Share your top tips on getting your child to wear their specs with Specsavers: you could win a £250 voucher NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

The team at Specsavers know all about fitting specs and getting the correct prescription but would love to know from parents how you go about ensuring your child wears their specs when they need to.

They say "At Specsavers we have great deals on glasses for kids: all in our kids’ £64 and teens’ £85 ranges are free with under-16s’ NHS funding. And now, Specsavers will give you a second pair from the £64 or £85 range, free. Both pairs can come with SuperTough Trivex® single vision lenses with a scratch-resistant treatment. Or you can choose to have tinted prescription lenses and UV filter free in your second pair. We also have a fantastic range of children’s glasses to choose from, with fun designs including Moshi Monsters, Disney Princess, Star Wars, LEGO®, The Simpsons and many more.".

So, whether you have a spec wearing toddler, teen or any age in between please share on this thread your tips to ensure the glasses are on their noses when they should be!

Share your thoughts and everyone who does will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £250 voucher from here

Please note Specsavers may use your comments - anon of course - on their pages on MN, on their social media or possibly elsewhere - please only post if you're happy with this.

Thanks and good luck
MNHQ

When my daughter was an older teen she felt she looked more serious and intelligent when she wore her glasses, so would wear them for interviews and work - social life always a bit of a problem tho! :)

Agree with all about letting them choose....

I have 13yo DD and I also allow her to claim for new glasses each year - even if old pair still ok as then she chooses her current favourite style plus keeps the previous ones and can choose which to wear (prescription doesn't usually change and she's had adult frames for the past 3 years)

My children dont wear glasses but if they did the best tip (as i wear glasses and i struggle to get myself to wear them lol) is but them something that looks good on them something in trend

Hi mnhq that post above is mine is there anyway it can be deleted my sister inlaw was still logged in on my phone lol

favorite teddy also got a pair of glasses and nursery helped by making a big fuss of how special he looked in them.
he got to pick his own pair out and we found a book about going to opticians and wearing glasses.
we were also quite lucky in a way as some other nursery friends also wear glasses so he sees it as quite normal although unsure. but a lot easier if not the only child who has them.
teddy always has his (cheap plastic frame taped to head) and he goes everywhere with him.

Letting my DS choose his own glasses seems to help, the problem we have had is he kept looking over the glasses at first and I had to constantly remind him to look through them, but once he realised he could see the tv clearer through them we haven't had any problems.

We thought that ds2 may have needed glasses so he had a look online at some before his eye test. He spotted several pairs that he liked - Spider-Man and Lego ones, and then was extremely disappointed when he was told that he didn't need any!
Several of his friends wear them and there are so many styles available these days that they all look great.
We have had sunglasses for our dc from an early age, so they don't mind wearing them as they can see the benefit.

My daughter has been wearing glasses since May and she got hers from Specsavers. The staff were great and the choice of glasses (she has Hello Kitty and her sunglasses are Gruffalo) made it much easier to convince her to wear them. She's also pleased that she can see the whiteboard in class better now.

I agree that if the prescription is right they wear them. If DS refuses it's either because he's poorly and achey or they are too wonky and putting pressure on his nose or ears. So I guess my tip is to get a good working relationship with the optician and take specs in for an mot if child not wearing them. They can use that steam machine to bend the legs/ adjust frames.

Prescription was absolutely the key here.

Once DD2 was shortsighted enough she needed them to watch TV with her breakfast, she stopped forgetting them.

Ds1 is a glasses wearer. He is very longsighted and had a squint and whatnot so was under the hospital and was patched too. He was allowed to build up so when he got fed up of the glasses he was allowed to take them off for a bit and put them on later. It didn't take long for him to wear them all day no problem. These days the main problem is getting him to put them back on after a bath in the evening to read as his bad eye still meanders off to one side if he concentrates without his glasses.

My dd wore glasses briefly aged 3. Her 2 good friends both wear glasses as do I so she was keen to be like us! More of a problem was persuading her younger brother not to pull them off her. Wearing glasses does seem to be much more socially acceptable now than it was when I had my first pair in the 1980s. Some teenage children of our friends even wear glasses just to be trendy, unheard of when I was younger!

