If your child complains about trouble seeing the board or homework assignments, it may be time to schedule an eye exam. Scheduling regular eye exams for your child is vital in helping to uncover vision problems, detecting eye diseases, and preserving long-term vision. It is not uncommon for children’s vision to change significantly, and unexpectedly, between the ages of 8 to 16. If these vision problems are left uncorrected it could lead to impaired child development, difficulty learning, and behavioral or attention issues.

Poor vision can affect your child’s performance both in and out of the classroom, as well as other aspects of life. Here are a few things to look out for that could be tell tale signs your child needs prescription eyeglasses:

• Squinting: Squinting may be helping your child temporarily improve the focus and clarity of the object they are looking at. This means your child may have a refractive error, which affects how well the eye can focus on a specific object or image.
• Sitting too close to the TV or having hand-held devices close to their eyes: If your child is frequently doing both of these, it is a good indication that they have some sort of vision problem. This could be myopia, or nearsightedness, meaning the vision is good at close range but poor at a distance. By being close to the TV or having the hand-held device close to their eyes, the image will appear larger and more clear at this closer range.
• Experiencing headaches or eye pain: If at the end of the day your child complains about having a headache or eye pain, this could mean that they are overexerting their eyes to improve their blurred vision. Constant squinting and trying to adjust their eyesight to see better causes eye strain and can lead to both headaches and eye pain.