How to Predict Your Child's Future Height

Many parents are curious about how tall their child will be when they're grown. There is no science in predicting height, and it can't be done, but there are websites that can give you an estimate.

There are many websites that offer height predicting feature, when you provide them with limited information, such as your child's gender, and the height of both the mother and father. This information is used to calculate an educated guess on how tall your child might be once fully grown. Others ask for your child's gender, their current age, current height, current weight, and the height of both the mother and father of the child. This information generates an estimation, again, of your child's possible future height.

Yet another site asks for the child's age, gender, current height and weight, the heights of both parents, and calculates the information to give you a guess on how tall your child may be by the age of twenty one.

Another pediatric height calculator uses data from the Fels Longitudinal Study that was made famous by Professor Harry Khamis. The method there uses a linear regression which takes your child's height at the age of two and doubles it.

There are other formulas that can also be used. To estimate a male child's height, take his height at the age of two and double it. To estimate a female child's height, take her height at the age of 18 months and double it.

Another formula to try is adding a mother and father's height together and dividing that number by two. An example of this is as follows. If a mother's height is 5 foot, 3 inches, take that 63 and add it to the father's height. For the purpose of this, say the father's height is 6 foot, 2 inches, or 74 inches. Now, add these two numbers together and you get 137 inches. Divide the number by two, which ends up being 68 ½ inches. This number converted back to feet and inches is 5 feet, 8 ½ inches tall. With this formula, you add two inches to your final number for a male and for a female, subtract 2 ½ inches. Therefore, if you have a male child in this instance, that child will be approximately 5 feet, 11 inches tall at full growth.

Another formula that can be used is to take your male child's height at age three, add 22 inches to that number and then multiply it by 1.27. For a female child, take the height at the age of three, add 17 inches to that number and then multiply by 1.29.

These height predictors and formulas cannot give you an exact prediction, but can serve as a rough estimation. Poor nutrition, injury and other factors can affect how tall your child will be at full growth.