little four eyes

One of my biggest worries when Zoe got her glasses was how she would do with her glasses when she was at daycare.  While they’ve always been wonderful with Zoe, I was sure that they would not be interested in spending all day fighting with her to get her to keep her glasses on.  When we first got Zoe’s glasses, I asked my source for glasses advice (the lady at the glasses shop) if she had any advice for me to pass along to her daycare providers.  The woman just told me that her teachers would have to figure something out.  That was the one time I got completely unhelpful advice from that shop.  I also hoped that since I was home with her the first week she had her glasses, that she’d be a spectacle-wearing pro when she went back to daycare.  Alas, it was not to be.  There were days, those first weeks, when they weren’t able to get her to wear her glasses, and we’d find them sitting in her cubby when we picked her up at the end of the day.  Luckily, she started wearing them reliably within a few weeks, so that part didn’t last long.  Still, knowing that she and her glasses were out of my control added stress to an already stressful time.

Whether or not your child is in daycare, there will be times when they’re being watched by someone who is likely less familiar with young kids in glasses than you are.  Here’s a few tips:

Information for your child care provider about your child’s glasses:

• 

  Should kids go without glasses when playing sports? It’s often safer for them to be wearing their glasses so they can see during those activities.  (Check with your child’s doctor, or think about getting sports goggles if you’re concerned about safety)

  When should your child be wearing his or her glasses?  Or maybe it would be easier to tell them when the glasses are allowed to come off (for example: nap, bath time, face washing).

• What do you want them to do when your child takes off their glasses?   This includes what to do with the glasses during nap time, or other times when your child should not be wearing glasses, but also, how should they handle your child not wanting to wear their glasses.
• Make sure they understand how vital wearing glasses is to your child’s visual development.  Since a lot of farsighted kids can function very well with glasses, it’s easy for someone to think they don’t need their glasses.
• Make sure they know how to help your child take off and put on glasses (using both hands).
• Ask them to keep an eye out for dirty lenses and make sure they know how to clean the glasses without scratching the lenses.
• Are there any activities your child should not be doing because of their vision?  Or any activities that might be particularly difficult?  Make sure they know about it and talk with them about ways to help your child during those activities.
• If your child patches, how long should they patch, when, and what should they do with the patch when your child is done?  In this case, you should also keep them up to date on how well your child can see when patching.  There may be some activities that are too frustrating, especially in the beginning with patching.
• If your child wears contacts, you should provide similar information about when and how they should be removed.
• Are there any things having to do with your child’s vision that you want them to watch out for (for example: eyes not straight, squinting, looking over the glasses)?
• Make sure they have contact information for your child’s eye doctor, and under what circumstances should they be contacted.
• If something does happen to the glasses (or contacts), what do you want them to do with the wreckage.

Things to provide (or to make sure your child care provider knows where they are):

• Glasses case.
• Glasses cleaning cloth and cleaning spray.
• Prescription sunglasses or clip on sunglasses if necessary.  Same with sports or swimming goggles if they’ll be needed.
• Extra patches, if they’re patching.
• Contact cases and solution if they wear contacts.

Am I missing anything?  (Update:  Thanks for the great suggestions!  I’ve been adding them to the list as I get a chance)

Update:  Thank you for all the great responses.  I got some great suggestions and I’ve updated this in response. 

As I was reading through the comments on my last post (asking for favorite comments about your child in glasses), it got me thinking about the good things to say to young kids in glasses, and to their parents.  And that, of course, led to me thinking about the things not to say.  Now, I’m sure there’s going to be some disagreement on some of these things.  Different people (kids and parents alike) are sensitive to different types of comments, what one person finds funny might really upset someone else.  Still, I expect there’s some general guidelines we could pull together.  All the examples below are comments that we’ve gotten personally, or ones I’ve heard about through this blog and the facebook group.

Oh, and there’s nothing wrong with saying nothing about the glasses.  It can be really hard when a child is first starting to wear glasses, even when they’re too young to care what anyone thinks.  A lot of times parents get them to wear their glasses by distracting them with an interesting trip out and about.  Having someone point out the glasses may remind the child that the glasses are there, leading to more struggles to keep them on.  But I’ve come to the realization that sometimes, you see this little one in glasses and you just have to say something.

So let’s start with what not to say:

• 

  Yes, they're real...and with them, my vision is spectacular!

