kids glasses

The 7 Must-Know Tips For Purchasing Glasses for Your Child

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Buying your child’s first pair of glasses can be a very exciting time, but it can also become a confusing and very overwhelming endeavor if you’re not certain what to look for. After all, there are so many choices available out there when it comes to eyewear that it’s nearly impossible to choose the perfect frame! What’s a parent to do?

Sometimes, your optometrist might make a specific recommendation about which frames would work best for your child, but usually that choice is yours alone to make. To make the decision easier on you, check out our 7 most essential tips for purchasing eyeglasses for your child!

Through Thick and Thin

Your child’s prescription is always the most important choice when it comes to selecting glasses, and you should consult with your optician about the lenses before you choose the frames. As a rule of thumb, if your child’s lenses are thick, try to find the lightest frame for them so the glasses won’t be so heavy. Keep in mind also that smaller lenses usually have fewer higher-order aberrations near the end of the lenses than larger lenses do so blurred or distorted peripheral vision shouldn’t be a big problem for your child.

Lens Material Matters

In addition to the thinness and thickness of your child’s lenses, you must also be sure that the lens material will not only help your child to see but will also protect his or her eyesight. Lenses should be made of polycarbonate or a material called Trivex. These materials are lightweight and can take much more tough love than other lens materials. They also usually include protection against potentially harmful ultraviolet rays and are coated with scratch resistant materials. Ask your optician’s opinion on the matter if you’re in doubt.

Metal or Plastic

Frames are made of two types of material – metal (that is, wire) or plastic. In the past, plastic was a popular choice because it was seen as more durable and lighter in weight and in price, but anymore, manufacturers are making metal frames that have the same advantages as plastic frames. When in doubt, be sure to ask your optician which material is the better choice for your child.

Take It to the Bridge

Perhaps one of the most difficult parts of the entire decision is the bridge fit of the frames. After all, children’s noses aren’t yet fully developed, so glasses can have a tendency to slide down a child’s face, especially when they’re playing. Many frames, especially metal ones, tend to be made with adjustable nose pads to help fit the glasses to everyone’s bridge, so keep a look out for frames with nose pads!

Choose Your Earpiece Style

Essentially, there are two types of earpiece styles: cable temples, which feature a more curved earpiece that reaches around the ear, and standard temples, which are a straight edge. Cable temples tend to be very advantageous for very young children or for times when children are playing since they tend to not slide off the child’s face. Standard temples are great for those who wear glasses only some of the time since they are easier to take on and off.

Find the Cool Frames

Wearing glasses usually subjects the child to a good amount of teasing, especially when they’re wearing them for the first time. Try to avoid frames that aren’t pricey, inappropriate for their age, or make them look “uncool.” Remember, the real goal is to get your child to keep wearing his or her glasses, so make sure that they like the glasses that you choose!

Plan B

Children can be pretty tough on eyewear, so it might be a good idea to have an extra pair of glasses just in case the pair that you plan on having them wear is lost or broken. An extra pair is particularly advantageous for children who have strong prescriptions and can’t function without the use of their glasses.

If you’re ready to pick out your child’s eyeglasses, don’t wander around in the dark! Stop by to see us at Performance Eyecare for all of your eyecare needs.

Performance Eyecare is the place for children’s glasses

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With the kids going back to school, it’s time to bring them in for an eye exam and pick out any necessary eyewear to help him or her succeed this school year.

We understand kids can be picky about what they want to wear, but we’re confident your child will find the perfect pair of glasses at Performance Eyecare.

Here are the five trends in children’s eyewear:

  1. Designers have taken cool and classic designs that work for adults and scaled them down for kids. Don’t be surprised if your child wants eyeglasses that look a lot like yours.
  2. Branded or licensed eyewear lines grab a child’s attention. Fisher-Price, Hush Puppies, Stride Rite, Disney and Marvel Comics appeal to kids of all ages, but especially to very young children. Lines related to extreme sports (X-Games), basketball (Nike, Converse) and other sports are very popular with slightly older kids.
  3. Spring hinges, strong and flexible frame materials and impact-resistant polycarbonate or Trivex lenses all help protect your child’s eyes — as well as your financial investment in his or her eyewear.
  4. Don’t forget about sunglasses for kids. Protecting your child’s eyes from the sun’s harmful UV rays may lower the risk of adult eye problems like cataracts later in life.
  5. Photochromic lenses made of impact-resistant polycarbonate are an excellent choice for kids who spend a lot of time outdoors. Clip-on sunglasses (or newer versions that magnetically attach to eyeglasses) also are good choices.
  6. For the child who is fast becoming a teenager, eyewear fashion is increasingly important. Designer eyeglass frames from Guess?, Calvin Klein and others are very appealing to “tweens.” Also popular are frames branded with apparel and accessories names such as Esprit, Nine West and Banana Republic, as well as celebrity brands like Hilary Duff and Thalia eyewear collections.

