When your child is told that they need to wear glasses, it can upheave their entire world. This may be more difficult for older children who have previously had no eye problems. Likewise, younger children may not understand the importance of wearing their glasses and may fiddle with them, lose them, or even deliberately damage them to try and avoid their usage. This can be made even more difficult should their siblings not need glasses, or they face teasing from their peers. Finding ways to encourage your child to wear their glasses, and promote them as a great accessory rather than a dreaded necessity, may make this a lot easier on you, as a parent.
Check the fit
At times, children may find the feel of glasses to be quite foreign, especially if they don’t like things touching their face in general. While you cannot completely remove their touch, you can make sure that they are as comfortable as possible. Encourage your child to be honest when choosing frames, as to whether they feel nice on the ears and nose, and not too tight or loose – find out more about frame measurements here. Just because a frame has your child’s favourite character or colour on, doesn’t necessarily mean that they will be the right pair to suit them.
Enlist the help of celebrities or characters
As your child reaches a certain age, some things will be deemed as either cool or uncool. Many children face bullying at school, and wearing glasses can be used to target. Your child might lose confidence in wearing their glasses, which is where some of their favourite stories can be of real use. Something as simple as pointing out characters in books who wear glasses, such as Harry Potter, can re-affirm that glasses aren’t bad, but instead a useful tool that helps the character to meet with success along the way, much like they help your child.
Utilise a reward system
Many parents already implement reward charts and systems to encourage desired behaviour, or to get their children to help out with age-appropriate chores. When your child is new to wearing glasses, you might also want to consider using a reward chart to get your child to both wear their glasses and look after them. Keeping them on at school, using the case correctly, and even cleaning their glasses can be used as targets that your child needs to achieve to get a mark or star for that day. You can decide, alongside your child, what the reward should be. When they see that they get positive reinforcement for keeping their glasses on, this will further encourage them, and help to teach them that glasses are associated with nice things.
It can be difficult for a child to adjust to wearing glasses, but doing so will greatly enhance their ability to read, and help correct eyesight issues. This can be especially useful when your child goes to school and needs to be able to read and write correctly.