  “Are those real?”
  No, they’re just imaginary.  It’s such a silly question, and yet it’s one of the most common questions that parents of a young child in glasses get.  Yes, our children look very cute in them, but believe us when we say that we would not spend the money and effort to get our child to wear these if they weren’t needed.

• “What’s wrong with your child?”  or “What’s wrong with her eyes?“
  While it’s totally reasonable to wonder why a child is wearing glasses, asking what’s “wrong” with them is really hurtful.  It’s a pretty good bet that they’re wearing glasses because their vision needs correcting (though they could be protective if the child is blind in one eye).  You could ask why the child needs glasses, without using the term “wrong”  if it’s something that you really want to know.
• Any nonsense about glasses hurting the child’s vision, or questioning whether the eye doctor got things wrong.
  Again, no one puts glasses on our children without good reason.  The glasses are there to help our child’s vision develop correctly.
• “Poor baby!”
  Glasses can be difficult, and bad vision is nothing to sneeze at, but the glasses are correcting our children’s vision.  They’re helping them to see, they don’t need pity.
• Just pointing or staring or making mocking gestures about the glasses.
  It’s just rude.  Don’t do it.  I’m sure you were raised better than that.
• He looks so cute in those glasses!
  This seems like a nice thing to say, and yes, it’s true, our kids do look cute in their glasses, but it makes it sound like they wouldn’t look cute without their glasses, and that’s simply not true.
• She looks so smart in those glasses!
  Again, this sounds like our children don’t look smart without glasses.  And besides, glasses have a magical ability to help our kids see better, but they don’t have any ability to change our child’s intelligence (not that our kids would need it).

Things to say

• Comment on something other than the glasses
  One of the fears I’ve often heard from parents is that people will always focus on their child’s glasses, and not on them.  And that fear isn’t unfounded, the majority of comments that I hear from strangers about Zoe are related to her glasses.  So buck the trend: compliment the child’s beautiful eyes, or their smile, or their quick wit, or how fast they run, or how well behaved they are.  We’d love it.
• Comment on a specific aspect of the glasses.
  Rather than simply saying a child looks cute in glasses, you could talk about how the color of the glasses brings out our child’s eyes, or that their shape really compliments his face, or that the glasses really match her personality.  If the child is old enough, you could ask if they picked out the glasses and tell them what a good job they did with that.

If you do comment on the glasses, don’t be surprised if the child is really shy or upset by it.  Zoe is normally a talkative kid, but she often clams up when she gets comments on her glasses.

Questions

We all get a lot of questions about our children’s glasses, probably the younger the child, the more questions we hear.  A parent of a young child in glasses gets pretty good at answering questions about how they knew their child needed glasses, how on earth you get a child to wear glasses, or how they can test a pre-verbal baby’s vision.  Please ask, especially if you have a young child yourself, because good vision is extremely important, and if we can help someone catch a vision problem early, then that’s a great thing.

One of the cards for new glasses. The flag reads "Hooray for glasses!", the inside reads "Happy new glasses day!"

I’m pretty excited to let everyone know that I’ve started a Zazzle store with some Little Four Eyes items.  I asked Meagan Nishi, the artist behind a lot of our coloring pages, to create some images for new glasses cards, t-shirts, and stickers.  At the moment, there are 3 designs for cards, 2 designs for shirts, and 3 designs for stickers.

Take a look!

I’m especially excited about the cards, since I think they could be a fun way to celebrate a child getting their first pair of glasses (or even a new pair of glasses).

I ordered a few of the items to make sure that the quality was good, so I have a few pieces to give away: 2 new glasses cards, and 2 shirts (a 24 month t-shirt and a 12 month onesie).  I’ll post those giveaways separately over the next few days.

I’ve added a link to the store to the Gear page.

A sheet of 20 stickers. The text inside the drums reads "Everyone can rock glasses!"

Children's Eye Foundation's 2012 Visions of Home calendar (click to see a pdf of the full calendar)

Update: Check out the photos below that have been submitted by readers.  Click on any picture to be taken to the page to vote – please take a moment to vote for them or any other photos you like if you have a chance.  And please leave a comment to let me know if you’ve also entered a picture so I can add it to the list!  Scroll down for details about the contest and how to enter

