It is that time of year again! Back-to-School! Millions of parents around the country are rushing to stores to buy all the newest school supplies and outfits. While you are going through your list of school supplies make sure to not skip your child’s eye health. 

You can’t underestimate the importance of ensuring your children have healthy eyes and good vision during the course of their education. Having healthy vision is essential in ensuring academic success no matter what the age. Children are especially susceptible to vision problems during their education because they are still growing so it is important that parents remain vigilant about their eye health. If we can identify vision problems in your children earlier, then the damage can be minimalized.

To ensure your child’s vision stays healthy throughout the school year, the American Academy of Ophthalmology has these recommendations:

1.     Regular eye exams for your child – As mentioned earlier children’s eyes experience rapid changes due to their body still growing and maturing, this makes regular eye exams that much more important to detect these problems as early as possible before they have an effect on your child’s academic success.

2.     Make sure your child is wearing protective eyewear while playing sports – Injuries from outdoor activities like Sports are fairly common, but what is less known is that eye injuries from this activity happen pretty commonly. Some of these injuries can be serious and cause permanent damage to your child’s vision, so it is important that they are using the right protective eyewear for their outdoor activities.

3.     Know your families eye health history – Knowing your families eye health history is important because you can inform the eye doctor of the history when your child is undergoing an eye exam. This provides your eye doctor with a little insight and helps them know what to be on the lookout for as your child continues to grow. Common vision conditions include: nearsightedness, farsightedness and lazy eye. It is important these are cart early so as to minimize the damages.

4.     Be on the lookout for signals that there might be a problem with your child’s vision – It is important to be vigilant with detecting symptoms of vision problems. If your child starts to complain about issues involving recurring headaches, eyestrain and you notice he/she is squinting a lot when reading then it is time for a visit to the eye doctor. If your child’s grades also begin to suddenly drop that could also be caused by problems with their vision.