Anonymous wrote:

My rising 9th grader feels very self-conscious about his height. He is 5'4 1/2" inches, so definitely short, but not insanely so. He is also relatively young for his grade (his birthday is 9/1). He does take some teasing about it from friends, as many of his friends are close to six feet tall (there are of course other boys relatively closer to him in height at school, like 5'6" or 5'8", but his close friends happen to be very tall).

I'm not sure what else I can say to him to make him feel better about this.

My son is an 11th grader who is only 5'7". I empathize with him to the extent of "yeah, there is a weird prejudice against short men in our society, but I am confident you will meet a woman that is right for you." I don't overly engage on it, because there are boys his age out there with significant physical disabilities and so harping on a relatively minor thing like height doesn't seem healthy to me.

My rising 9th grader feels very self-conscious about his height. He is 5'4 1/2" inches, so definitely short, but not insanely so. He is also relatively young for his grade (his birthday is 9/1). He does take some teasing about it from friends, as many of his friends are close to six feet tall (there are of course other boys relatively closer to him in height at school, like 5'6" or 5'8", but his close friends happen to be very tall).

I'm not sure what else I can say to him to make him feel better about this.

Anonymous wrote:All of these responses bother me. They all operate from the assumption that being a short male is a bad thing, that you should be reassuring your son that he will eventually be taller. I think it is better to help him learn how to laugh off teasing and find lots of things to feel confident about in himself.

For context: my husband never got his growth spurt. He is 5'4" (he claims), but I am 5'2" and it seems to me we see eye to eye. His height used to bother him, too, when he was that age, but he did learn just to go with it, and the teasing was always friendly teasing among friends, not taunting.

If one lives one's life as if height doesn't matter, then it doesn't matter.

Height is a genetic thing. We don't tell people to hang in there and hope that their genetic "shortcoming" might get better. So why do we do this with height?

It's sort of like society-sanctioned height "bigotry."

Body positivity, folks!!! Height, weight, build, complexion, nose size, hair, whatever.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I totally get why there are people on here saying "teach them to be happy how they are!" However it is dismissing the fact that young boys really and truly care about this. While we adults have the perspective to understand there are more important things, we shouldn't invalidate their feelings or the bullying/teasing they're experiencing. I can totally understand how this would make you feel helpless as a parent and wish there was something I could offer to make them feel better

THANK YOU. I’m reading these responses and feel so bad for all these kids who have parents who totally invalidate them. Many of these people are expecting their teen boys to handle their insecurities like adults. And frankly even adults have silly insecurities.

Do you have a short boy? I posted earlier about my son who is a rising 9th grader and 4'11". He has seen pediatric specialists. Being so short is hard on him. But with rare exceptions--like a kid who is growth-hormone deficient--there is pretty much nothing anyone can do to influence height, or to accelerate growth, despite the various claims being made on this thread.

So--yeah. We do try to teach him to be happy, or at least accepting of his body, because he has the body he has right now and there is nothing he or anyone else can do about it. That doesn't mean we dismiss him or ridicule him for feeling badly. Of course we support him and empathize. But I am not sure what you expect parents in this situation to do, and letting kids wallow in this isn't healthy either. I'm proud of my son for how he holds his own with friends who are a foot taller than him, how he deflects the teasing and joking he experiences about being short, and how he does his best to accept himself for who he is even when that is not easy to do.