General Eye Care Tipsfor Children
Limit Screen Time: Excessive screen time can strain children's eyes, leading to blurry vision, headaches, and tired eyes. Consider limiting screen time excluding educational purposes.
Encourage Outdoor Play: Outdoor activities are beneficial for eye health, relaxing eye muscles. Playing sports helps develop dynamic vision, tracking, and spatial awareness.
Promote a Balanced Diet: A diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and omega-3 fatty acids is essential for eye health. Include foods like carrots, sweet potatoes, spinach, and fish in their diet.
Practice Good Hygiene: Teach children to wash their hands frequently to prevent eye infections. Avoid touching or rubbing their eyes, especially with dirty hands.
Ensure Proper Viewing Distance: Encourage children to maintain a healthy distance from screens and reading materials.
Protect from the Sun: Encourage children to wear sunglasses with UV protection when outdoors.
Difference between school screening and eye examination
It is important to know that a vision screening by a child's paediatrician or at his or her preschool is not the same as a comprehensive eye and vision examination by an ophthalmologist.
Vision screenings are a limited process and can't be used to diagnose an eye or vision problem, but rather may indicate a potential need for further evaluation
Reasons to get an eye examination
Vision quality can change from year to year.A child who can see well one year may experience a change in their vision by the same time the next year.
Poor vision can impact learning. Struggling to read assignments or a teacher's notes on the board can have a noticeable impact on a child's ability to learn in the classroom
Better vision equals better safety.For parents of teenagers approaching driving age, eye exams should be near the top of the to-do list. Traffic lights, road signs, and even other vehicles must all be seen at a distance if one wishes to drive safely.
Caring for one's eyes is a lifelong responsibility. Someday, your child's health will be their own responsibility. Creating a foundation of good habits begins when they are young, and eye health should be a part of those habits
Eye exam can reveal early signs of issues.These examinations focus on more than just diagnosing near- or farsightedness and prescribing glasses. Identifying issues early on will help your care providers to implement the best plans for a positive outcome.
Vision correction can increase your child's comfort.Children, often struggle to describe the problems they experience due to poorer eyesight. Ophthalmologist is there to help and to answer any questions you may have. You should not only feel free to engage in the process, but to encourage your child to do so too.
Signs Your Child Needsan Eye Check-up
Complaining of headaches: When children overly strain their eyes to focus, it causes headaches over extended periods of time.
ye fatigue after reading: Eye fatigue can cause burning, itching, and tiredness. It might be difficult to notice these symptoms in a child, but if a child is falling behind in reading comprehension or shies away from reading activities, this might be the culprit.
Poor sports performance: If a child’s visual processing seems slow, this might be a sign that there is a vision issue at play. A child with an untreated vision problem might perform poorly in sports due to clumsiness, poor hand-eye coordination, the inability to focus, or depth perception problems.
Squinting or closing one eye: Squinting does not damage the eyes, but it might be a sign that a child needs glasses. By squinting, a child is subconsciously attempting to make the pupil smaller, therefore letting in less light and enhancing his/her focus.
Blinking or rubbing eyes: If a child rubs his/her eyes while trying to concentrate on an activity, particularly reading, or while being active, it could mean the child has a vision problem.
Poor reading ability and comprehension: Good vision is essential for students of all ages to reach their full academic potential. If a child seems disinterested in reading, is sidetracked easily, does not understand material read, or reads the same sentence multiple times, it might be time to schedule an eye exam.
Poor school performance: It is important for parents to remember that children do not have a concept of poor vision, so they might not always tell you when they cannot read something their teacher writes on the blackboard. As a result, their grades can suffer.
Holding electronic devices or books too close to the eyes: It is a myth that sitting too close to electronic devices can hurt your eyes, but if a child is sitting too close to the TV or holding a book too close to his/her face, it might be a sign of a vision problem. Leaning in closely to read text or see images on the television may mean that the child is living with near-sightedness.
Losing their place while reading: Using a finger to track the words can be typical behaviour for children while learning to read, but pay attention to this behaviour. They eventually should be able to focus on the words without losing their place.