Is my daughter’s height abnormal?

[Jasmina123]

Hi everyone,
My daughter is 11 years 8 months.
very healthy, very active doing swimming and taekwondo. but I started worrying when strangers started commenting on her height.
my daughter is 5' 9".
I am thinking to take her to the GP but I don’t want her to lose confidence in this critical age thinking there is something wrong with the way she looks.
What worrys me the most is the fact that me and my partner do not have the tall genes..
I am 5' 6” and my partner is 5’ 8” and all our family members are average to short.
my mum is 5’ 1”.
shall I over come my worries and seek professionals’ advice?
is this going to give my daughter a negative image about her appearance?

Has she always been tall?
Mine has grown a lot but is only 163 at 12 so 98th centile. But shes had period a year so mine will likely stop growing soon.

My mum was 5'7 and her parents only 5'1 and 5'10.

It does seem strange yours is taller than her dad already. So maybe worth seeing a gp.

I might do based on the fact she's already taller than both you and your husband and to rule out any thyroid or hormonal issue, same if she was much much smaller.

Surely it's not? All our adult dcs are taller than dh and me.

I was 178 cm and a shoe size 7 at age 12, I’m now 40 and last measured 176cm (not sure where that 2cm went 🤣)I’m taller than both my parents and my older sister but my uncle was well over 6ft so “there’s height in the family” to quote my mum.
Have she got any tall close relatives?

You tell her she is beautiful.. encourage good posture.. build her confidence...
There is nothing wrong with being a tall woman... only small people have a problem with it.

People are generally getting taller.

Girls are also hitting g puberty earlier so are taller at a younger age.

There are times a height can be indication of underlying health difficulties.

But it's usually related to lax ligaments and disproportionate limb length (especially arms)

OP you are 5'6" and your mom is 5'1". How tall is your dad?

There are 5 inches between you and your own mom so maybe it's not so odd that there are 3 inches between you and your dd

You might both have got height from your dad

Has she started her periods yet? If she has, she will probably stop growing soon.

DD was the tallest child in her primary school at age 11, but also started periods in year 6, and only grew another two or three centimetres after that, and is now only an average sort of height amongst her friends.

Still worth a quick check with the GP if you are worried.

There's likely a really tall relative back slightly in the family tree... DH is 6 foot 7 but both his parents are about 5 1/2 foot, as is his sister. There's an uncle on his mum's side apparently that the height came from.

In comparison - both my DDs (age 11 and 12) are about 5 foot 4/5 now, no sign of periods starting so I think they still have a few inches of growing in them (and they'll be insufferable once they overtake me in height). Sounds like your DD is starting to hit her adult height as one of the early ones to stop growing in her class (enjoy the point when she's not constantly outgrowing clothes) - DH's height came when he kept growing later than lots of his peers - hence me expecting my two beanpoles to keep growing a fair bit longer yet.

I'm 5'7 which isn't particularly tall but I've been this height since I was 11.
If you're concerned a word with your GP wouldn't hurt and your DD doesn't need to know if there's nothing to be concerned about.
Hope everything turns out ok for you xx

This! Don't go on about it. The key question is about periods and the growth spurt that often happens before they arrive?

I was the tall kid (but not this tall at 11 or 12 to be fair)
My mother went on and on about it. How hard it was to find clothes, what a long body I had, how tall I was, oh wasn't I tall.

Get the picture .

I'm now in my 40s and 5 ft 9.

I was 5’9” by 12 and starting secondary school and didn’t grow any taller and wasn’t the only one in my year group.
It’s tall but not abnormal at all.

My friend was always the tallest in the class until we hit 14 and the boys suddenly all grew and were taller than her.

I was 5ft 9 at 12 (periods started age 9)
Only grew another inch

5'9" is tall at 11 but perfect as an adult. Has she started periods?

Children who are taller than their peers before puberty often stop growing when periods start. The tallest girl in my class at 10 never grew any more.

I don't think her being 5 foot 9 is particularly unusual. You are 5 foot 6, relatively tall, so some tall ish genes from you. Your dp is 5 foot 8 and she's only an inch over him. I wouldn't worry. She'll likely not grow that much more - maybe another inch or two, but that still won't make her massively tall - she will still be under 6ft and there are loads of girls over 6 ft.

What are you hoping a doctor will do, they're not hairdressers, they can't take a few inches off.

There are medical conditions that can cause people to grow unusually tall. I expect that’s why the OP mentioned GP.

The period/puberty question is quite an important one I think. My DD is very short, but she did stop growing aged 12 (a year or so after her periods started).

I am 5'11" and had definitely reached full height by around age 14, I can't recall how tall I was at age 11 but definitely tall. I never had a growth spurt, was just always tall and then stopped growing. I felt awkward during secondary school but now love my height and have done ever since I was an older teen / young woman. My family isn't tall either - mum is 5'5" and Dad is 5'9".

I wouldn't take her to the doctor unless something more gives you cause for concern. Focus instead on making sure she feels confident in herself (and maybe she does, you haven't said she is worried). I played netball and danced for years. Dancing in particular meant that I always 'walked tall' so I looked very at ease with my height even before that was really true.

She might just have tall genes from a distant relative.Dont mention it to her and give her a complex.
I'm 5ft 10 and my guess is that she'll probably be 5ft 11 or 6 ft as adult.

If you are that worried, don't take her to the GP but go alone and ask about it.

Better would be to work on yourself so that you don't take notice of
strangers and stop worrying about unnecessary things. My two sons are much taller than everyone in their family other than I suspect my father but that is genetics.

Check her pituitary levels for levels of growth hormone?

When DC was in Yr8 something called Medical Mavericks came to school. There was some sort of test they could do that gave an indication of how much more growing kids had to do. Many of the girls were told they were done growing or hadn’t much more to do. At that point a lot of the girls looked more grown up and/or were taller than the boys. Whatever this test was it was generally an accurate prediction.

Our DC came home delighted. He was very prem and had always been a little lad. They said he had lots of growing to do. He’s 6ft 1 and seems to still be growing at 18.

We are a mixture of short and tall people in our family. I was 5ft 6 at 12 but grew more slowly after that. My bro was a lot older but smaller than me

I don't think the doctor is going to sprinkle "shrinking dust" on your daughters head and magically make her shorter.

My DD was 5’9 at 11 and has settled at 5’10 I am not sure what the issue is - is she well and healthy? If so wait and see what happens. I am 5’1 and my DH is 5’8 - my DS who is older at 20 is 5’8! Not tall genes here either!

My husband is tall. His brothers, mother and father are all tall - six footers (well maybe his mother is few inches shorter). I am slightly above average in height and my family are average to tall. My youngest son is short - 5 foot 7. That's his adult height. He's a very good rider, far better than my husband or I, and I suddenly remembered that his paternal great grandfather was a jockey. So there was obviously some short genes somewhere in the mix despite great grandad siring a very tall family. My son was checked over by a paediatrician who said he was too far through puberty to do anything to increase his height even if we wanted to take the risks to do so and this was just his natural height. He had a bone scan to check something or other was all right which it was.

I imagine your daughter will soon stop growing but I can't see any harm in checking with a paediatrician when there is still time to take action if something is wrong. Just tell her that you're just checking she's perfectly healthy. Taylor Swift after all is 5 foot 11 and she seems to have done all right for herself. My son was pretty stoic about the height issue and I don't think he worries about his height or was upset about being checked over. We did talk about it some more later and he said he didn't think it was worth the risks even if we had checked in time.