9 year old daughter is petite

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9 year old daughter is 54” and 62 pounds. She is feeling really down on herself because all of her friends are so much bigger than her. Her own sister (19 months younger) is only 2” shorter and 4 pounds lighter than her. Her brother is 3 years old and 45” and 45 pounds.

What can I say to help her? She actually eats the best out of my 3 kids. I just think genetics aren’t on her side. She takes after the women on DHs side and they are all very short. DH is 5’10” and I am 5’7”. The other two kids take after my side of the family height wise and will most likely be much taller than oldest child.

That's about the size of my 10 yo / 5th grader. I'm actually not sure if she's hit 54" yet, but she's close. It does stink that she's short, especially in sports like basketball and swimming. I'm crossing my fingers that she spurts soon, as many girls do in 5th grade.

That's average not short. Speaking as a short woman 5'1 inches I would love to have been 5'4! Count your blessings not your shortcomings

54" is 4'6", not 5 feet 4 inches.

[Anonymous]

My 11yo was 54 inches and 60 lbs at her annual well visit in the fall. She's about 10th percentile for both. Her younger sister is 3 years younger, but the same weight and only an inch or so shorter. So, I don't see a problem, OP, but I'm petite, so it's all relative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9 year old daughter is 54” and 62 pounds. She is feeling really down on herself because all of her friends are so much bigger than her. Her own sister (19 months younger) is only 2” shorter and 4 pounds lighter than her. Her brother is 3 years old and 45” and 45 pounds.

What can I say to help her? She actually eats the best out of my 3 kids. I just think genetics aren’t on her side. She takes after the women on DHs side and they are all very short. DH is 5’10” and I am 5’7”. The other two kids take after my side of the family height wise and will most likely be much taller than oldest child.

That's about the size of my 10 yo / 5th grader. I'm actually not sure if she's hit 54" yet, but she's close. It does stink that she's short, especially in sports like basketball and swimming. I'm crossing my fingers that she spurts soon, as many girls do in 5th grade.

That's average not short. Speaking as a short woman 5'1 inches I would love to have been 5'4! Count your blessings not your shortcomings

54" is 4'6", not 5 feet 4 inches.

oops my bad. Still young though

[Anonymous]

We all have things about our bodies that we wish we could change. You need to teach her to accept her body as is. Her tall friends will eventually be sad about their big boobs or small boobs, curvy butt or flat butt, straight hair or curly hair, etc. etc.

Teach all of your kids to be content with themselves and not make others feel bad about their results in the genetic lottery.

[Anonymous]

I was always super petite growing up and am still very short at 5 ft. I can vividly remember stepping on the scale in the beginning of 6th grade was something like 60-65 lbs.

Everyone's body is different and grows at different rates. I think just celebrating the diversity in bodies and celebrating her own body and exploring the changes she will be going through is important. There's lots of great books on it now but honestly the "body book" -american girls was one I read and I really liked it and liked the pictures (they aren't explicit but it was helpful for me to read). I think practicing body positivity and positive self-talk is important so look for ways to encourage her body positivity: modeling it yourself with your own body is HUGE (and hard) and modeling it with how you talk about others and their bodies.

[Anonymous]

She cares because someone has insinuated that she should care. Was it you?

[Anonymous]

According to the CDC growth percentile calculator, she is not petite. Given what you've told us, she is somewhere between the 45th and 75th percentile for height, depending on when her birthday falls. This makes her average height. It's possible that she's taking her cues from you regarding how she feels about her height, since you believe she is so small.

https://www.infantchart.com/child/childrenstatureage.php

[Anonymous]

I would just keep explaining that everybody is different and grows at their own pace. I was really short in childhood but still grew to 5’4”. My kids have been all over the place in their height. My 10 year old is 53 inches after a big growth spurt , she’s around 20th percentile after being 5-10th for years. While there are two much taller girls in her class most of them aren’t noticeably taller than her. Her 6 year old sibling is now 50 inches and I’m sure will catch up with her as well. She isn’t concerned about her height, though. At least not yet.
My 13 year old has been the tallest in her class for a while and she hates it so I think everyone just wants to be average height.

[Anonymous]

That doesn't seem petite to me. Just looked up my DD's 9 year appointment: 52 inches, 53lbs. She's about average height and skinnier than most kids, but not a toothpick by any means. Perfectly normal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:According to the CDC growth percentile calculator, she is not petite. Given what you've told us, she is somewhere between the 45th and 75th percentile for height, depending on when her birthday falls. This makes her average height. It's possible that she's taking her cues from you regarding how she feels about her height, since you believe she is so small.

