As parents, your primary job is to ensure children are healthy and happy. You do so by providing healthy meals, opportunities for exercise, making sure they brush their teeth, and, once a year, popping into their pediatrician for checkups. One aspect of your child’s health that often gets overlooked is eyesight. Here are the top five signs your child might need eyeglasses.
Squinting/Sitting Too Close to the TV
Prior to reading, this can be hard to pinpoint in children. You might notice them squinting, holding things close to their faces, or sitting too close to the television, and these signs are indicative of near-sightedness. You’ll need to get to an appointment with an ophthalmologist for an eye test to be sure though.
Frequent Headaches
When your children are always on the go, red flags tend to appear when they start complaining about frequent headaches. Take a step back and observe your child. Are the headaches coming after playing on the tablet? What was happening prior to the headache? Remember, their tiny heads are working overtime absorbing the world, and if their brains are also trying to correct blurred vision, this could definitely account for frequent headaches.
Covering One Eye
Much like what you experience during eye exams, when one eye is covered, the other will try to compensate and adjust. If your child is covering one eye more than the other, it could mean the eye left open is visually stronger and the covered is weaker, causing the world to become blurry. Left untreated, this could lead to serious damage to the eye that is having to work double time.
Excessive Eye Rubbing and Teary Eyes
Parents can tell, usually before their kids when it’s getting close to nap time. Usually clued by rubbing eyes. However, at the point when the children are excessively rubbing their eyes, especially if they are also watery, this could be a sign that the eyes are being overworked.
Losing Place While Reading or Using Finger to Keep Place
This one can be tricky and not as obvious as the others, especially when children are first learning how to read. If they are constantly losing their place while reading and need to use their finger as a guide, vision problems could be to blame, and a visit to the ophthalmologist for eye glasses may be needed.
If you think your child might be having eye issues, don’t wait to get it checked out. All About Eyes recommends getting early exams to check the whole family for problems. When you stay on top of all your children’s health needs, their lives down the road become a lot easier.