Ds1 had glasses from aged 4. Getting him to wear them has never been an issue at all.

He can see better with them on and he doesn't see double when wearing them. He's 12 now and we have never had a problem.

Now the patching we had to do, that was a bit of a struggle but he still did it. He's always been very stoic about sight problems; he makes me very proud.

Glasses are lovely for children now anyway. I grew up in the 70's when glasses were hideous!

Dd has worn glasses since she was 10 months old. From the start the battle has been to get them off not keep them on!

She can see so much better with them on that she hates to be without them. This means bath/bed/swimming you name it!

My son would never wear his glasses and always forgot them when we went to the cinema or out. When he needed new glasses he tried on nearly every pair in the shop but finally found a pair he really liked and now he is happy to wear them. I think it finally clicked that he could see much better with them and he liked his new glasses so he is happy to wear them.

My 4yo DS2 has been wearing glasses for a year or so (to see off an incipient lazy eye caused by one being more longsighted than the other). He started with very cute round ones ("golden" he called them - they were actually a slightly pinky gold and were supposedly the girl version) but his largish head is now too broad for these little ones and has moved on to rectangular ones. Although he loves them (Marvel Avengers up the arms, I'd quite like some like that myself) I would echo PP's request for more choice of round styles in bigger sizes. As I say, DS2 is only 4 - I would have been happier for him to rock the cute Harry Potter thing for a bit longer.

Letting him choose them - not just the frames, but the arm style (the first pair we were pushed towards the kind that curl round the ear but he found the conventional style more comfy) - has helped, and having parents who also wear specs I'm sure does too. Wearing them is part of his life and we don't present it as a negative, we don't expect him to protest about it and he never has.

My 6 year old started wearing glasses last year. We allowed him to choose the frames paying a little extra for Ben 10 glasses. He is very very longsighted. He has been great with wearing them for the most part. We had a little reward system going for a 2 weeks and after 2 weeks he'd realised he could see much better and easier with the glasses.

It was quite a challenge to get my daughter to wear her glasses. She has severe autism and learning disabilities. At first she would just throw them off every time.

She first learned to keep them on at school. They were firm and replaced them every single time they came off. At first she only wore them at school but I used the same method here and it worked.

Now she will even help to put them on herself!

Star Wars glasses. So many adults have stopped DS and said that they wish they had a pair. He is so proud of them that he willingly wears them.

He is also quite pleased with the various breakage/loss stories that he can share with other people and takes any opportunity to tell people that his brother broke 2 pairs and one is being worn by a dolphin off the Isle of Wight.

My DD(5) has always been quite good at wearing her glasses which she got round a year ago. We made a big deal out of how exciting it was to choose a pair herself and let her know how much they suited her. She did go through a little dip recently of not "remembering" to wear them all the time and strangely this was resolved when she got a new case that she loves.

I don't have a problem with my DD wearing glasses, she always chooses her own and as quite a few of her friends wear glasses it has never been a problem, so I guess just let them choose their own glasses. She has just chosen two new pairs and the member of staff, Andrew was really patient and just let her take her time choosing.

My daughter was devestated after her first eye test because she didn't need glasses and even pleaded with the optician!

(She has now been wearing glasses for a couple of years and is still happy to)

I think with the range available now it is not the issue that it was when I was a kid.

She has recently become a bit concerned wearing them during sport and PE, in case they fall off so we are going to look at detachable lanyards.

I think firstly you should let your little one chose their own glasses for themselves. If you think you are going to have real problems getting them to wear them consider getting glasses for yourself if you don't already wear them, even if you don't need them.

I agree with the above - specs are cooler these days and high profile stars (like Harry Potter) wear them.

Our DCs love dressing up in specs too!

Fortunately my kids don't wear glasses so I don't have any issues there, but as a teacher, compliments from anyone go a long way - especially if the glasses are perceived as cool or make them look older!