Star Bright

Sweet Lily

IOLs+Bifocals = Amazing Peepers

Pinktastic

Little Cutie

~~~

It is once again time for the annual Children’s Eye Foundation’s photo contest.  The photo contest is run each year to choose pictures for the foundation’s Eye Care for Eye Care calendar.  Take a look at last year’s calendar, it’s a beautiful calendar, with a number of Little Four Eyes readers’ children included.

This year’s theme is “Jeepers, Creepers…Amazing Peepers.”  The top ten vote-getting photos will win a digital camera.  A panel of judges will also choose 12 photos from the submissions to use in the 2013 calendar.

The contest is open to anyone.  You can submit a photo on the Children’s Eye Foundation site, and see the full terms and conditions.  The contest is open until September 27, 2012.

If you do submit a photo, would you let me know by leaving a comment?  I’ll start a post listing the photos that have been submitted by the community so that others can vote for them if they’d like.

After reading the comments on the poll about how long it takes kids to leave their glasses on, it sounds like people were interested in whether the prescription strength makes a difference in how well a child takes to glasses.  So I’ve decided to put together a huge survey of experiences of young children in glasses.  I’m hoping to pull together information on how quickly children take to their glasses, but also why they wear their glasses, and how strong their prescription is, and what other treatments they’ve received, and other experiences.

As far as I can tell, this would be the first such survey, and I’ll publish the results on Little Four Eyes (responses will be anonymous, of course).

But I wanted to ask all of you, are there any questions or topics you’d love to have that I could ask?

Zoe in her third pair of glasses (from Peeps Eyewear), and me in my second pair (from Cafe).

(Ok, not everything, that’s an exaggeration, but it sounds better than the title “Some things I know about glasses…”).  I was recently at the eye doctors for my normal eye check up.  I’d decided that I was finally going to get myself a second pair of glasses.  I could say that it’s because I want a back up just in case something happens to one pair, but I’d be lying.  I’ve found myself jealous recently of Zoe’s 3 pairs of glasses, and the fact that she gets to choose which pair she’s going each morning.  After I chose my frames, I was talking with the optician about my lens choices, when he stopped for a moment and observed that I really seemed to know a lot about glasses.  It made me chuckle, but indeed, I do know a whole lot more about glasses now.  I’ve had glasses since I was 10, but it wasn’t until we embarked on this journey with Zoe that I really learned much about glasses.

Some other things I’ve learned since Zoe got her glasses:

1. I’d never bothered to figure out what those numbers on the prescription mean.  Now I can tell people way more about what they mean than anyone probably wants to know.  Funny thing, though.  I have Zoe’s prescription memorized, but not mine.
2. I used to wipe my lenses with whatever cloth or tissue was nearby.  I know better now.
3. I also used to take my glasses on and off with one hand.  That was until we took Zoe’s glasses in for adjustment because the ear pieces were bending out, and we were both told to use both hands.
4. Speaking of adjustments, I’m no longer afraid to go in to get my glasses adjusted if they bother me.

Of course, there are a few things I still haven’t gotten through my thick skull:

1. I still forget to take off my glasses when I’m putting on a shirt with a tight-fitting neck, leaving me to struggle helplessly with the shirt half over my face, stuck on my frames.
2. That “on your face or in their case” rule that I posted recently?  I’m really, really bad at it.  The worst part being that if I don’t have my glasses on, my vision is bad enough that I can’t see my glasses.  Another great reason to have 2 pair!

A study was published this past September that looked at the safety and accuracy of glasses ordered online – including children’s glasses:  “Safety and compliance of prescription spectacles ordered by the public via the Internet,” by Karl Citek, published in Optometry, vol. 82, iss. 9 , pgs 549-555, Sept. 2011   The full text of the article is available here.

The study found that nearly half of the glasses ordered were either the wrong prescription, the wrong lens style, or the lenses failed impact testing.

It’s important to note that this study looked only at online retailers where you can buy both the frames and prescription lenses online.  Cases where the frames are purchased online, but have the lenses filled by a local optical shop would not have the problems identified in this study.

Overall, the study found that nearly half of all glasses they ordered online had a problem, either with the prescription being wrong, the lens type (single vision vs bi-focal) being wrong, or with the lenses not passing impact resistance testing – and that problem existed regardless of the cost of those glasses online.  Probably the most disturbing finding of the study was that in 25% of the glasses for children, the lenses failed impact testing.  Given how active kids can be, it’s extremely important for our children’s glasses to not shatter on impact.  The study did find that all of the polycarbonate lenses that were ordered did pass the impact resistance testing.  Some of the children’s glasses also had incorrect prescriptions.

