How to tell if my child needs glasses
In most cases, babies are born with very good eyesight and it remains for several years. But there are more and more cases in which at an early age your eyesight begins to fail, a situation that can go unnoticed by us as parents if we don’t pay enough attention.
For younger kids who still don’t speak well or don’t know how to explain why they don’t look good, here are some of the signs that can mean your child needs glasses. If you identify some of them in your little one, take them to your doctor as soon as possible.
Signs that your child needs glasses
- Bringing things closer: If you notice your child brings books or devices closer to read them than the normal reading distance.
- They present headaches, nausea, or dizziness while reading or watching TV.
- He or she falls a lot.
- He’s got clumsy moves.
- He’s starting to lower his performance at school.
- He rubs his eyes often.
- He tends to watch TV very closely: even though you ask him to walk away and when you neglect, it’s already back glued to the screen.
- Stuck eyes: closing their eyes trying to focus something is evidence that you are forcing your eyesight.
- Redness of the eyes: this is a result of forcing the eye.
- Changes in games preferences: If you used to enjoy an activity and suddenly prefer to change it, it can mean that poor vision prevents you from continuing to do so and you don’t feel safe.
Another fact we need to take into account is genetic inheritance. If there is a history of nearsightedness in the family, your children have high chances to wear glasses, and it rises even higher if Mom and Dad have any vision distortion, such as myopia.
But that is not the only factor at all. In these technological times, the constant exposure of our eyes to so many screens weakens the vision. According to research published in the journal Nature, in Asian countries, there is already a “myopia epidemic”. In China, for example, sixty years ago the percentage of people suffering from this problem was limited to 20%, and today it reaches 90% among adolescents and young adults.
This study also indicates that over the past 50 years the number of short-sighted people in the world has doubled; it is estimated that by 2020 a third of the world’s population will be short-sighted and by 2050 half of humanity will be short-sighted.
What should we learn about children’s vision?
It’s not good for children to watch so much TV or make a lot of use of tablets and other devices. It is not good for your brain development, nor for the growth of your social skills, not even to mention for your eyesight.
The best practice is the supervised and measured use of these technologies, and return to the basics: happy and healthy children playing outdoors. In addition, doctors recommend that children wear dark lenses to the outside to decrease radiation from the sun in their eyes and damage them less.
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