Children's Vision: The Facts
A guest article by Orlin Sorensen of Rebuild Your Vision
Pencils, notebooks, crayons, chalk. It's that time again: summer has packed its bags, and you're filling your children's backpacks with all the supplies they'll need to succeed. But have you left out the most important school tool?
 According to All About Vision, more than 80% of what a child learns in school is presented visually, so following good vision practices for your kids can make a huge difference in their academic performance.
The Warning Signs
First and foremost, you need to pay attention to the signs that your child may have a vision impairment. A new national survey, reported by US News & World Report, shows that more than 20% of kids aged 12 to 17 have trouble seeing the classroom chalkboard. That's 1 in 5 kids with blurry vision.
Perhaps even more surprisingly, about 25% of children aged 6 to 11 have a vision impairment strong enough for them to wear prescription glasses.
And yet more than 66% of kids under the age of 6 have never had their eyes examined by an eye doctor, the survey found. Little kids don't know how to tell you they're having problems seeing; they just squint or sit right in front of the TV.
These signs could indicate that your child has a vision problem. Look out for:
- frequent eye rubbing
- tilting the head to see better
- excessive tearing
- light sensitivity
- using a finger to follow along while reading
- complaining of headaches or tired eyes
- closing one eye to read, watch TV, or see better
If your child exhibits the above signs, make an appointment with your eye doctor.
When To Get Your Child's Vision Tested
Don't wait until something goes wrong to see the eye doctor. And don't rely on the school nurse or your pediatrician to monitor your child's vision, as some pediatricians don't perform vision screenings. (School screenings are designed to alert parents to the possibility of a visual problem, not to replace a visit to an expert eye care practitioner.) Even if your child exhibits no symptoms of visual problems, he or she should have an eye exam by the age of 6 months, then again at age 3, according to the American Optometric Association. Having a complete eye exam before your child enters school allows for enough time to catch and correct any problems while the visual system is developing.
Healthy Habits
An important healthy vision habit to instill in your child is this: get them used to wearing sunglasses. They need sun protection just as much as adults do - maybe even more, since they (hopefully) spend more time playing outdoors in direct sunlight. Which leads to what may be the biggest kid problem of our modern age: getting them away from the TV, computer, and video games.
Yes, they may protest at first, but setting reasonable limits on indoor activities like these not only helps their physical development (and helps prevent such pervasive modern diseases as childhood diabetes, which can lead to serious vision problems, even blindness), but also their long distance vision.
Avoiding Near Point Stress
Though heredity seems to play a significant role in the development of myopia in childhood, All About Vision notes that some research suggests eye strain - specifically computer eye strain - may also be involved. As we know at Rebuild Your Vision, near point stress is caused by the eyeball straining to see clearly up close. Some researchers think that fatigue caused by excessive focusing can lead to changes within the eye that cause myopia. And experts agree that focusing on images on a computer screen causes greater eye fatigue than reading print in a book or magazine. So have your child follow the same computer-use rules that Rebuild Your Vision teaches, particularly the 10-10-10 rule: every 10 minutes your child should take his or her eyes off the computer and look at an object at least 10 feet away for at least 10 seconds.
And when you do get your child to play outside, remember to provide protective eyewear for sports activities. Prevent Blindness America estimates that about 40,000 sports-related eye injuries each year in the US are severe enough to require emergency room care - and some 90% of these injuries could easily be prevented by wearing protective eyewear.
Child Eye Nutrition
Finally, we at Rebuild Your Vision believe strongly in "feeding your eyes"; it has been proven over and over that good nutrition leads to healthy vision. And what better way to set your child on the right visual path (as well as a path of allover health) than getting them used to a nutritious diet at an early age? While you may have to come up with some creative ways to sneak fruits and veggies into their meals (see Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook, Deceptively Delicious, for tips and recipes), when your child brings home a good report card, it'll all be worth it.
 About The Author
Orlin Sorensen is the creator of Rebuild Your Vision, an eye exercise course designed to help anyone improve their natural vision. With vision training routines designed for high degrees of myopia, hyperopia, presbyopia and astigmatism, Rebuild Your Vision can help you overcome your need for glasses and contact lenses for life. It also contains some excellent vision routines for your child to practice if they start showing signs of poor vision.
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