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So your child needs prescription glasses, now what?

Finding out that your child needs prescription glasses to help with their vision can be a confusing and overwhelming journey in the beginning. The good thing is finding affordable glasses in today’s day and age is easy, and there are many options available for you to choose from. But, finding affordable glasses is not the only thing that you have to worry about.

Tips For Parents That Have Children With Glasses

Picking the right eyewear is only the beginning, making sure your child keeps the glasses on and in one piece is a whole other challenge. But as parents, you can help your child feel more comfortable about wearing their glasses, and help them understand how to take care of their glasses. Below you will find the most common concerns, and tips for children with glasses, and things you can do to help the process be as easy as possible.

Tips for picking your child’s eyeglass frames

Here are a few things to keep in mind when you are picking out your child’s new prescription frames.

• Durability – Kids are particularly hard on their glasses, so we definitely recommend looking for sturdy and durable frames that can handle their active lifestyles. Kids generally do better with plastic frames since they tend to be more flexible and do not bend the way metal frames do. However there are many manufacturers that design more durable, and flexible metal frames that you are able to get for your child as well.

• Your Child has to like them – This one is important, working in the industry often times I see many parents pick what they like on their child then what their child likes. If your child likes the frame this increases the likelihood that they will wear the glasses, which means fewer opportunities for them to get misplaced or damaged.

• Lens Material – Polycarbonate or Trivex lenses should always be the lens material that is in your child’s eyeglasses unless directed otherwise by the eye doctor. These two types of lens materials offer the most impact resistant lenses to give your child that extra level of safety. These two lenses also come with built-in UV protection to protect their eyes from the harmful UV rays from the sun.

• Blue Light Protection – Children today are consumed by devices from a very young age, and blue light exposure from these artificial sources such as tablets, smartphones, televisions, and computers can have some serious concerns. You can get a special coating on your child’s prescription glasses to help filter out some of the artificial blue light from these devices.

• Sports – If your child plays a sport, or any other active activity they make sports glasses that you are able to purchase with a prescription. These glasses are more durable than standard glasses and have padding at high contact areas to help with comfort.

• Photochromic/Sunglasses – Photochromic or a pair of sunglasses would be a good choice to provide glare reduction when your child is outside. Children tend to spend more time outside than adults do, having photochromic lenses or sunglasses will help protect their eyes from the UV rays from the sun.

• Fit – When picking out a frame it is important to make sure that the frame fits good. and more importantly, is comfortable for your child. You do not want a frame that is too small, or too big, adjustments can be made to the frames but are fairly limited due to the size of the frames. Check out this article to understand more about frame size.

• Backup Pair – Having a backup pair of glasses is a good idea for anyone with glasses, this isn’t necessarily limited to kids. This is especially true for anyone with a strong prescription that can’t function without their glasses.

• Warranty – Wherever you decide to get your child’s prescription glasses from, be sure in inquire to see what kind of warranty the glasses come with, or if they have a warranty that you are able to purchase. Since kids tend to be hard on their glasses, having a warranty could be useful.

Take a look at this awesome video from Oliver Torres, who is an ABO Certified Optician over at Eye Influence. He talks about how to fit kids with glasses and does a great job explaining it.

Tips for when you first get the glasses

When you first get your glasses to make sure to ask your child to let you know if they feel any sort of discomfort with their eyes when they are wearing the glasses. Your child might not mention to you if there is anything wrong with the glasses so it is your job to ask questions such as, Can you see clearly? Are they comfortable?, Are they too tight or loose?  Do your eyes hurt? If your child lets you know of any pain or discomfort with their eyes, contact your eye doctor as soon as possible.

Tips for your child

Your child might not like to wear their glasses at first, find ways to encourage your child to wear their glasses more by pointing out certain family members in the house that wear glasses or cartoon characters that wear glasses. Remind them that there are a lot of kids and adults that wear glasses to help them see too and they aren’t the only ones wearing glasses. A majority of the time children will not have a problem with wearing their glasses because children like to see the world clearly. Here are some tips for you to teach your child to help them keep their glasses in the best shape possible. 

• Use Both hands to take glasses off – This is a very, very important thing to help your child understand. Always take your glasses off with both hands. Taking your glasses off with one hand will put extra stress on the hinges, and eventually leading to them breaking.

• Do not throw your glasses – Let your child know that their glasses are not toys and should not be thrown around.

• Put glasses back into the case when not using – This is an important tip, having your child get into the habit of putting the glasses back in the case when not in use will lower the risk of them being in a place where they can be damaged.

• Do not let friends try on – Let your child know that their glasses are for them, and not let their friends try on or play with their glasses.

• If frames are too loose or tight – Let your child know that if the frames are out of adjustment, or they have a loose screw, to let you know so you can take them to be adjusted.

• Never place glasses lenses down – Let your child know that they should never put their glasses on any surface with the lenses facing down. Lenses coming into contact with hard surfaces with any dust or dirt on them will cause the lenses to get scratched.

• Proper Cleaning – Show your child how to clean their glasses properly will help keep the lenses from getting scratched and in the best shape they can be for the lifetime of the glasses.

Finals Thoughts

Make sure to ask your eye doctor during your child’s eye exam to see if they should be wearing their glasses full-time, or just for school work. Some doctors will make a recommendation, but most of the time it will be up to you to make sure your child wears their glasses when they are doing any activities that need them.

Remember to keep an eye out for any of the signs that your child may be having vision problems, your child may not know that they are having vision problems and need glasses.

Does your child wear glasses? How do you pick their frames? Let me know below! Thank you all for stopping by at Eye Health Headquarters, if you have any questions or comments don’t hesitate to leave them below and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

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