My poor little DD and her um 'large ears'......

[quackers]

Well, my just turned 3 yr old came home form nursery yesterday and said 'nursery said I got big ears' I was absolutley gutted. I had never really thought about it - as youd do, they are perfect in every way aren't they!! When she was born they did resemble pixie ears and are quite large and i looked in the bath last night with her hair wet and yes they stick right out, really badly. I really feel this is something she will eventually get picked on for and now face the decision of pinning them or leaving her to the fate of bullying. She is the absolute yougest in the class too, which won't help. Is this too much to put her though either way - advice needed please so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For the moment she has beautiful blonde curls that easily hide the offedning protrusions but if she goes swimming she looks a little alien like/ I must stress it does not bother me, I am just condcerned for her in the future - thanks allxxxxxxxxxx

my dd has sticky out ears also, I never noticed as I think she is perfect, mil pointed them out to me!! she has quite fine hair and I do worry about whether she will be teased but so far so good, she is almost 7 and it has never been a problem so far

Aww, bless Personally I think 'pixie ears' sound quite cute !

I went to school with a girl who had 'sticky out ears', she was missing the bit of connecting cartilidge. She had them pinned when she was 12 after quite a few years of bullying, not really serious bullying but she already had a complex about them so the bullying seemed 1000 times worse for her. The op was fairly straightforward and she recovered quickly, the improvement in her confidence was astounding, nevermind the cosmetic side. She always said that she wishes she'd have had it done earlier, she feels that pre 6 years of age would have been better as she felt the taunts began 'properly' at around 6 / 7 years of age. Before that the kids don't really realise they are being cruel/upsetting.

On the other hand you don't particularly want to give your DD the impression that she is anything other than perfect, so I would be careful how I went about wording it to her. Having said that though I would def see my GP and discuss the options with him, the success rate, the stay in hospital, the waiting list, the pain factor etc etc. Once you have all the info you are in a far better position to make an informed decision together.

Thanks alot, I don't make an issue at all to her and haave only really thought about it yesterday when she said soemone had told her this. When she was born as you do I just never thought about it and was so delighted we had her. I am reluctant to put her through anything but I saw a programme about a little girl with the same ears and she wished her Mum had h them pinned early to avoid all the bullying.

I honestly think that you are fairly fortunate if your child avoids bullying when they have very protruding ears, it's not fair but it's true.

DD has one ear that does not have a fold in it so sticks right out - apparently she had her hand next to it as she was groweing inside me and so was pushed forward and that is how it happened (think that is tosh and her dad has manky ears!).

I tried to stick it back with micropoor tape when she was a baby hoping that it would stay back but alas it did not work and so now and gonna wait till she bit older and get it sirted out - sounds silly of me but I want her to be a happy and confident young lady and I know she should be able to even if she has one dodgy ear but kids are so cruel and I want her to be as happy as possible.

(DP has scares behind each ear but he insists he has not had them 'done' - am trying at the mo to hunt out pictures of him as a boy - he calls one of his friends wingnut so want to see if he was once one too!!)

Yes my DH had the ears - not me, it;s all his fault!! He got picked on for thm, think yu;re right WSM, it would be nearly impossible not to! I think that;s a great way of putting it Boe, all about confidence and feeling normal and having the best possible chance of fitting in. I think I will wait until she is about 4 or 5 and try and get something done. Good to hear that I'm not the only one who would consider sorting it out. It hit me for the first time that she's out there on her own sometimes, but I still feel she's a baby, esp as she's the youngest in the calss. Thanks all. xxxx

My friend's 18mth dd has ears which really stick out. Her doctor has referred her to a consultant to discuss surgery. A bit drastic I thought but if it means she avoids years of bullying and name-calling she thinks it is worth it.

Having slight sticky-out ears is quite common is children with Down's, that and the tops fold over a little bit and they are lower set, (honestly it's mad all the things that are different because of one extra chromosome!) Anyway Lottie's ears stick out a bit, getting better now she's that little bit older but have decided that as the world can be such a cruel place and she'll probably have enough to be teased about by cruel kids that if it's possible I'll do something about them later on in life. I just want to give her one less thing to get teased about and perhaps in the long run save the life of some spotty 12 year old boy who attempts to even think about teasing her!!!!!!!!

now you have all started me thinking, maybe I should get professional opinion about her ears, may have to go and weep for my poor beautiful big earred daughter

Oh I'm glad someone lese has this dilema too. It's certainly not one of those important things in life, worse things happen I know that. I just want the best for her in her life. They're so precious and I so much don't take her for granted. Would be good to see what the Doc says!

Your poor dd, quackers, that was heartbreaking to read her telling you what nursery had said. For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure they don't usually do these operations on children until they're about 5 or 6, so you would probably have to bide your time a bit anyway. Give her a hug from me!

Remember that name-calling and bullying aren't necessarily the same thing, and lots of namecalling amongst older kids is reciprocal....which bullying isn't. I'm not meaning to dilute the effect of namecalling, and the distress it causes, but you can't guarantee that if you sort out the ears it won't happen about something else. I was always teased about different things at different ages: Titch (short)Gypo (dark, a nose, and too poor to have indoor parties!!!!)Droopsnoot/Concorde (the nose again) The Scarlet Pimpernipple (flat-chested), but I wasn't bullied. If teasing persists, and her own self-esteem does seem to be suffering, she might prefer them to be 'seen to'. But if it's a temporary problem, talking about changing them might confirm for her that difference really is a problem, and affect her confidence to deal with other namecalling episodes in the future. Difficult, isn't it? My ds has a short leg, a small foot and wears a splint, so is bound to come in for it at some stage, so I'm going to have to work hard on the confidence-no-matter-what approach. But that doesn't mean to say that I might not wish I could magic it all away fom him if I had the choice, so wait and watch, and see what happens, I'd say. Good luck.