https://www.infantchart.com/child/childrenstatureage.php

+1

My older DD’s best friend has always been short-ish (ended up 5’1”ish- girls are now freshmen in HS). My own DD was always on the short side as well. No big deal. The BFF’s mom has always been super sensitive about her DD’s height and was always bringing it up and putting ideas into her DD’s head etc. Anytime there was any type of minor social issue at school or her DD seemed quiet after school or similar, she’d assume “Larla are kids picking on you about your height?!”. The mom even checked with me a few times during elementary to ask if my DD had mentioned anyone picking on the girl about her height etc. My DD was completely baffled by the whole thing (no one at school had ever teased either of them about their heights). The mom had a serious complex/obsession over it. I don’t think the DD would’ve thought much about her height all if mom hadn’t been so obsessed with the issue. It was really strange.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would just keep explaining that everybody is different and grows at their own pace. I was really short in childhood but still grew to 5’4”. My kids have been all over the place in their height. My 10 year old is 53 inches after a big growth spurt , she’s around 20th percentile after being 5-10th for years. While there are two much taller girls in her class most of them aren’t noticeably taller than her. Her 6 year old sibling is now 50 inches and I’m sure will catch up with her as well. She isn’t concerned about her height, though. At least not yet.
My 13 year old has been the tallest in her class for a while and she hates it so I think everyone just wants to be average height.

You must have a 4th grader. My 10 yo is in 5th grade and there are a number of girls in her class who are 5'2"-5'6". She's 4'5" and the shortest in her class, girl scout troop, soccer team and basketball team. There a big spurt at this age, so you start seeing many noticably taller girls. Last year only a couple of girls were very tall and now it's more like 2/3 are tall and 1/3 are still pre-spurt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to the CDC growth percentile calculator, she is not petite. Given what you've told us, she is somewhere between the 45th and 75th percentile for height, depending on when her birthday falls. This makes her average height. It's possible that she's taking her cues from you regarding how she feels about her height, since you believe she is so small.

https://www.infantchart.com/child/childrenstatureage.php

+1

My older DD’s best friend has always been short-ish (ended up 5’1”ish- girls are now freshmen in HS). My own DD was always on the short side as well. No big deal. The BFF’s mom has always been super sensitive about her DD’s height and was always bringing it up and putting ideas into her DD’s head etc. Anytime there was any type of minor social issue at school or her DD seemed quiet after school or similar, she’d assume “Larla are kids picking on you about your height?!”. The mom even checked with me a few times during elementary to ask if my DD had mentioned anyone picking on the girl about her height etc. My DD was completely baffled by the whole thing (no one at school had ever teased either of them about their heights). The mom had a serious complex/obsession over it. I don’t think the DD would’ve thought much about her height all if mom hadn’t been so obsessed with the issue. It was really strange.

OP here - I have never said this to my daughter at all. Ever. I actually have never thought this. It is truly only coming up now because her younger siblings are getting taller than her. So she sees it daily, in her face. My youngest son (3 years old) is 99th percentile and huge. So its something that everyone comments on (literally everyone who sees him says something), so she seems to notice that she is not as tall as her siblings who are younger than her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to the CDC growth percentile calculator, she is not petite. Given what you've told us, she is somewhere between the 45th and 75th percentile for height, depending on when her birthday falls. This makes her average height. It's possible that she's taking her cues from you regarding how she feels about her height, since you believe she is so small.

https://www.infantchart.com/child/childrenstatureage.php

+1

My older DD’s best friend has always been short-ish (ended up 5’1”ish- girls are now freshmen in HS). My own DD was always on the short side as well. No big deal. The BFF’s mom has always been super sensitive about her DD’s height and was always bringing it up and putting ideas into her DD’s head etc. Anytime there was any type of minor social issue at school or her DD seemed quiet after school or similar, she’d assume “Larla are kids picking on you about your height?!”. The mom even checked with me a few times during elementary to ask if my DD had mentioned anyone picking on the girl about her height etc. My DD was completely baffled by the whole thing (no one at school had ever teased either of them about their heights). The mom had a serious complex/obsession over it. I don’t think the DD would’ve thought much about her height all if mom hadn’t been so obsessed with the issue. It was really strange.

OP here - I have never said this to my daughter at all. Ever. I actually have never thought this. It is truly only coming up now because her younger siblings are getting taller than her. So she sees it daily, in her face. My youngest son (3 years old) is 99th percentile and huge. So its something that everyone comments on (literally everyone who sees him says something), so she seems to notice that she is not as tall as her siblings who are younger than her.

Right, but as a PP said, your DD is average height, not petite. Your other two children are tall. It's very unlikely that "all" of her friends are bigger than her, which is what you led with in your OP. She's mature enough to understand at age 9 that you can't control genetics, and a tall sibling who is very close in age may end up taller than her. That sounds like a sibling dynamics issue, not a overall body image issue. Check the extremist talk ("eeeeveryone else is taller than me!") and work on the sibling issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She cares because someone has insinuated that she should care. Was it you?

No

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who cares? I love being petite. It’s part of me. I’ll never be tall and graceful but small and cute? Yes. Why would she be upset about being short? Lots of successful women are short.

You love it now but did you always feel like that?