Well-developed listening skills are important – not only for your child’s language development but also for your child’s social skills. Wearing hearing aids is important for social success, but some children reject their hearing aids for social reasons such as, fear of lack of acceptance or feeling self-conscious around peers or strangers.

Supporting your child’s social skills

Children with hearing loss are most often able to interact socially on equal terms with children without hearing impairment. Your child’s ability to develop social skills will depend upon their age, degree of hearing loss, time of diagnosis, treatment, and of course, personality.

Some children with hearing loss may feel left out because they do not always recognize subtle cues or a person asking for attention and consequently may not be able to respond with appropriate behavioral adjustments. That’s why the correct hearing aids, tools and techniques are important but also that people around your child are trained and learn how to communicate.

“What are those things on your ears?”

All children want to be “normal” and be an accepted member of a social group – almost at any cost. For some children, a way of solving the problem of fitting in is to take off their hearing aids and “fake” that they are able to understand what is going on.

Your child might try to reject or minimize their use of hearing aids to appear “normal”. They might also find it difficult to ask for help at school because they do not want to draw attention to themselves. As your child grows it is natural that they will listen more and more to their peers and start to question what you say. As parents we cannot protect our children from hurtful situations. But we can acknowledge their feelings, reassure them that they are doing well and convince them that wearing hearing aids is important - all the time. Encouraging your child to wear hearing aids with Oticon BrainHearing^TM technology can support your child's acceptance of wearing them due to the strong speech processing and speech understanding benefits.

Practice responses

Give your child some ideas of phrases they can use when responding to questions or comments about their hearing aids. Engage other family members to discuss solutions to different socializing issues in a relaxed way.

Introduce to other users

Your child will benefit from meeting with other hearing aid users. Around them they will feel “normal”, they can share experiences and support each other. Ask your community or hearing care professional for help. This could also include social media groups and blogs.

Empower your child

Encouraging your child to take responsibility of their hearing loss is key to motivating them to wear their hearing aids. Involve them in caring for their equipment and teach them self-advocacy.

Educate others

Invite your child’s friends over to your home and let them ask questions. You can also talk to the teacher about having “hearing” as a theme at school or inviting a hearing care professional to come and talk about hearing impairment.

Socializing in large gatherings

Social activities, such as family dinners, parties and large gatherings can often be very challenging and tiring for a child with hearing loss. Hearing aids with BrainHearing technology can help your child to distinguish speech from background noise, focus on what is being said, and avoid annoying feedback during hugs.

Oticon hearing aids for children

Going to school

For children with hearing loss in a classroom setting, EduMic, a wireless remote microphone system can make one-to-many communication between the teacher and multiple students easier. By simply having the teacher wear the lightweight and discreet EduMic, students can hear the teacher's voice loud and clear through their Oticon hearing aids.

Read about classroom solutions

Staying connected through gadgets

Oticon hearing aids allow children and teens to connect to the modern world. Our current hearing aids have Made for iPhone® functionality and a wide range of Bluetooth® connection options. Children and teens can use their hearing aids to connect to classroom electronics. They can also use them to enjoy other activities like talking on the phone, listening to music, watching videos and more.

ConnectClip
Oticon’s ConnectClip is a small wireless microphone that is the perfect solution for difficult listening environments requiring clear and effective one-to-one communication at home, in school or on the sports field.

ConnectClip can also turn Oticon hearing aids into a wireless headset for gaming and allow for the streaming of calls hands-free from any modern smartphone. With ConnectClip, children and teens can listen to music in rich, high-quality stereo and chat online with friends. By using ConnectClip, children and teens can gain access to the same Bluetooth-enabled devices as their peers with sound streamed directly to their hearing aids.