I think I got my first glasses in 5th grade. Until then I didn’t know that students could actually read the chalkboard from their seats (never have claimed to be smart, folks!). I was always chosen last for baseball during PE. On the first day wearing my new glasses, I wandered around looking at the leaves on the trees, reading the chalkboard, and hitting my first baseball! What a day!
The payoffs were great, and after a bit of teasing by my classmates, everything went back to normal for a normal sighted kid.
Overall, she will be glad to have them. (And when I hit puberty, I found that girls in glasses were quite the ticket…ah, yes)
I got glasses at some point in primary school (age ~9 IIRRC), and I do not recollect any noticeable taunts. In fact while I had major, major insecurites about my looks as a kid, youth and adult my glasses never figured in these.
The big drawback as a primary school boy was that suddenly I was at some disadvantage in fights (the sturdy frames and lenses of today were not available then).
I currently have a seven year old with glasses and I wanted to say the opposite of what some others have said.
In 8 months she has lost one pair and broken two pairs of glasses. (Lost by leaving at a swimming pool and broken in two sports related adventures.) Getting expensive ones does not make sense at this stage of the game. They should be nice enough and she should like them but getting expensive ones is probably a waste until she is a bit older (IMHO).
Also, always have a backup pair. She will break (or bend them enough that they are unwearable but fixable) them and you will need something for her to wear while you take the time to replace/fix them.
As for the astigmatism and contacts thing, I have a pretty severe astigmatism and have been wearing soft contacts for twenty years. They aren’t cheap (my supply costs about 300-400 a year, I once paid 600 for non-disposable lenses) but they do exist. (Though my optometrists have always said that hard lenses are better so if you have them and can tolerate them, go for it.)
I was lucky in that I didn’t need to wear glasses as a young child and didn’t start wearing glasses until I was 15, when it was caught in a school screening my freshman year of high school, so it wasn’t as bad as I suppose it would have been to get them in elementary school. I remember being very self conscious of being seen wearing them for the first time by those who knew me and the first day at school was probably the longest day I have ever had wearing glasses, but it turned out to be nothing like what I thought it would be, however, nobody said anything negative about them and all I got was compliments and a few questions from kids who wanted to know what it was like to wear glasses, why I needed them or asking to try them on. By the next day everyone was settling in to my new look and by the third day, nobody cared that I was wearing glasses. Within a month or so I was pretty comfortable and confident wearing glasses and no longer gave wearing them any thought and they had become a part of who I was.
This was my experience, except that I was 9. I’d badly needed glasses for about two years by then (I couldn’t see the chalkboard at all, and would have to come forward with a handful of other kids to write down assignments or whatever, then go back to our seats).
Probably the only aggravating experience I had came from my dad rather than other kids – he absolutely would not allow me to wear them outside in case I break them (I wasn’t a rough and tumble kid; he was just a cheap bastard). I was probably 11 or 12 years old before I thought, ‘Fuck this!’ after years of never being able to see properly when I went outside, or on field trips and family outings, or down the beach, &c., and wore when I went out to walk the dog, etc. My dad saw me and shouted across the yard, ’ You forgot to take off your glasses, stupid!’
I got my first pair when I was in third grade and had the same “Wow! Trees have leaves!” experience that others have noted.
I had not had them long when I broke them (took them off to slide on the ice on the playground; unfortunately, I fell and landed on the pocket the glasses were in). I think Mom & Dad must have made a pretty big deal over me breaking them, because, several months later, I lost them, and I never said a word to them. I have a hard time believing they didn’t notice, but they never said anything.
Anyhoo, the result was I spent 4th through 8th grade sharpening my pencil about 10 times a class period so I’d have an excuse to walk up close to the board to read it.
The moral of the story is…by all means impress upon your daughter that she needs to be careful with her glasses, but if an accident happens (and it will), don’t traumatize her over it!
Eldest is going to be twelve in a few days. Eek. Her new glasses are pretty freaking adorable with purple frames. I am thinking about getting her eye surgery at some point as she has truly beautiful blue eyes with long eyelashes and highly attractive eyebrows.