Very much agree Blu - I just want to eliminate the problems I can if possible to give people fewer names to call her. If it made her unhappy I would def allow her to have sometihing done about her ears as it seems a very simple thing to correct.
However v much agree about confidence building and making her life so happy she doesn't care that people call her names as I'm sure they will one day.
I've already bought the Christina Aguileria song 'You are Beautiful' and put it in her box of 'things' so we can play it and sing it to each other if she comes home a bit sad from school one day! She's only 19 months old! The thought of people being cruel and name-calling my princess becasue she's 'different' kills me.

Great Idea, ThomCat, I'm going to get my DP busy making a compilation tape (he'll love that)...perhaps we should start a thread asking for suggestions?
Quackers, could you give your dd a little refrain to practice as a response? Like if they say she has big ears, she says "They're to hold up my big smile", and play a game where she smiles and then turns it into a roar to 'trick' them. No idea if it would work, just trying to think along the lines of three-year-old answering back games.

oh Blu - fab idea about the holding up smile idea - you lovely girl!
A compliation CD is even bettr - yes any uplifting, positive, songs to put on CD would be welcome for me as well.
How about Isn't she Lovely bu Stevie Wonder to start it off with?

Blu that's a great idea, I'm all for building her confidence so much that she'll just not let it bother her, I just wondered what peoples feeling were towatds correcting something like that. I'm really concious of making it an issue though. As it has come up so early in her life I feel that it will be an issue further down the line. I can't beleive at such a young age they say that. The worrying thing is she said it was the nursery teacher - don;t know if it;'s true!

The teacher!!!!!!! I think you need to have a word! TRicky as you might not be certain, but the staff need to know that your dd is being upset by comments by children so that they can watch out for it and intervene, so if you were to raise it, and it WAS the teacher, s/he'll get the message pdq! The nursery must have a policy on this sort of thing? (anyway, personally, if it was the teacher and your dd answered her back, I'd be double deluxe delighted!)

We should send the nursery ThomCat's CD!(I'll work on ideas for that tonight!)

Yes do that Blu, I don't know the nursery is great but I wonder if they thought she couldn't hear or give her credit for understanding and they told another nursery teacher. They do their hair all pretty and so on so they would see her ears then. I've told her to reply that the person has a big nose, but I love your holding the smile up - that's so good!!

quackers, just a thought and I haven't read the whole thread but it might have been only a casual remark from nursery - like Red Riding Hood, you know, "what big ears you've got"? (Rather than a remark from one teacher to another that she overheard?)

It sounds as if you weren't concerned about her ears before, so they might not be that bad really - all kids' ears look prominent with wet hair! DS2 accidentally had a very short No 2 when he was 7 and his ears looked awful for months, until his hair grew back a bit, but it's not at all noticeable now (I avoid clippers near his ears since then!)...I would try to play it right down, if you can, and see if you can drop the idea for now. Of course if she does become more conscious/troubled about them then you can consider surgery when she is a bit older.

I have a beautiful friend whose ears stick out a lot, but she always has a hairdo which covers them (like your DD now) and although it is a bit startling when they suddenly appear it's a very minor part of her overall appearance.

Thanks janh for that perspective, my dh and i discussed this last night and decided we couldn't put her through surgery and anaesthetic unless absolutely necessary, she is our only child - but not forever hopefully! and if we lost her we'd never forgive ourselves for that. We'll just ahve to arm her with the right responses and bags of confidence to overcome any taunts she might get. Thanks allxxx

Hi Quakers

My son and daughter both have ears which stick out a lot. My daughter is now 6 and has had the odd comment at school. However, due to the fact that she has long hair I don't see it as a problem as it's almost unnoticable. i have decided to wait until/if she finds it a problem herself.

My son's ears are larger and as he is a boy has shorter hair and I like you and very concerned about the future. The prospect of telling your beautiful child that they need to have something like this done to them seems awful - i just don't know how I would explain it! However, i am considering surgery for him as I feel he would thank me for it later as he is sensitive and I can't bear thr thought of him being bullied at school.

I don't suppose I have given you any advice here (sorry) - just sympathy and a plea - does anyone know how to explain to a five year old that you want them to have an operation?!

Thanks

both mine have quite big ears and dd1s stick out,I have one that is bigger and sticks out.

both my beautiful boys have sticky out ears (dh and I do not..)
It may help to know my 2 are 9.5 and 6.5 and nobody has ever commented negatively. They have been teased at school for all osrts of things but not that Ds2 has recently been teased for having ''hair like a girl'' (It skimmed his shirt collar)
I tend to avoid very short hairdos for them but last year was the first time I ever actually said :''no darling, you shouldn't have your hair cut really short as it may make your ears look noticeable''.

Then I felt awful as he didn't realise and I felt I had drawn attention to it. But it really is very noticeable.

I might consider surgery for them in the future if it turns into a big problem. But I spent all my life hating my droopy nose. Would never consider surgery now though, I just got used to it. I was never short of boyfriends so it can't have been as bad as I thought it was