hi meegm

Ive been wearing glasses since I was 11 months old - I am long sighted, have a lazy left eye and a stigmatism. (so pretty screwed lol)
Anyway, WRT to the kids teasing etc at school - it will happen, but you get over it pretty quick - I think that by the time I was finished prep I was over the "four eyes" jibe and just used to laugh at them...I also told them that I could see around corners with my glasses on lol
So dont fret that - he will deal with it if it comes to that and it isnt scarring for life or anything.

The other thing is that if you catch eye problems like the lazy eye early, there are exercises that he can do to improve and develop the muscle control in his eyes and correct it for the most part.
He also may not need to wear glasses for the rest of his life - by the time he is 10 or so he may only need them for reading, etc, or even not at all.
The basic fact of the amtter though is that if the opthamologist says he needs glasses, then get them. The sooner the better. He may not need them all the time either, but the headaches he will get from eye strain eventually are painful, long lasting and can be crippling depending on how severe they become.
Once he is old enough to understand them you can begin exercises with him, the opthamologist will show these to you and how to do them. The most basic one is to focus on something close then something far away. You should be able to do it yourself if you focus on a speck of dirt on the windscreen then focus on the car in front of you (I do mine in the car at the lights lol)

The long term issues with not correcting the problem from my experience are this: I have very poor depth perception - this can affect things like not being able to hit a tennis ball to not being able to judge stopping distance in a car. Because of the lazy eye, you will find that over time he will use only his strong eye - this will cause the shape of his eyes to be different to each other as the muscles are over used on one side and under used on the other - this is a big thing the eye exercises will help to control. The older you get the harder the problem is to correct and control.

WRT to the thickness of the lenses, you would be amazed at the lense technology there is these days - the 1950s coke bottles are not what he will wear, so dont fear I have been wearing glasses for so long now that the thought of not having them is like not having my right arm...from my personal perspective, the harm in not attempting to correct and control the problem will lead to more problems than the need to wear glasses, even if it is for the rest of his life.

Find a good opthamologist and trust them, they know what they are talking about.

Anyway, I HTH...good luck