Sunglasses for Kids

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Children may not be as interested as adults are in wearing sunglasses as a fashion accessory. But because kids spend so much time outdoors in direct sunlight, they need sun protection even more than adults.

In fact, some experts say we get up to 80% of our lifetime exposure to solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation by the time we’re 18 years old.

Many styles available

You should have no trouble finding sunglasses your child will enjoy wearing. Children’s sunglasses are available in a wide variety of styles and sizes. And virtually any children’s frame can be transformed into sunglasses by adding prescription or non-prescription sun lenses.

Metal frames are very popular for children’s sunglasses because of their durability. Wraparound styles like those worn by adults are also popular in scaled-down versions for kids. Because they fit closer to the face than traditional frame styles, wraparound sunglasses provide superior UV protection not only for your child’s eyes, but for the delicate skin around their eyes as well.

Choose lenses with 100% UV protection

The most important thing when choosing children’s sunglasses is to make sure the lenses block 100% of the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays. The harmful effects of UV radiation are cumulative over our lifetime. By limiting your youngster’s exposure to UV rays during childhood, you may be decreasing their risk of cataracts and other eye problems when they become adults.

Polycarbonate lenses are great for kids’ sunglasses because they have 100% UV protection built-in, and they are lighter and much more impact-resistant than lenses made of other materials. And they can be tinted to nearly any shade.

Photochromic polycarbonate lenses are a good choice for kids who need prescription eyewear. These lenses darken automatically when exposed to the sun’s UV rays, and then quickly return to a clear state indoors – so one pair of eyeglasses does the job of two! They also provide 100% UV protection.

Don’t forget the accessories!

To protect your investment in your child’s sunglasses, purchase a durable, hard-shell carry case for them. Also, make sure your son or daughter knows how to clean and care for their eyewear. Getting sunglass cords (commonly called “retainers”) is also a good idea. These are attached to the temples of the frame so your child can remove their sunglasses and the eyewear will stay with them – hanging from their neck instead of getting misplaced.

Learning-Related Vision Problems

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There’s no question that good vision is important for learning. Experts say more than 80% of what your child is taught in school is presented to them visually.

To make sure your child has the visual skills they need for school, the first step is to make sure your child has 20/20 eyesight. You’ll want to ensure any nearsightedness, farsightedness and/or astigmatism is fully corrected with glasses or contact lenses. But there are other, less obvious learning-related vision problems you should know about as well.

Good vision is more than 20/20 visual acuity

Your child can have “20/20” eyesight and still have vision problems that can affect their learning and classroom performance. Visual acuity (how well your child can see letters on a wall chart) is just one aspect of good vision, and it’s not even the most important one. Many nearsighted kids may have trouble seeing the board in class, but they read well and excel in school.

Other important visual skills needed for learning include:

  • Eye movement skills – How smoothly and accurately your child can move their eyes across a printed page in a textbook.
  • Eye focusing abilities – How well they can change focus from far to near and back again (for copying information from the board, for example).
  • Eye teaming skills – How well your child’s eyes work together as a synchronized team (to converge for proper eye alignment for reading, for example).
  • Binocular vision skills – How well your child’s eyes can blend visual images from both eyes into a single, three-dimensional image.
  • Visual perceptual skills – How well your child can identify and understand what they see, judge its importance, and associate it with previous visual information stored in their brain.
  • Visual-motor integration – The quality of your child’s eye-hand coordination, which is important not only for sports, but also for legible handwriting and the ability to efficiently copy written information from a book or chalkboard.
  • Deficiencies in any of these important visual skills can significantly affect your child’s learning ability and school performance.