A couple of interesting pieces from that study include the fact that the rate of problems with prescription errors was similar to the error rate at traditional optical labs, it’s just that when you order glasses through a traditional optical shop, there are additional checkpoints, and nearly all the problems have been caught and correct before the glasses even make it to the shop. The article also mentioned that some of the researchers had difficulties placing the orders correctly with some of the vendors, this despite the fact that the researchers were quite knowledgeable about eyewear.  So if you’ve felt confused by some of those sites, you’re not alone.

So given this study, I would be much more hesitant to purchase glasses online for Zoe, and I would not recommend it for a primary pair glasses.  If you do order glasses online, you can – and should! – take the glasses in to your eye doctor.  He or she can verify that the prescription is correct.  In fact, you should do that with glasses that you purchase from a traditional optical shop, too.  Your eye doctor will not be able to test the impact resistance of the lenses, though (well, at least not without breaking the lenses). I would only order polycarbonate lenses online, since the material is extremely strong and is unlikely to shatter on impact.  Also, make sure that you understand the return policy for the glasses you purchase, so that if there is a problem, you know how to return the glasses.

Thanks to the EyeWorks facebook page, which is where I first heard of this study.

Quick poll for all you parents whose children have had their glasses long enough that you’re no longer on the edge of your seat all day long, ready to pick up flung glasses, and put them back on their faces.  So how long did it take your child to get used to their glasses, so that they’d leave them on reliably for at least a few hours at a time?

Feel free to vote more than once if you have more than one child in glasses.

Pearl and Wagner: Four Eyes, by Kate McMullan, with wonderful watercolor pictures by R. W. Alley, tells the story of a young mouse who gets glasses, but it’s also about how friends can stand up for each other, and help each other feel better about themselves.  The Pearl and Wagner series are books targeted at 5-8 year olds about two friends, a mouse named Wagner and a rabbit named Pearl.  The books are early chapter books.  Pearl and Wagner: Four Eyes is a level 2 early reader.  It has three very short chapters, and can easily be read out loud by a parent in one sitting.

The story starts on eye test day at school, where Wagner has difficulty reading the eye chart.  He realizes he’ll need glasses, though he doesn’t want them.  His friend Pearl tries to cheer him up by talking about how great glasses are and how different styles can give someone a whole new look.  While Wagner isn’t convinced, he still ends up with glasses shortly thereafter.

At school, his friends all support him and tell him he looks great in his glasses.  My favorite is Henry, who remarks, “You look like Wagner with glasses.”  But he does get teased by two bigger boys, one of whom calls out “Hi, Four Eyes!”  This is where is friends really step up to help Wagner by making a joke of it:

“I have on a hat,” said Henry.
“I guess that makes me Two Heads.”
“I’m wearing boots,” said Bud.
“That makes me Four Feet.”
Wagner smiled.

And with that, Wagner puts his glasses back on.  The book ends with the whole class having a party to celebrate seeing.  At the back of the book, there’s tips for wearing glasses, such as, “If you sleep with your glasses on, they can get lost in your covers,” and there’s a helpful guide to the different parts of glasses.

I normally don’t like books about glasses that have scenes of the child being teased or taunted, since that hasn’t been Zoe’s experience, and so I don’t feel the need to point out to her that some kids are teased for their glasses.  But I this to be a really sweet book about friendship as much as it is about glasses, and Zoe loves it.  She particularly loves the part where Wagner’s friends make jokes about being Two Heads or Four Feet.

I’d recommend this book for older children, age 4 or 5 and up, especially those who may be worried about being teased.

A special place for Zoe's glasses.

Do you have any rules for glasses at your house?  I’ve come up with a few ideas, the first one even rhymes (I can’t take credit for that one, though, I’ve heard it a lot of times):

1. Glasses on your face, or in their case, on in the special glasses place.
2. When putting on or taking off your glasses, use both hands.
3. If your glasses are dirty, give them to an adult to clean.
   • As Zoe has gotten older and more responsible, she cleans her glasses herself, so the new rule is that she uses a special glasses cleaning cloth.
4. Tell a parent if your glasses are hurting or slipping down your face.

Rules for the adults in the house:

1. Always ask before taking Zoe’s glasses off.
2. Use both hands to take off her glasses, or put them on.
3. Put the glasses in their place or case when they’re off her face.  (Fun rhyme, but I’m really bad at this).

Rules for other kids

1. The glasses are off limits for playing, stealing, hiding, etc.  No exceptions!
2. If the glasses fall off while playing, everyone stops until they’re back on her face.