When Is Cosmetic Surgery the Answer to Bullying?

April 4, 2011— -- Just seven years old, Samantha Shaw of Sturgis, S.D. is about to experience something very grown-up: she's going to have cosmetic surgery.

It's not because she has a serious facial deformity or a life-threatening medical condition. Samantha is having cosmetic surgery because she gets teased about her protruding ears.

"The kids at school always ask her about her ears, and sometimes adults can be worse," said Cami Roselles, Samantha's mother. "One lady walked up to her and said, 'Oh my God, what happened to your ears?'"

When people ask, Samantha just tells them she was born that way, but Roselles said the questions really bother her daughter.

"She always asks me why people ask questions. She's very sensitive, so it really does get to her."

Samantha's doctor thought her ear deformity would get better as she got older, but Roselles said nothing changed. After doing some research, she looked into a type of cosmetic procedure called otoplasty, more commonly known as "pinning back" the ears.

Samantha, who will have her otoplasty on April 5, isn't the only child to undergo cosmetic surgery because of bullying. Statistics from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery show that the number of children and teens who get cosmetic surgery increased nearly 30 percent over the past decade. Experts believe an increase in bullying behavior is one reason for the upward trend.

Brian Donoghue, an 11-year-old from Long Island, N.Y., had the surgery last summer.

His mother, Valerie, said kids at school would often ask Brian why his prominent ears looked the way they did.

"He would turn it into a 'Look what I can do with my ears' sort of thing and he'd kind of fold up his ears. The kids thought it was funny," said Donoghue.

But even though Brian was able to use a defense mechanism to fend off the taunts, his mother, who is an assistant principal at a high school on Long Island, said she's seen the effects of bullying and didn't want her son to go through that.