Nope. 5'5" girl now at 16.

Anonymous wrote:If your kid was still in the 99th percentile for height by the age of 5 did they stay in that height percentile their whole life?

No.

14 and 6’3”

Boy. 6’4”.

No my daughter was always 99th percentile (DH Is 6'4) but ended up at 5'7.

Anonymous wrote:My son was an earlier grower. He was in the 99th percentile at like 11, 12,13 and then fell. He is 6 ft tall

This seems to be really common. I know a lot of boys like this! They are all tall of course but nothing crazy. Just finished growing by 13-14.

From what I have seen…I think if the parents are tall, it usually holds and the kid ends up tall. If the parents are not tall it often doesn’t mean much.

A friend of my DS’s was always very tall- childhood through 6th grade or so- both parents short. He finished growing at age 12 and is 5’7”-5’8”.

Another friend was also very tall from childhood- that friend has a very tall dad. That friend is currently 6’3” and may still be growing a bit.

My DD was the shortest girl in grade all the way through elementary school, and her best friend was the tallest girl in the grade. They always made an interesting looking pair! At 16, the tall friend is 5’9” and my DD is 5’8”. The friend was fully grown by age 11 or so. My DD grew nearly a foot from age 11-15. Both girls have one tall parent and one average parent.

Anyway- if you are tall- it is a good sign he might be too. If you are not, I would not get too excited about him ending up super tall. Might, might not.

Anonymous wrote:I personally fell off the curve. Was the tallest girl in elementary school and stopped growing at 5'4". I was just early. People caught up and surpassed me in middle at high school

Same was 5'6" by 5th grade. Was projected to be 6' when I was young. Just stopped after I got my period in 5th.

No. Girl who was always super tall and was an earlier grower/puberty. Now around 5'8" at the end of middle school (and hasn't grown much in the past 2-3 years). Everyone is starting to catch up.

My son was an earlier grower. He was in the 99th percentile at like 11, 12,13 and then fell. He is 6 ft tall

No. Dropped off and ended up 5’8 - 5’9”

OP, there is an incorrect assumption underlying your question that most people see to believe.

Let’s discuss how the cdc growth curves are actually created. The 90th percentile curve for height does not track a kid that at the 90th percentile over time. It does not even track the average of all 90th percentile kids over time. It is composed of data points of the 90th percentile height at each time point. So the data point at age 10 includes kids who were 20th percentile 5 years ago and 99th percentile 5 years ago. They include kids who will be 50th percentile at age 17 and 95th percentile at age 17. The data points are then “smoothed” to create a nice curve.

There is no data to show that kids are destined to stay on their growth curve, and we see it every day - Johnny was the smallest in 9th grade, but then he got his growth spurt and is now 6’5”. Teddy was the tallest in 6th grade but he stopped growing at 5’8”.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/parenting/growth-chart-accuracy.html?unlocked_article_code=1.yE4.VVqE.LdRzu_kSg-M3&smid=url-share

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/1867333

Anonymous wrote:Do you think parent heights play more of a factor than where a kid is in their percentile curve early on?

Kid is 5 and in the 99th percentile. Mom is 5’8 and dad is 5’10”. Both sides of family have tall family members (over 6’ tall).

I'm 5'8", DH is 6'2". DC was 99th percentile from elementary through middle school. He is now 5'11" at 18, which is 70-75% percentile. Assuming he doesn't have another growth spurt.

My 12 year old dropped below 99% in the last year, down to about 90%. But it's hard to track at that age with all the growth spurts.

My 10 year old was 99% until last year and he's now 90%. Others are growing faster now, so we will see.