Our four-year-old son has been told he must wear glasses. I was surprised and if I am being honest, tried everything I could to try and avoid this, including whispering a few letters at him during the eye test. I know what you are thinking – what kind of mother would cheat to avoid her son wearing glasses? For the simple reason that I have a small boy that can barely sit still for a minute, cannot go anywhere without breaking into an Olympic-style sprint and must climb every wall he finds, preferably with a small plastic firearm in his back pocket. The glasses would never stand a chance.
The optician told him that if he wears the glasses all the time he would probably only have to wear them until he was seven. This did not register and as far as he was concerned aged seven was far too many Christmases away. The man then reminded my son that Harry Potter wears glasses, expecting him to enthusiastically reach for the nearest pair of national health specs. My son just sat in silence looking out of the window. On the way home, a small voice from the back seat said, “Harry Potter is NOT cool.” I could see his point.
I was in for a long battle. He was adamant that a pair of glasses would never perch on his small button nose. I fired off a few SOS e-mails to the family searching for some tips. My sister-in-law replied swiftly, with a step-by-step guide to dealing with the situation. Given she wore blue rimmed national health glasses as a child she had sound advice. She said we should all start wearing glasses around him at home. This was fine for my husband who abandoned his contact lenses and wandered around in his reading glasses. However, I did look a little ridiculous cooking ‘spag bol’ in my dark, Jackie O style sunglasses.
One day, all ‘glassed-up’, we made a special family trip to the optician to choose the frames. Once chosen, we spent the next few days continuing with our promotion of glasses, even forming a Glasses Gang which he and his two best friends who also wear glasses could be part of. However, he was unenthusiastic. That was until he arrived back from school one day and said, “Mummy, I urgently need my glasses.” Eventually, I got to the bottom of his sudden change of heart. His teacher had asked him to sit in the front of the class until his glasses arrived, when he could return to the back. Where bribery, Harry Potter and even my Jackie Os failed, thanks to his teacher’s very sound move, he is now a firm member of The Glasses Gang.