Many kids have vision problems that affect learning

Many kids have undetected learning-related vision problems. According to the College of Optometrists in Vision Development (COVD), one study indicates 13% of children between the ages of 9 and 13 suffer from moderate to severe convergence insufficiency (an eye teaming problem that can affect reading performance). The study also concluded as many as one in four school-age children may have at least one learning-related vision problem.

Signs and symptoms of learning-related vision problems

There are many signs and symptoms of learning-related vision disorders, including:

  • Blurred distance or near vision, particularly after reading or other close work
  • Frequent headaches or eye strain
  • Difficulty changing focus from distance to near and back
  • Double vision, especially during or after reading
  • Avoidance of reading
  • Easily distracted when reading
  • Poor reading comprehension
  • Loss of place, repetition, and/or omission of words while reading
  • Letter and word reversals
  • Poor handwriting
  • Hyperactivity or impulsiveness during class
  • Poor overall school performance

If your child exhibits one or more of these signs or symptoms and is having problems in school, call us to schedule a comprehensive children’s vision exam.

Comprehensive children’s vision exam

A children’s vision exam includes tests performed in a routine eye exam, plus additional tests to detect learning-related vision problems. These extra tests may include an assessment of eye focusing, eye teaming, and eye movement abilities. Also, depending on the type of problems your child is having, we may recommend other testing, either in our office or with a children’s vision and/or vision development specialist.

Vision therapy

If it turns out your child has a learning-related vision problem that cannot be corrected with regular glasses or contact lenses, then special reading glasses or vision therapy may help. Vision therapy is a program of eye exercises and other activities specifically tailored for each patient to improve their vision skills.

Vision and learning disabilities

A child who is struggling in school could have a learning-related vision problem, a learning disability or both. Vision therapy is a treatment for vision problems; it does not correct a learning disability. However, children with learning disabilities may also have vision problems that are contributing to their difficulties in the classroom.

After your child’s comprehensive vision exam, we will advise you about whether a program of vision therapy would be helpful. If we don’t provide the services we believe your child needs, we will refer you to a children’s vision specialist or education/learning specialist who does.

How to tell if Your Child Needs Glasses

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Keeping your children happy and healthy is a parent’s number one concern. It is easy to tell when your child feels ill and needs to see a doctor, but how do you know if your child is having difficulties seeing?

There are common signs that your child is having difficulty seeing. If your child is showing one or more of the below signs, you should contact your eye doctor for an examination.

Avoiding activities?

The first way to tell if your child has a vision problem is when they won’t take part in fun activities such as coloring, reading or making things with their hands. Although every child has certain activities they dislike due to personal preferences – a child who decides to sit out while their friends play with bricks, coloring books and games may be suffering from poor vision.

Tired eyes?

Being a child can be exhausting; all that running around in the yard, playing with friends and making hideouts out of bedding would cause anyone to be tired. But there is a line between when your child should be rubbing their eyes due to tiredness (around naptime or bedtime) and when they may be feeling discomfort in their eyes. A child who rubs their eyes, or has watery or red eyes on more than one occasion, may also be struggling to see.

Sitting too close to TV and games consoles?

Another warning sign – and usually the most obvious one – is when your child turns on the TV and sits too close to the screen. In the average living room the TV may be approximately 5 meters away from your couch; an acceptable distance. If you see your child sitting very close to the screen, you may have a problem.

Headaches and frowning?

It’s normal for the occasional bump and bruise as your child explores their world and is active in the classroom. But if your child walks around rubbing her head regularly, complaining of a headache or squinting around bright lights – she may have a vision problem. When we have poor eyesight we find it hard to focus on objects either close up or at a distance. If you need a visual aid but don’t use one, your eyes work overtime to try and focus on that object. This causes  muscles in the back of the eye to tense up, resulting in headaches over the eyes.

Lack of concentration?

Another way to tell if your child has a vision problem is their inability to focus on the task in hand. Those same muscles are working overtime to focus, which can cause your child to feel restless and uncomfortable. The result is them not paying attention for long periods of time at school or at home.

What to do: 

If you feel your child may have a vision problem, and she exhibits one or more of the signs mentioned above, it is really important that you take them to an optometrist as soon as possible. Speak to your child about your concerns and explain that an eye test is not painful. If it turns out that your child does need glasses, gently tell them that this is the case and remember that wearing glasses is not a bad thing. There are many glasses styles available for kids, so not only will they look fashionable and cool – they will also be more comfortable in the classroom and participating in activities.