Why Are Middle Schoolers So Tall Now? What Parents and Teachers Should Know
Last Tuesday I pulled the chipped oak student desk out of my back storage to use for extra seating during parent-teacher conferences. It’s the same desk I used the first year I started teaching 7th grade, 11 years ago. Javi, my 12-year-old student who’s always forgetting his math workbook, ducked in after school to drop off his field trip form, leaned against the edge to catch his breath from running down the hall, and I did a double take. The top of his head was three inches above the desk back. When did 7th graders get this tall?
It’s not just Javi. Last year I had three 7th graders over six feet. This year I have five. Last month I helped the PE teacher carry a portable basketball hoop to the gym for indoor recess, and it was set to the standard 8-foot height for middle school. Half a dozen of my students could dunk it just from a standing jump. After I mentioned the trend to our school nurse, she told me she’d just ordered a new exam table last semester—her old one, which fit 13-year-olds fine when she started 15 years ago, now leaves half their legs hanging off the edge.
I brought it up over dinner with my sister, who works as a pediatric dietitian, and she wasn’t surprised. She said the steady increase in kid height over generations has been happening for 100 years, driven by better nutrition and fewer childhood illnesses. But what we’re seeing now is an extra shift: multiple recent studies show kids are hitting their growth spurts an average of three to six months earlier than they were 20 years ago. Early puberty, which has become more common, often brings earlier growth spurts, and there’s some data that pandemic-era changes in activity and weight in early childhood contributed to that shift for this group of middle schoolers.
But it’s not just a fun trivia fact. The mismatch between how old these kids look and how old they actually are creates all kinds of small, daily frictions that most of us don’t talk about. After the basketball recess incident, I asked my class how many of them get comments all the time about how tall they are. Half the class raised their hands. Javi raised his first. He told me that at the school dance a few weeks earlier, a parent chaperone asked him to help break up a scuffle between two 8th graders, because she thought he was a student teacher. He just stood there, red in the face, because he’d never had to handle anything like that before, and he’s still scared of the 8th grade hallway.
Another girl, Lila, who’s 11 and five foot nine, said strangers constantly ask her when she’s graduating high school, and get awkward when she says she’s in 6th grade. She’s started slouching in photos to make herself look smaller.
That’s where the practical stuff comes in. After a year of noticing these little issues, I’ve made small changes to my classroom that make a big difference, and I’ve shared them with other teachers and parents.
For example, I used to stack risers under the desks in the front row so shorter kids could see over the people in front of them. I got rid of the risers, and now I rotate my tallest kids into the front row every two weeks. That keeps kids in the back from getting blocked, which cuts down on the side talking that happens when someone can’t see the board. I also keep two extra folding chairs stacked by my desk that are two inches higher than my standard classroom chairs, for kids who don’t fit behind their desks and end up slouching all period to fit. When I scan the room for hands to call on, I make myself slow down and check the back row extra carefully— I still automatically assume the big shape in the front row is shorter than the ones behind, so I have to remind myself to look.
The biggest change isn’t to the room, though. It’s how I respond when other adults misjudge a kid’s age based on their height. If a substitute says something like “You’re as big as I am, why can’t you solve this problem on your own?” I jump in right away and say “We’re still working on this skill in 7th grade—let’s walk through it together.” That doesn’t embarrass the kid, and it reminds the adult that height doesn’t equal maturity.
For parents, the most useful tip I’ve picked up from the parents of my taller students is to push back on wrong assumptions gently, in front of your kid, instead of letting the comment hang. Mia, whose 11-year-old daughter is 5’8”, told me that when someone says “Wow, you’re so tall, you must be in high school!” she doesn’t just laugh and agree. She says “She’s actually only 11, and she still brings her stuffed rabbit to every family vacation.” That reminds everyone, including her daughter, that her emotional growth matches her age, not her shoe size. For clothing, she shops the teen section of the local thrift store first, which cuts down on the stress of buying new full-price jeans every three months when her daughter grows another two inches.
I’ve also talked to parents of shorter middle schoolers who mentioned this shift hits them too—their kid is the same size they’ve always been for their age, but now they’re the shortest in the class by an inch or two, which can bring its own self-consciousness. A lot of the same rules apply: don’t let comments about size hang, and remind everyone that development happens on its own timeline, regardless of inches.
Last week I put in the order for new classroom desks for next year. I ordered all of them two inches larger than the district’s recommended size for middle school. It’s a small change, but it feels like the right first step. I still do a double take when a 12-year-old stands up next to me and I’m eye level with their shoulder. It’s a new normal, and I’m still getting used to it. Some days it’s still awkward— I still forget to check the back row, and Javi still gets asked to help chaperone when he just wants to eat cookies with his friends. But adjusting the chairs and calling out the wrong assumptions seems to help, one small day at a time.
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