Should we force DS to wear his glasses??

[jac34]

My DS(6yo) has worn glasses in class for about a year, since starting back to school he has lost one pair, and is refusing to wear an old pair(same prescription just a bit scratch).He says he looks like a nerd!!

It's not a strong prescription and he only needs to wear them in class, but DH thinks, that if he is that upset about wearing them he should not be made to. I on the other hand,think that if an optician has said he needs glasses then he should wear them, I'm afraid his school work may suffer if he doesn't.
His teacher does make sure he wears them in class, but DH just thinks I'm being a horrible mother and we should tell her he doesn't need them,we had quite an argument about it last night!!

[starshaker]

ask him what hes playing at he should be backing you 100%. if the optician says he needs them then he does. if ur ds doesnt like them why dont you take him to xhose a pair that he does. also try telling him superman wears glasses worked for my friends ds

[lucykate]

i agree with you that if an optician says he needs to wear them, he needs to wear them. in my family we have a genetic eye problem with the left eye, plus bad eye sight. my dd (she's 3 & 3/4) wears a very strong prescription, as without, she has a squint. if he doesn't wear the glasses, and if he has one eye that is slightly weaker than the other, he could develop a squint as what the brain does, is stop using the weaker eye. when it does this, the muscles relax, which is what can make the eye wander.

are his frames his choice or your choice?, my nephew also has the same problem, when he started school, my sil went back to the optician, told them he had lost his glasses (naughty, i know, but was so they could get a free replacement), and let him pick his own frames, there are some really trendy, designer ones you can get which may make him feel happier in them. hope this helps,x.

[jac34]

He chose both pairs himself, the lost pair and the old ones.They look very cool on him as they are the newer shaped rectangular ones.
It didn't help that the first time my MIL saw them she said,"Oh no! That's awful that he needs to wear glasses".My Mum told him how smart and handsome he looked!!
I am realy annoyed that DH isn't backing me up, and making me feel like I'm being horrible.
DH thinks that we should lay off him, because DS's twin(DT1) doesn't need glasses and when something happens,it always happens to DT2, but I pointed out that, however much we try to make things equal for them, real life isn't always like that and they should get used to it, they are not always going to have everything the same, and this is something we have no control over.

[Nightynight]

yes, he should wear them in class. who told him he looks like a nerd?
My ds2 is very short-sighted, his school work would definitely suffer if he didn't wear glasses.

[edam]

Your dh is being a twonk. Ask him how he'd like it if ds's school work started to suffer? Or teachers who didn't know him told him off for bad work when he can't actually see the board? Idiot. How would he like being disabled if there was some easy thing he could do to correct the disability? Presumably he's got 20-20 vision himself so he has no idea what it's like not to be able to see properly. Ask him to try to think about it from the point of view of someone who can't see properly but could easily be helped. He's being selfish. And Lucykate is dead right about squints.

As for the glasses themselves, I do remember the humiliation of having to wear what I thought were horrid glasses (and getting teased about it) when my mother got fed up with me breaking pairs and made me wear NHS specs. I know it's a pain in the bum, but please take him to choose a pair he's happy with so he's OK about wearing them.

[harpsichordcarrier]

of course he has to wear them... being able to see is not optional. what's your dh thinking of?? but I agree that you need to find a pair that he is happy to wear.
I overheard a girl about 7 saying the other day - that's my boyfriend in the glasses - he looks just like Harry Potter! so maybe glasses are actually cool now?

[triceratops]

I "lost" loads of glasses when I was at school. I used to hide them behind a tree in the churchyard on the way home. I wonder if they are still there?

I was teased constantly about wearing glasses and I hated them. The only thing that helped was getting contacts at age 11.

I imagine that is worse for your ds being a twin. He will feel that it is really unfair. It is not really the schoolwork that suffers, it is not being able to read facial expressions that damages social development.

Your dh is being a bit dense about this issue, it is highly likely thay your sons eyesight is going to get worse at this age until he needs his glasses all the time. Giving him mixed messages at this stage just prolongs the agony. Find him some bespectacled role models (I can't think of any myself). Unfortunately superman only wears his specs when he is pretending to be a nerd starshaker.

