My Son Is Having A Growth Problem

Essay, Research Paper

My assigned lot in life is that of the mother of

a fifteen-year-old son. My son has not yet gone

through the growth spurt that always accompanies

adolescence.

I can imagine that as my son, I would feel

extremely self-conscious at all times. Speaking from

experience, it?s hard to be so different than all your

classmates are. Many high-school students dislike

having distinguishing features that set them apart

from the rest, such as being short. These features

can be the basis for a lot of teasing and humiliation.

Being a female, I don?t have any first-hand

experience dealing with a male?s perspective, but I

would think it would be even harder to be a short boy.

Males in our society are stereotypically strong and

muscular. Rarely do we see couples in which the wife

is taller than the husband. My son must feel

humiliated by his peers because he does not fit the

“masculine mold”.

Teenagers are very impressionable. They are

still trying to form their own identity, separate from

that of their parents. Most adolescents want to be a

person that everyone else likes and accepts, and some

will take drastic measures to be just that. It could

get to a point where my son would try to take some

sort of growth supplement from the back cover of a

magazine, which would not be a healthy idea.

Teenagers often have such a burning desire to fit in

that they hate themselves when they cannot. I say all

of this from experience, currently going through “the

best years of my life” right now.

The thing to remember, though, is that everyone

grows at a different rate, and not everyone is truly

laughing at you. This information will be extremely

hard for my son to believe, because I as a teenager

myself still don?t get it. When you walk into a room,

it is impossible for everyone to be staring at you and

laughing about your appearance, because they are too

worried about themselves! Teenagers don?t often

realize that many of their peers feel just as

uncomfortable in their own skin as they do.

For my role as a mother, I think I need to be as

supportive as possible. It can be a very detrimental

thing for a teenager to feel like he doesn?t belong

anywhere and that no one likes him, leading to drugs,

alcohol, even death. I need to find out what my son

needs and do my best to provide it for him, without

turning him into a spoiled child. The best thing for

a person who is upset is a loving, caring individual

who supports him.

However, none of this support can be shown in

public. Adolescence is the time of natural separation

from one?s parents, a time when parents begin to be

“uncool” and “embarrassing”. To show any sort of

affection in front of his friends would make my son

feel even worse. This would only be yet another thing

that would set him apart from his peers (or at least

he would think so).

Overall, the fact that my son has not yet

received his growth spurt will probably be viewed as a

negative thing. He will be unhappy and teased by his

friends for not appearing masculine, and this could

lead to disastrous results. To prevent any of these

happenings, I will try to be a loving, caring,

supportive parent, although not in public, for I feel

that would simply make it worse. The situation,

however, could turn out to be very positive. When all

of his friends have stopped growing, my son may shoot

up past every one of them. We will not know how this

turns out, however, for at least a few years, at which

point it will probably be less of a problem. As a

poster I once saw states (paraphrased), “The problem,

once solved, is simple”.