Eye issues of preschoolers
preschool children can be fine-tuning the vision when they master the complex hand-eye coordination. They can ride bicycles in right direction they want to go while dealing with pedal and steer. For some old preschoolers, they also play more sophisticated sports. Though preschool children who have already developed their vision during infant and toddle years, they are vulnerable to vision problems if they don’t correct some bad habits.
You should make sure whether your children have the following refractive errors. Your kids may be used to sit too close to the TV and sometimes they just close one eye to watch. Some children prefer reading at close range, which can also lead to nearsightedness. Behaviors like squinting and tilting the head to see better are warning signs. Excessive tearing and light sensitivity are warning signs as well. Encountered any of these above situations, it is essential to schedule an appointment with your eye care practitioner.
Vision problems such as farsightedness, nearsightedness and astigmatism are very common in preschool children. Excessive farsightedness can lead to strabismus. For severe crossed eye, a surgery is needed. Some untreated strabismus may cause amblyopia and eventually blindness. Nearsightedness and astigmatism also require correction with glasses. They can both lead to blurry vision.
As children’s visual systems are flexible and elastic at the preschool stage, it is very necessary for children to take a complete eye exam before they enter school. Generally, children should receive an eye exam by the age of 6 months if they don’t have some vision problems or some refractive errors according to the American Optometric Association (AOA). If your kids require corrections for nearsightedness, farsightedness or strabismus, you’d better to arrange an exam every year. Annual prescription changes of eyeglasses or contact lenses are very common in children.
Another important aspect is that you should make sure if your children have received a comprehensive eye exam, not only screenings. Sometimes screenings are not administered by eye care practitioners and may not reflect your kids’ eye condition correctly.
After the eye exam of your kids, you also need to encourage them to wear eyeglasses in proper way. You should explain why they need to wear eyeglasses and give some specific example if necessary. When choosing frames, you should respect your kids’ choice. In addition to the better vision, you also need to pay attention to the comfort of frames. Since the result of eye exams may be influenced by physical condition, it is not wise to visit an eye doctor when your kid is tired or hungry.
Kids and eye wear
In today’s world higher percentage of kids are getting disorders of eyesight, mostly nearsighted. Some of the kids get pseudomyopia which needs to be treated by doctors and they may recover to normal. While for some other kids the disorder of their eyesight become irreversible, then these kids need to buy eye wear to correct their sight.
Eye wear for kids range from eye wear with childhood marks or logos to some mature styles or a combination of both. When choosing eye wear for kids, one thing that should keep in mind is that we must let kids be an active participant to selecting the eye wear for them. This ensures that they will like to wear their eye wear. If kids do not like the eye wear, their frequent taking-off or eye wear from their heads will only worsen their eyesight.
On the frame materials, experts recommend parents to buy plastic eye wear instead of metal ones. In choosing the lenses, better quality anti-scratch lenses will be the first choice, as kids may use unsuitable cloth or paper to clean the lenses which will cause scratches and make the lenses blurry.
As kids are in the ages of fast growing, one pair of eye wear may become unfit in a short time. So a new pair of eye wear is necessary if the frame size does not fit again.
Another thing worth pointing is that parents need to carefully observe the reaction of kids after putting on a new eye wear, and be sensitively aware of any change of eyesight. If unfavorable thing occurs, consult and see a doctor for a new prescription, and get a new eye wear.