Did your 99th percentile kid stay tall?

[Anonymous]

DD was in tgec99% at her two weeks check up but was under the 5% for most of her childhood. She is a 5 ft tall adult now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The few 99th percentile kids I know from childhood did stay tall- girls around 5'11" and boys 6'4" or taller. All had tall moms and tall dads.

I have one short kid (DD16 and 5'1") and one tall kid (DS14 and 6'1"); both have followed their percentile projection. FWIW, I'm 5'3" and DH is 6'1".

Not sure if people cannot understand or are choosing to ignore - percentile projection does not exist. The curves are not a projection.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The few 99th percentile kids I know from childhood did stay tall- girls around 5'11" and boys 6'4" or taller. All had tall moms and tall dads.

I have one short kid (DD16 and 5'1") and one tall kid (DS14 and 6'1"); both have followed their percentile projection. FWIW, I'm 5'3" and DH is 6'1".

Not sure if people cannot understand or are choosing to ignore - percentile projection does not exist. The curves are not a projection.

I wrote this and no, I clearly don't understand, so please explain it in clear English. I am trying to learn. What exactly are the curves?

However, I'll restate it- DS was born at the 75th percentile and at some point, rose to sit between the 90th and 95th percentiles. His height has remained at that percentile so it doesn't really matter whether it's a projection or not a projection to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are people so obsessed with how big their kids are? I never think about this. Weird.

Height is helpful in life. I don't know what to tell you. People want their kid to have every possible advantage.

That’s like saying have blue eyes with pale skin is helpful in life. It’s not true.

Those are not analogous. Height is helpful in life for males in particular and for men and women in many sports. This is evidence based. No reason to get your knickers in a twist about it.

[Anonymous]

My kid was born off the chart and not on the chart a day in his life. 99+ percentile.

He’s 6-6. We are tall. Your own heights and particularly mother’s height are biggest predictor. If mom is short or around average even with tall dad it’s a crap shoot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:yes. my daughter is 6ft tall at 14.

That’s tough. Is she done growing?

How is that tough? My daughter would kill to be that tall. You must not have any basketball or volleyball players.

Really? That’s what you think of ? Being honest it’s just as tough being overly tall girl as being an overly Short boy. It’s not tragic but it’s easier not being an outlier.

As for sports my tall niece played middle school and varsity high school basketball because her mother insisted on one activity. No clubs and she didn’t like it all that much. But she was tall so she was put on the varsity team. Sports my family play are football, lacrosse, tennis and the toughest activity two of them are serious about is ballet.

The tallest nephew I have is 6’5”. He did not play basketball. Zero interest. Now he’s a college graduate and people constantly talk to him about his height. Gotta be annoying.

You clearly have no idea the status and advantage in dating pool and just in social and professional settings in general it gives a guy to be that height.

Agree it can be more challenging to be a tall woman.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:yes. my daughter is 6ft tall at 14.

That’s tough. Is she done growing?

How is that tough? My daughter would kill to be that tall. You must not have any basketball or volleyball players.

Really? That’s what you think of ? Being honest it’s just as tough being overly tall girl as being an overly Short boy. It’s not tragic but it’s easier not being an outlier.

As for sports my tall niece played middle school and varsity high school basketball because her mother insisted on one activity. No clubs and she didn’t like it all that much. But she was tall so she was put on the varsity team. Sports my family play are football, lacrosse, tennis and the toughest activity two of them are serious about is ballet.

The tallest nephew I have is 6’5”. He did not play basketball. Zero interest. Now he’s a college graduate and people constantly talk to him about his height. Gotta be annoying.

Most girls like being tall these days. I think you are projecting your gen x views on later generations and that’s just not a thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe I am a bad mother, but I have no memory of my 2 son’s height percentiles. LOL, and I attended every annual appointment until they were in their teens.

Then they likely weren't 99th, because when the nurse tells you that, it sticks out in your mind. Often it's a "woah! that's a 99th percentile!"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe I am a bad mother, but I have no memory of my 2 son’s height percentiles. LOL, and I attended every annual appointment until they were in their teens.

