DH was under 5' at 16 when he left school. His Dad took him to the Dr who said not to worry he would grow into his (enormous, dinner plate, 12cm across) hands. At 17 he had a 3 month growth spurt. He is now 6"2'.

I have 3 boys, all fairly small for their age. My eldest DT1 is a good 6" shorter than his twin who is almost my height, and is mighty pissed off about it - and fed up with people's comments. I really feel for him, because it must be hard enough people saying you're small, but forever comparing you to your twin is agony for him. We have their friends back here quite often and they are all huge, hairy and manly and it's really quite intimidating!

He has seen a consultant orthopaedic surgeon and has something called Osgood Schlatter's disease, which is a growing thing - the consultant weighed and measured him and said that he was fine and in fact that was his height at that age (14), the consultant was a good 6 foot!

My youngest is 10 and small for his age, although he weighed nearly 9lb at birth, but he's not the smallest boy in his class and although he complains a bit isn't too fussed yet.

If you are concerned then do get it checked, I feel much better for having been reassured although it wasn't why we went to the consultant, but if you and DH are a reasonable height then there's no reason why he won't get there in the end.

My DS will be 14 in August and he is only 148cm much smaller than most of his friends. He is going to be taller than his sisters though, and me. He has not much chance of being really tall since I am only 5'1 and DH is 5'6.
My children have all been teased about being small but they now just accept the nicknames of minime or microchip and it can sometimes be useful being small. For instance when trying to dishonestly pass for being a year younger! That is until DS2 pipes up 'but I'M NOT 5 I'm 7!!!'

my ds was very small - i am a short arse . his twin dd was always taller - towered him by a full head at some points. it really began to get him down

i secretly hoped he wold grow tall - everyone said he would - but tbh, deep down inside i thought he had the custymidget gene.

to prove he was actually growing ( as its something so slow its hardly tangible) i literally got a knife - and measured him on the door post

there were times when he grew remendously - and he could see it.

now he is taller than his sister by about 3 inches. and he towers me - i am chest height on him

ds1 is 12 and a half too and doesn't seem to have grown for about 2 years - he's taller than your son, but very much smaller than many of his friends. His voice also hasn't broken, no sweating and as far as I'm aware no extra hairy bits (not that I've inspected too closely!)

It's a particular issue for him as he's a competitive swimmer and at this age the difference in speed between the boys who've hit puberty and the ones who haven't is enormous

he's beginning to despair that he will ever grow ... however, dh is 6'4" so I keep on telling him he's unlikely to be short in the long run, and his swimming coach says the later they have the growth spurt the better

so from our perspective, your ds sounds completely normal!

I have 2 sons who both hit puberty and growth spurt at the age of 11. They therefore started their growth spurt from a lower height. They towered over the other boys and had deep voices etc before anyone. However the older one, now 17, is an average 5ft 9 having not grown since he was about 13 and appears quite small in school photos etc. The younger one (14) has probably stopped now at 5ft 8 and is being overtaken by most. So don't despair, once he sets off he'll probably overtake quite a few of the big ones and get his come uppance.

For my sins, cornsilk, I am I took it up to earn some money while I worked out what I actually wanted to do - that was 13 yrs ago - turns out teaching was what I actually wanted to do!

wow, thanks so much for all your replies. I did mention it to the gp yesterday as I was there with my other DS but he said he would need to see him.

Thanks for your reassurances. As there are others in his year that are the same size, I am sure he is ok, but when he says he is getting upset, its quite difficult.

They do vary a lot at that age. Mine had a real growth spurt at 14yrs-they almost seemed to shoot up overnight!

Slayerette I didn't know you were a teacher!