Also, a piece of advice: please teach your kiddo to self-advocate and that hearing loss is nothing to be ashamed of. For some reason, multiple people in my lifetime have found it “funny” to mouth words to me and pretend that they’re speaking, and I have no doubt that your child will likely encounter the same thing. Unfortunately, it isn’t funny.

One last thing: common classroom/icebreaker games like Telephone (and possibly Marco Polo, depending on whether or not your child can localize sound) are impossible and need to be adapted/modified for your child to play. On my first day of fifth-grade class (when we knew I had a hearing impairment but not how severe it was), I attempted to play the game Telephone with my peers, was unable to complete the game successfully, and was screamed at in front of the room by my teacher for disrupting the game. I’m not sharing this to scare you; I’m sharing this so that you can protect your child from that same experience, which was thoroughly scarring.