[GeorginaA]

FWIW... if the optician has just said he needs them for distance work, it's probably better for him if he doesn't wear them all the time, and just wears them when his teacher reminds him to in class. (Although, I realise, losing them is an issue when you're not wearing them all the time).

I was given glasses for distance work when I was younger, but I was lazy so kept them on all the time. My eyesight fairly rapidly deteriorated (the muscles no longer have to work as hard) and then I did have to wear them all the time. The end result would probably have been the same, but the deterioration would probably have been slower.

Once his eyesight is at a stage where he needs to wear them all the time (to recognise friends in the playground, for example) - he'll wear them all by himself with no prompting from you, because he'll realise it's in his interest.

I'd leave him be, tbh, and let him come to that realisation himself as long as his teacher is still happy to remind him so his schoolwork doesn't suffer.

[GeorginaA]

Actually, no ... scratch that. Done some research. It seems that now the advice is NOT to undercorrect so what I wrote below was complete bollocks. Sorry! Bloody optometrists, change their mind every five minutes

In that case, get him used to wearing them. At the same time though, the idea of "forcing" him to wear them still sits very uncomfortably with me. Could you perhaps sit him down for a chat, find out what his feelings are about them, explain your worries (about seeing facial expressions etc) and then see if you can come up with a compromise that keeps you both fairly happy? You might find the problem is a lack of a safe place to keep the glasses when he's not wearing them, for example.

Buying a new pair that he's happy with is a must, in my opinion, if you want him to wear them. He's GOT to feel 100% comfortable with them. You might also find there's other stuff he's not telling you, like the old pair are too heavy on his nose or something and he's using the "looks like a nerd" excuse as a short hand for all the things he hates about them. You could do a deal that if he shows responsibility for looking after his glasses, that you will look into getting him some contact lenses (for when he plays sport, for example) once you know he can take care of them responsibly.

I think it's going to have to be a partnership decision between you and your son, or he's just going to resent it and not wear them the second you're out of the room - it'll become an ongoing battle that no-one will win. It may take him quite a while to get used to the idea - agree with earlier advice about finding other bespectacled role models.

[lucykate]

johnny depp wears glasses

[beep]

dd1 had to wear glasses from about 4 and hated them it was always a struggle to get her to wear them.Her teacher then started a glasses club for the children who wore glasses,I don't think they actually did much ,it was just aname really,but it did help

[bettythebuilder]

Is he a Harry Potter fan? I see quite a few children around with Harry Potter style glasses. They look great, much better than the brown frames I wore throughout my childhood.

[4kids]

My DD has worn glasses since she was about 3 shes now nearly 8 & can hardly see out of the bad eye she tries not to wear the classes but i have to make her .The thing is that eyes still develope uptill about 7/8 years old so the longer he wears them the better it is for his eyes & if he does'nt wear them now he could end up having to always wear glasses .

[jac34]

DS chose the glasses himself, so I can't see why he doesn't want to wear them, he liked them at first as it was the only way other kids at school, could tell him apart from his brother.
The funny thing is DH has not got 20-20 vision, he's as blind as a bat, he spent most of his youth squinting at people.He thinks, that because he managed alright we shouldn't make DS wear them if he doesn't want to.

I think I'll try to find out what he dislikes about them, as GeorginaA suggested.

[nooka]

My ds (now 6 1/2) has had to wear glasses for about a year now (in fact he should probably have had them a year before, but we had a duff eyesight test from our local optician). As he has inherited dh's longsightedness it is really important that he wears his glasses, as they may correct in the next year (although he has missed the best time for self-correction). We were worried about this, because he was concerned that he might get teased at school and wasn't keen on wearing them. However his "best mate" took one look and said they were cool, and he has never looked back. It's amazing how one or two comments can have such a serious affect - I would definitely see if you can find out what's going on in his head.

[bobbybob]

I'm not surprised your dh didn't wear them if your MIL was as supportive as she has been with your ds!

Tell your dh to train as an optician as he is such an expert - or alternatively stop putting his feelings about glasses onto your ds.

[4kids]

Try & explain to him that if he wears them now he might not need to wear them all the time when he's older i tried the shock tactic on my dd even though she hates them she knows she has a good chance of being glasses free when she's older(well hopefully only 4 reading & writing) its worked so far .Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.