Dental and Vision Care for Your Children: Part Two

In part 1 of this two part series on children’s health, we talked about the importance of dental health to your children’s success.

Today we are going to look at vision.  We are born with two wonderful eyes that just seem to work.  So it’s easy to overlook the importance of vision care to your child’s health and future success.

Many parents are not aware of the close tie between vision and learning. The ability to learn is dependent on great vision.

So vision health is vital to your child’s lifelong health and happiness.

Vision Care for Babies

Yes it’s true, the best time to ensure that your child’s vision is on track is when they are a baby. Here are two important actions you can take to ensure healthy vision:

• Watch for signs of eye and vision problems. Seek  professional eye care starting with the first comprehensive vision assessment at about 6 months of age.
• Help your baby develop his or her vision by engaging in age-appropriate activities.

 Vision Care for Children

Every child needs to have the following vision skills for effective reading and learning:

• Visual Acuity — the ability to see clearly in the distance for viewing the chalkboard, at an intermediate distance for the computer, and up close for reading a book.
• Eye Focusing — the ability to quickly and accurately maintain clear vision as the distance from objects change, such as when looking from the chalkboard to a paper on the desk and back. Eye focusing allows the child to easily maintain clear vision over time like when reading a book or writing a report.
• Eye Tracking — the ability to keep the eyes on target when looking from one object to another, moving the eyes along a printed page, or following a moving object like a thrown ball.
• Eye Teaming — the ability to coordinate and use both eyes together when moving the eyes along a printed page, and to be able to judge distances and see depth for class work and sports.
• Eye-Hand Coordination — the ability to use visual information to monitor and direct the hands when drawing a picture or trying to hit a ball.
• Visual Perception — the ability to organize images on a printed page into letters, words and ideas and to understand and remember what is read.

Can your child afford to miss any learning experience?  It’s key to detect and correct any changes to your child’s vision early.  Many issues can be corrected and will not impact your child’s overall health and future.

Healthy Eyes for Kids and Sunglasses

It’s also important for all children to protect their eyes from damage caused by ultraviolet radiation from the beautiful sunlight. We all know about the power of the Colorado sun, so this is especially important for families living in the Ft. Collins area.

Sunglasses are needed to protect your child’s eyes outdoors and  some sport-specific designs may even help improve sports performance.  For more on this topic check out our blog post, Sunglasses: Necessity or Accessory.

Healthy Vision and Dental Habits for Kids…
are Key to Life Long Health

Give your children a life gift of healthy vision and dental habits.  They may not thank-you now, but they are sure to thank-you later!

Be sure to read Part One on Children’s Dental Health.

Was this helpful? Do you now feel you have more information to help your children? We’d love to hear how you ensure that your children have their annual/biannual exams.