There is a trend of children wearing spectacles earlier than we did in my generation. To be honest, I didn’t expect J, our eight years old, to wear glasses at such a young age.
I found out J needs to wear glasses in a very unglamorous way.
The other day J was getting ready for school, and I was busy in the kitchen. I asked her the time. She couldn’t answer me.
I thought, “How could this happen? She already learned how to tell time in school.”
I was a bit agitated and became impatient as I thought she would have been able to tell me the time. But she didn’t. After I asked further questions, only did I find out that she couldn’t see the wall clock clearly.
I was panicked because, as I said earlier, I didn’t expect J to wear glasses – as she didn’t watch much TV and she is not a bookworm.
I did more tests on her that day: asking her to read words on fridge magnets and product packaging. Based on my unqualified tests, I concluded that she has vision problem: short-sightedness.
Besides this incident, my wife told me that J had problems copying schoolwork too. This further proved that we needed to take some action.
Further Action We Had Taken
From the stories told to us by friends, they usually took the kids to see an ophthalmologist – a medical doctor who specializes in eye and vision care.
After doing some research and reference by friends, I settled on one ophthalmologist that, based on others’ experiences, is child-friendly (and of course adult-friendly too. But she wears funny glasses though). I made an appointment with the eye specialist first.
On the day seeing the ophthalmologist (boy it was a crowded day!), the nurse did a general eye test on J. And before the doctor did a further and detailed test, J was given some eye drops to dilate the pupils. This procedure ensured the accuracy of the test. For pupils to dilate, we had waited for an hour there. The eye drops work differently on different people. Some need longer time for the dilation to take effect, some shorter.
Before that I wondered why should we go to an ophthalmologist while we could just take J to an optical shop and get her a pair of glasses – just like what the adults do. Only later did I find out from the optician that opticians are not allowed to use the eye drops used by ophthalmologists. Without using the eye drops, the eye test will not be accurate as the child might not be able to tell what they see during the test.
It is confirmed by the ophthalmologist that J needs to wear glasses because of nearsightedness and also she has slight astigmatism. The doctor advised J to wear glasses round the clock. I asked her what caused J’s vision problems, she couldn’t give me a direct answer as there were many factors involved in causing shortsightedness in children – including genetic.
With the prescription from the ophthalmologist, we made a pair of spectacles for J from an optical shop.
Improve Vision Naturally
In fact, there are many ways to improve vision naturally, without surgery. This is what I have come across: Vision Without Glasses.
(Press “Play” button to start the video.)
If you want your child to improve his eye sight, this might be the one you are looking for. I have not tried this myself and on J yet. But this product has received a lot of good reviews from customers.