Then they likely weren't 99th, because when the nurse tells you that, it sticks out in your mind. Often it's a "woah! that's a 99th percentile!"

When my daughter was not just in the 99th percentile but something like 120th - that is memorable. I couldn't tell you where my other kids were - they were somewhere on the chart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:yes. my daughter is 6ft tall at 14.

That’s tough. Is she done growing?

How is that tough? My daughter would kill to be that tall. You must not have any basketball or volleyball players.

Really? That’s what you think of ? Being honest it’s just as tough being overly tall girl as being an overly Short boy. It’s not tragic but it’s easier not being an outlier.

As for sports my tall niece played middle school and varsity high school basketball because her mother insisted on one activity. No clubs and she didn’t like it all that much. But she was tall so she was put on the varsity team. Sports my family play are football, lacrosse, tennis and the toughest activity two of them are serious about is ballet.

The tallest nephew I have is 6’5”. He did not play basketball. Zero interest. Now he’s a college graduate and people constantly talk to him about his height. Gotta be annoying.

Most girls like being tall these days. I think you are projecting your gen x views on later generations and that’s just not a thing.

The hard part is that all the boys like her short, cute friends and none of the boys are tall enough to see eye to eye with her yet. For me, it's fine because I don't want her dating anyways but for her, it's a tragedy.

[Anonymous]

My DD wound up 5’8” — so stayed tall but not tallest. Probably around when she was 11 or 12 (puberty) it became clear that she wouldn’t be 6’. Weight also dropped to lower percentile.

[Anonymous]

DD was in the 99th percentile and projected to be 6‘ tall until about age 10. She ended up 5‘8“.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:yes. my daughter is 6ft tall at 14.

Now that is weird

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The few 99th percentile kids I know from childhood did stay tall- girls around 5'11" and boys 6'4" or taller. All had tall moms and tall dads.

I have one short kid (DD16 and 5'1") and one tall kid (DS14 and 6'1"); both have followed their percentile projection. FWIW, I'm 5'3" and DH is 6'1".

Not sure if people cannot understand or are choosing to ignore - percentile projection does not exist. The curves are not a projection.

I wrote this and no, I clearly don't understand, so please explain it in clear English. I am trying to learn. What exactly are the curves?

However, I'll restate it- DS was born at the 75th percentile and at some point, rose to sit between the 90th and 95th percentiles. His height has remained at that percentile so it doesn't really matter whether it's a projection or not a projection to me.

Thanks for the question - if we wanted to project the growth of a 10 year old at the 50th percentile for height, the best way to do that would be to look at all 10 year olds who are at the 50th percentile, and then follow their height over time until they reached age 20. Ideally, you would also get a confidence interval as well. But that is not how the curves are created.

The CDC took a set number of kids and measured their height and weight and head circumference from birth to age 20 at specific time points. Each kid was measured at the same time point in their lives - 14 days, 1 year, 18 months, etc. The points were then put into a table. Using the range and the number of entries, the CDC determined the 5th, 10th, … , 95th percentile value at each time point.

They then graphed all the 5th percentile values and used either geometric or algebraic means to fit a curve to the data. One individual kid could be represented by data points of 80th percentile at age 2, 90th percentile at age 6, and 75th percentile at age 16. That kid has data points in several curves.

The curve is made up of data points that belong to anyone that happened to be at the nth percentile value at some point in their childhood. This is why the curve isn’t predictive. We don’t know how many kids stay on the curve that they started on, because the cdc didn’t calculate that.

If the CDC had wanted to create curves to project growth, they would have taken the kids at age 2 at the 5th percentile and graphed their weight and height over time until they reached age 20. And they would have repeated this for every age division and every percentile. We would have had a mishmash of snaking lines. We have no idea how many kids start the curve at the 50th percentile and finish there, not because it’s not possible to figure it out, but because it’s not provided. My guess is that the margin of error is so great and the confidence interval so wide, that it’s unhelpful.

[Anonymous]

I have two. One looks like he will probably end up around 75th percentile moving forward (so definitely taller than average, but not super tall). The other will likely remain very tall, and will take after my DH who is 6'3"-6'4".