidarity with your son!

OP my DS (now 19) still looked about 12 with a squeaky voice until year 10. It was excruciating for him as some of the boys around him were 6 foot with beards and he got teased a lot. He took himself off to the GP at the age of 16 who told him he needed to be patient. He's now 5' 11" (not sure if he's stopped growing yet) with a deep voice and facial hair. He's still emotionally immature though. People grow and develop at different stages and the teenage years can be cruel but I think patience is the only option.

DH was so tiny until yr 10, they called him ‘pixie’. He’s 6’ 2” now. His brother did the same. Was bullied being for tiny, now he’s 6’ 5”.

Ds was only 4ft9 at 15. He asked if we could go to the GP as it was really getting him down being a foot shorter than his peers. Was fully expecting to be told he would need growth hormone treatment but he was diagnosed coeliac instead. No other signs of coeliac disease apart from short stature. Been following a gf diet for 3 years and is now 5ft 8! Now much more comfortable in his own skin and happy he's taller than me!

OP it might be worth taking him to the GP just in case there is something else going on - the window for growth hormone treatment if needed is only as long as it takes for the growth plates to close.

I haven’t grown since I was 12. But I’m over 5ft but not by much. Some people are just short. That’s just the way it is. Nothing wrong with it.

Some teens have slower bone growth; I was still growing at 17/18 whereas many friends had stopped. I ended up about the same height as them despite being tiny for most of my teens.

I do remember boys who grew fast at 12 and hit puberty early seemed to stop growing earlier; the boys who were later often over took them.

You could always check in with a Gp but it's probably normal for him. Not easy I know; I was a late developer and felt like a child next to my teen mates.

I have a small 13yo boy. He's just following his own curve though - he's always been small. But he has recently started to grow, his voice is breaking, he has muscles, spots, underarm hair...

They grow at different times. If your dc has grown normally up to now, he will grow at some point! He won't just be stuck at this size.

Your dd needs to be resilient when his 'mates' tease him. Work on some smart replies with him.

Height is the one thing you can't do anything about. It is no reflection of how 'manly' you are.

Another one with a short DS13 but I have noticed the beginnings of facial hair and we keep reassuring him that the height will come. He also has a small shoe size compared to all his friends. He’s getting a bit of teasing but he’s handling it ok, much better than I thought he would as he was not good at dealing with teasing for being bad at football etc a few years ago. Tell him that if the comments are relentless then they’re bullying and ask him what he thinks of people who need to do this. He should feel contempt for them. DS tells me he dealt with one idiot by telling him that he would not stay this short but the other kid would always be a moron. Perhaps not great but understandable.

DS is 21 and over 6', his brother is early 30s and 6'5". I was looking back at teenage photos of both of them the other day and at 14 DS was the tiniest of all the cadets in his platoon, even the girls were taller, and he looked so young, DSS at 15 was shorter than my sister (13 at the time).

They both started to grow and fill out around 16 and both are built like brick shithouses now. DS is still growing slightly. He was about 5'10" by 18 - looking at a pic at DSS wedding, he's a bit shorter than DH, who was originally 6' but shrunk a bit with his arthritis and cancer.

At 14 my twin brothers were shorter than me (have a photo taken on my 18th birthday, so know how old they were) and I'm only 5ft 2in.

Then they started to grow. Rapidly.

One is now 6ft 4in, the other 6ft 2in.