My seven year old daughter has just been told she needs glasses. I started wearing mine at six so I understand how she feels. I’m trying to help her cope with them as best I can. She seems fine with it for now but I’m worried about how she’ll once she gets older.
Any suggestions? Thoughts?
It’s a MUCH bigger issue now. Once she’s older it’ll be a non-issue. In a few years, she won’t think anything of them, her friends won’t think anything of them, people she’s never met won’t think anything of them, I wouldn’t worry to much about what’s going to happen later. As for right now, being able to see clearly will be a huge advantage over being picked on for a day or two at school. Besides, I’m guessing she won’t be the first in her class to get them and at only 7 she won’t be the last either. (BTW, I started wearing glasses in 5th grade.)
I got my first pair when I was about twelve. It wasn’t a big deal. Nobody teased me about them. And I was just relieved to be able to see properly.
I was 7 when I got my first pair, and I don’t recall being picked on, other than the occasional “four-eyes.” Then again, I was one of the most picked-on kids, so they had plenty of other material. :dubious:
Mostly I remember looking out the window of the optometrist’s office and seeing bricks on buildings and leaves on trees and being able to read street signs and being pretty amazed.
I first got glasses in second grade, and all I remember is being able to see the board without squinting – I don’t recall being teased at all.
I was 10 and it didn’t really bother me - the Dorothy Hamill craze was still going on, and I was excited to get Dorothy glasses. I got contacts in HS, and nowadays I wear my glasses about as often as I wear my contact.
It’s unlikely she’ll get made fun of. What’s much more likely is everyone in her class wanting to try them on. Which will be a barrel of laughs as they smear their fingerprints all over the lenses, and put them down on the lenses, and bend the earpieces if their heads are bigger than hers…
Also, she may want to change her hairstyle. Long hair tends to get tangled up in the earpieces until you learn to compensate. Have her wear a braid or ponytail for a while, perhaps.
I thought of them as just a tool that I could use to look at things that were too far away for me, like I’d use a telescope. So I’d put the glasses on if I had to read notes on a chalk board, or a menu at a fast food place, or whatever, never without a specific purpose like that. I still have that habit, though now it’s more like I wear them when I’m out of the house, and take them off immediately when I get home (except when watching TV).
It’s a totally different ballgame now than it was when we were kids and getting made fun of. Glasses frames have gotten so cute, and lenses so thin, that they are no longer unattractive. More kids are wearing them too, so it’s normal.
My older daughter is 10 and has been wearing them since kindergarten, and she has never been teased. Her best friend wants glasses because she thinks they’re pretty. Both of my girls get compliments on their glasses, and not teased at all.
I got teased all the time, but things are different now.
My oldest son got his glasses in second grade. They never bothered him until he got to middle school and then he begged me every day for contacts until I gave in.
I got my first glasses at 8, and while a few friends jokingly called me “four-eyes” for a day or two, it was not mean-spirited at all. They all wanted to try them on, because I had bifocals and those were not common in the 2nd grade.
It was just such a relief to be able to see.
I got them when I was 7. They teased me at first, than many of who did ended up with glasses themselves. 
In high school, they teased me again because everyone was getting contacts and my ophthalmologist was strict and wouldn’t even consider them until I was older than 18. I got them when I turned 21.
By then, those same teens that teased me about not getting contacts had gone back (as older teens/adults) to eyeglasses as primary/contacts as a backup. Instead, I wear contacts primarily, with eyeglasses as backup.
It shall pass. And those who tease will get the glasses sooner or later.
It was tough for me, it was about 1969 or 70, and styles for kids weren’t very stylish or varied.
That is my actual, unretouched 6th grade picture. I can laugh now.
(And thankfully, school photographers are somewhat better today. Eyeglass shadows like those wouldn’t be tolerated today.)
I was about 4 or 5 when I was diagnosed as long-sighted, with a lazy left eye - it started when I said to my mother “I can only see with half an eye”. I had pretty much accepted everything in the world as being naturally fuzzy around the edges. The first thing I said when I put on the glasses for the first time was “Oh! aren’t the colours bright!”
I’ve worn glasses for nearly 40 years now. Sometimes they’ve been a nuisance, sometimes, it’s significantly inconvenienced me when I didn’t have them, but they’re pretty much part of normality for me now. Not sure what else to say.
