Megan used her hair to hide her ears, which have curled out since the day she was born.
"As she was growing up, it didn't self-correct," Jason Monforton, Megan's father, told 9NEWS.
For Megan, it was more than about how her ears looked.
"Before, they were bending, so I couldn't hear," Megan said.
"We did some investigation and found out that there's a pretty easy way to get her ears fixed and straightened so they wouldn't bother her in the future," her father said. "It wasn't an easy decision. It took a long time for us to really come to a conclusion."
Doctors say more kids are now having plastic surgery.
Dr. Jeffery Raval, the medical director and owner of Raval Facial Aesthetics and Rocky Mountain Laser Aesthetics, says most teens come in for nasal reshaping, sometimes after a sports injury.
"We have people who play high-school sports, or even middle-school sports, who break their nose or can't even breath out of their nose," he said. "If they are full-grown or very close to full-grown, sometimes they're interested in reshaping the nose as well."
Psychologists say parents of children and teens need to consider several things before their child goes under the knife.
"The most important thing for a parent to know is what their child's motivation is for wanting to have this surgery done," Dr. Mindy Solomon, a clinical psychologist at Children's Hospital Colorado, said. "Their brains aren't fully developed, and their identity isn't fully developed."
She says allowing some children or teens change their appearance could keep them from learning resilience and could actually lead to more bullying.
"If someone with a very obvious nose imperfection went to get a nose job, couldn't the teasing now focus on the fact that they've had a nose job?" Solomon said. "I don't think we can ward off teasing saying, 'If we make everybody look perfect there's no reason to tease them.'"
If your child wants surgery to look like a celebrity, Solomon says to beware.
"When kids aspire to be like some image that they see of perfection, I think you're on a slippery slope," she said.
In cases of perceived abnormalities like birth defects, Solomon says, psychologically speaking, the benefits of surgery can outweigh the risks.
"Everyone's situation is different. Sometimes the kids are really traumatized by some kind of perceived facial abnormality," Dr. Nicolette Picerno, who performed Megan's surgery, said. "I think each decision has to be personally made with the child and family members."
For the Monfortons, they wanted to make sure their daughter didn't feel pressured to be anybody but who she was.
"I sure wouldn't want Megan to feel like she needed to do anything to her body to look differently than what she grows up to be," Monforton said. "[We] really just felt like it would be a long-term benefit for Megan."
Megan says she helped to make the decision.
"When we got them straightened, they just popped right back straight!" she said. "I like them how they are now."
Megan's dad says he noticed the difference in his daughter's attitude right away.
"Megan says she really didn't notice, but I can tell you, she could never wear her hair like this," Monforton said of Megan's pigtails and ponytails. "We never saw her hair for two years. Now she wears her hair in lots of different ways and shows people her ears a lot more, and nobody even thinks about it now."
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