People know that spring is the prime time of the year for children to grow taller, but we can’t ignore that summer is also the faster growth stage of the year. How can we seize this season to make our children grow taller and taller? And what are the misconceptions to avoid? Before formulating a growth plan, you may want to measure the bone age Bone age is short for skeletal age, which is the core indicator that determines a child’s growth potential, and a bone age assessment can more accurately reflect an individual’s level of growth and maturity. Suppose there are two 10-year-old girls, both 139 cm tall, but one bone age is only 9 years old, indicating that there is still about 5 years of growth space, adult height should be able to grow to 165 cm to; another bone age has reached 12 years old, the growth potential will be greatly reduced, adult height is only about 150 cm or so. Therefore, the same age and height of the same child, lifelong height may be very different. Therefore, experts recommend parents to test their children’s bone age every six months, especially for children with early sexual development and puberty, so that parents can fully understand their children’s growth potential and give targeted intervention measures. In addition, the bone age test must be carried out in a regular hospital, the cost is about 60 yuan. Four misconceptions make children lose the opportunity to grow taller Misconception 1: Children are still young, they don’t grow now, they will always grow later In fact, this waiting mentality of parents is wrong, if they don’t go to professional testing institutions for testing in time, in case the growth hormone secretion is insufficient, then the child may stop growing, and when the epiphysis closes the child will never grow taller. Myth 2: If the parents are not short, the child’s height must be fine. Although genetics is an important factor affecting height, it only accounts for about 70% of the total height of a child. If a child suffers from growth hormone deficiency, idiopathic dwarfism and other diseases, the genetic height has no reference value at all. Myth 3: If we are all so short, our children will definitely not grow taller. Some parents think that their children are born short because of their own unsatisfactory height, so they do not help their children to fight for it even if they have the chance to grow taller, which is actually a very wrong concept. Myth 4: Blindly believing in advertising and propaganda Blindly believing in all kinds of advertisements with the mentality of “seeking medical help in an emergency”, taking or using all kinds of height-enhancing health products and height-enhancing devices for children, and taking children to informal hospitals and institutions with the name of “height-enhancing guidance center”. This will not only seriously delay your child’s precious treatment time, but also easily produce side effects such as premature sexual maturity. What should I do if I find that my child is short? If your child is half a head shorter than his or her peers, sits in the first row of the class, grows less than 5 cm a year, or starts to develop sexually at the age of 8 or 9, parents must take him or her to the pediatric department of a regular hospital as soon as possible to find out the cause.