They got dirty, scratched or broken when I was a kid and they kept steaming up when I was a sweaty adolescent, but they’ve not really been any more trouble than my carelessness permits. I don’t intend to switch to contacts or get lasered.
My now 9 year old son got his in first grade, and he picked a “Harry Potter” style. He has dark thick hair and dark eyes and he looked like “Harry”! And apparently that was cool cause no one picked on him or made a big deal about it. A few other kids had glasses, too, and it just wasn’t as big a deal as I thought it was going to be.
I got my first pair of glasses at 5 or 6, I don’t quite remember. I got to pick out my own frames and I got pretty lavender flower rimmed ones. My teacher complimented me on them so I thought I was the coolest person ever when I wore them. However, since I was young and irresponsible, I tended to forget my glasses so I ended up wearing them only half the time. Of course, I had lazy eye in my right eye and perfect vision in my left, so I could get away without wearing glasses.
It wasn’t until middle school or so that wearing glasses became lame and I stopped wearing glasses entirely. Geek chic’s pretty popular in middle schools and high schools now, so maybe your daughter will have an easier time by then. If not, have her pick out a pair of fashionable glasses that fits her style or make sure she’s responsible enough for contacts by then.
My grandniece just got glasses - she’s 6. Her parents did one of those buy one/get one deals, so she sports either a pair of electric blue wire frames or a pretty lavender wire frames. She says no one has teased her, except her mom (who’s a biotch anyways).
Her biggest problem has been taking care of them. Luckily, many years ago I worked at an opthalmic lab, and stocked up on lens care goodies. She’s already gone through two cases and a half dozen microfiber wipes. She never remembers to clean them, which causes problems.
She is very glad to be able to see clearly. She was referred to remedial reading at the beginning of the year, but now that she can see what she’s reading she’s back with the rest of the class.
I got glasses at the age of five. On an air force base in Germany.
Ew, they were ugly. There was just not a great selection for dependents. Ugly, ugly, ugly.
I was also the kid who wouldn’t even wear sunglasses because I thought it would make me look like somebody who had to wear glasses. So there I was, somebody who needed to wear glasses.
I resisted. I went around reading signs from great distances to prove I could do it.
Then I got the glasses.
Wow. Trees have individual leaves, and…you don’t necessarily have to be in the tree to see those individual leaves.
When we got back to the world, I had a little more choice in frames. I did not choose wisely. I picked those cat-eye ones, which were very popular at the time, and for about six months after that. Having made a real big deal about it, I was stuck with them.
It wasn’t until third grade that another kid I knew got glasses. She also got cat-eye frames
I first got glasses about 31 years ago, at age 6. Not only were the frames big and not so cute (they got better relatively quickly, by middle school we all had adorable frames) the lenses were glass. I wasn’t able to get plastic lenses until maybe 6th grade or so. Consequently the glasses were heavy, dangerous during gym class, and scratched if you looked at them too hard. Not a great thing. Times have definitely changed for the better in that regard.
I’m always amused by the very cute frames my optometrist has, especially for little girls, all shades of the rainbow and lots of shapes. I think she’ll be okay. She can get something that’s really “her” now, rather than having to settle.
Maybe lay in a good supply of pre-moistened lens cleaning wipes, and put some in her school bag and maybe slip one each day into her lunch bag. (Costco sells huge boxes of 500 for < $10.) Get her into the habit of cleaning the glasses regularly and on her own right from the beginning so that she’s never walking around with smudges and learns quickly to get comfortable with taking care of them.
Older Son got glasses at age 8, in second grade. The girls thought he looked soooooo cute, just like Harry Potter!, which of course at that age was not entirely welcome 
But it calmed down quickly.
Will she be the first in her classroom to have glasses? Older Son was, and we told his teacher about it ahead of time. She had a talk with all the kids about the things that make us all different, not specifically mentioning Older Son or eyeglasses, but bringing up the general issue of physical differences. So when he showed up with his glasses the other kids were surprised, but in a way prepared. I thought his teacher handled it very well.
The eye doctor suggested he start wearing them at the start of a school break, so he had a few extra days to get used to them, both physically and socially. We chose Easter break. If you’re in the US, can you wait until the Thanksgiving weekend? Or maybe even Christmas break?
