As the summer is approaching its end, it’s back to school time for many of our kids. While most parents are busy in preparing their children for school, they might tend to miss the important aspect of children’s eye health and safety. This is why August has been declared as the “Children’s Eye Health and Safety Awareness Month”. This would help raise awareness among the parents, thereby, helping them prevent eye disorders in their children.

Why is your children’s eye health important?

Looking into your children’s eye health is really important, because if your child has an eye illness, his or her education will be affected. It would make them struggle in classes or hence, they would be seen as less intelligent than their fellow classmates. But, the actual situation is not a lack of intelligence but an eye problem. Herein, I would advise you to remember the point that almost 80% of the classes in a school are taught visually. Therefore, as a rule of thumb, the parents of children are advised to take their children for an eye examination to make sure that they are fighting any eye illness. We would say this is the best way to make sure your child is getting the best opportunity to learn and develop.

Now, let’s have a look at some of the common eye problems reported among children.

Amblyopia:

This eye condition is commonly referred to as “lazy eye”. Amblyopia is a condition of decreased vision, and is generally caused due to an abnormal visual growth in infancy and early childhood. This condition is found to be the top-most cause of reduced vision among children. The treatment for this eye condition would include any of the following:

• Eye patches
• Eye drops
• Glasses
• Contact lenses
• Surgery

Strabismus:

This is otherwise referred to as “crossed eyes”, and is a condition where the eyes are lined up incorrectly. If a child has been affected with this condition, he or she would look in different directions with each of his or her eyes focusing on different objects. This is another common eye problem among children affecting around 4% of children aged six years and below. The actual reason for this eye problem is still mysterious, although it’s found to be in running in families. This condition can be usually corrected using eye glasses or surgery.

Warning signs of eye problems in your child:

If you or your doctor finds the following warning signs in your children, you are advised to make an appointment with an ophthalmologist for further examination. Those warning signs are as follows:

• Crossed eyes
• Wandering eyes
• Family history of vision issues
• Disinterest in reading/viewing distant elements
• Squinting/turning the head in a weird manner while watching TV
• Frequent eyes rubbing
• Squeezing eyes

Here, we would like to stress a point that several of these eye conditions can be treated and your child’s vision can be restored to normal if diagnosed earlier. Conversely, if the problem is not diagnosed at an earlier stage and left untreated, the treatments might become ineffective in the later part of life.

Sports and eye safety:

Not only are eye defects common among children, but eye injuries are also common among children in the United States. Most of these eye injuries are found to be sports-related. A statistical report shows that nearly 42,000 sports-related injuries are happening every year, and most of them are found to be occurring in children.

In order to prevent injuries during sports, it’s important to have our children wear proper protective eyewear to save their eyes. Herein, remember that almost 90% of sports-related eye injuries can be prevented by using protective eyewear. Even if the sports league of your child doesn’t want him or her to use eyewear, as a parent, you have the right to stress the importance of your child’s eye health and safety.

Another way you need to be cautious as a parent is by giving your child the correct age-appropriate toys. You must definitely avoid giving them any sharp or protruding ones. Also, whenever you take them outdoors, be sure to make them wear sunglasses. The child’s sunglasses would save his or her eyes from dangerous UV rays.

Eye safety plans and programs:

There is an act called the “Affordable Care Act” through which parents can now sign up for health insurance plans. This would provide your children with a complete coverage for comprehensive eye examinations along with the glasses or contact lens for rectifying a defect.

In addition, there are several education programs for eye health and safety in place. These programs would educate you, your children, and their teachers about the parts of the eye, how it works, and how to protect, and so on. By learning the importance of the eyes and eye vision, we will be in a better position to save them too.