Why Is My 11-Year-Old So Tall? What I Learned When My Daughter Is 5’6 At 11
Last August, at my daughter Lila’s 6th grade orientation, I leaned against a scuffed cinder block wall holding her neon pink water bottle and watched the school nurse do a double take at the height rod. She adjusted the metal slider down then back up, squinted, and wrote something on her clipboard before looking up at me. “Five foot six? That’s right?” Lila rolled her eyes, tugged the hem of her oversized Harry Styles hoodie further down her hips, and mumbled that the scale was wrong. It wasn’t. She’d hit 5’6 three months earlier, on her 11th birthday.
I’d gotten used to the double takes by then. When she was 8, a grocery store cashier asked if she was there to shop for her own kids. At 10, a playground parent handed her a first aid kit and asked her to watch the younger kids while she ran to the car. For the first year or so of all these comments, I panicked. I’d stay up late googling “unusually tall 11 year old” and click through every message board thread about growth disorders, until my eyes burned. Six months ago, I finally took her to a pediatric endocrinologist, got the bone age X-ray, the full blood panel, and waited a week for the results. Turned out, Lila’s just an early bloomer with tall genes—her dad’s 6’4, I’m 5’10, and my side of the family has a history of growing early and stopping early. The doctor said she’ll probably top out around 5’10 or 6 feet, which is totally healthy. The problem wasn’t her growth, it was how everyone else reacted to it. That’s the part no one warns you about when your kid is outside the norm.
Last spring, at Lila’s 5th grade Halloween party, I walked in to find her standing by the snack table holding a stack of paper plates, red as a tomato. The room mom had just asked her to help pass out snacks and supervise the cookie decorating station—she thought Lila was a parent volunteer. I don’t think the room mom did it to be mean, but Lila told me later that she’d been wanting to do the mummy cookie contest with her best friend, and she couldn’t exactly say no without sounding rude. That’s the thing no one talks about: when your kid looks two or three years older than they are, everyone expects them to act that way. If Lila gets upset over a broken crayon or wants to sleep with her stuffed rabbit, people raise their eyebrows like she’s too old for that. Teachers automatically stick her in the back of the class because she’s tall, even if she can’t see the board from there. A few years ago, a teacher even had her stand up in front of the whole class so everyone could “see how tall Lila is” and it took her an hour to stop crying in the car on the way home.
It took me a while to figure out small, specific things that make this easier, for her and for us. First, for teachers, I started asking for one small adjustment before the school year even starts: don’t automatically seat her in the back. Ask her where she can see best. Most of the time, putting her in the front row off to the side works—she doesn’t block anyone, and she can see the board. It’s a tiny change that takes 30 seconds to do, and it makes a huge difference. I also ask teachers not to comment on her height in front of the class, even as a joke. That’s another small, easy thing that no one thinks about.
For me, as a parent, I came up with a specific line I use when strangers or other parents make Lila uncomfortable with questions about her height. If someone asks “how much taller do you think she’s going to get?” or comments on how big she is, I just say “We don’t make a big deal out of height around here, do we Lila?” That gives her an immediate out to walk away or change the subject, without her having to be rude. I also stopped letting people push her into things she doesn’t want just because she’s tall. Everyone assumes a tall girl will be a great basketball player, so for years coaches and relatives kept asking her to join the team. Lila likes drawing and writing fanfiction, she doesn’t care about basketball. So now, if someone asks, I just say “She’s really into art right now, that’s her thing” instead of letting her feel pressured to say yes. We also don’t ask her to take on extra responsibility just because she looks older. I don’t have her watch the neighbor’s kids or chaperone group outings, even when other people ask. She’s 11, that’s not her job.
I also stopped pushing her to “embrace” her height or be proud of it when she doesn’t feel like it. When she comes home upset, I don’t give her that speech about how it’s a blessing and she’ll be happy about it when she’s older. I just listen, then we get her favorite iced coffee and talk about whatever else is going on that week. That’s enough.
Right now, things are going better than they were a year ago. Her 6th grade teacher did all the small things we asked, and Lila’s made a couple of new friends who don’t care that she’s almost a foot taller than most of them. Last week, she came home grinning because the new girl in homeroom didn’t even comment on her height, just asked to see her sketchbook after class. It’s still not always easy. Last month, a parent at the movie theater asked her for ID when she bought a PG-13 ticket, and she came out of the line hiding behind me. Some days she comes home frustrated and says she wishes she could just be normal height for her age.
There’s no big fix for being outside the norm, but the small, intentional things—stepping in when she needs it, not pushing her to fit what people expect, asking for tiny adjustments from the people who spend time with her—make it a lot easier. We’re still figuring it out, day by day. That works for us.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Why Is My 11-Year-Old So Tall