she was always the youngest and smallest in her classes.

Same here! Now in her teenage she is more of the same height as her peers. She would detest standing in the front during her assembly. The other girls would some time ask her to call them api😅. It's a tradition here to call elders respectfully and not by their names. So yes, she was always the smallest physically and age wise. But things are better now. She has learned to adapt and we learned our lesson too.
We didn't repeat the same mistake with our youngest two :)
The eldest one is always the test drive
😜