Pointers for Parents

In the Summer of 2024, the team at MyEyesMyLife polled parents at the playground of an affluent New York City neighborhood. We found:

This random survey indicates that eye health is not central to parents’ understanding of pediatric risk-factors
Insist on a “one arm’s distance from their laptop or desktop”
Set up your child’s iPad or iPhone to the “on” position for Screen Distance (learn how here)
Keep insisting, with positive and negative reinforcement, that distance from the laptops/desktop is maintained
Watch out for all the exact same signs and symptoms for advancing myopia listed for teachers
Squinting, tilting head to look from eye corners, headache, rubbing eyes, blurry vision, failing academic performance disinterest
Just like you take your child for a haircut every month or two, consider having your kid read a Snellen chart at home every other month. Make a fun family game out of it-

Example: awarding points or Monopoly money or gold-stars for reading each line of the chart read and creating a very fun notebook to log the points your child earns from eyechart reading each time

Buy physical book instead of eBooks whenever possible
Set up family book reading time routinely
Try to get your children out in the sun for at least 30-60 min a day
Never skip annual pediatrician appointments and watch your child carefully as they take their vision screening tests so thatthey can understand the complicated instructions correctly
For children who wear glasses already insist that they kept on through the day
Feed your children eye-health conducive foods rich in Vitamins A, C, E and omega-3 fatty acids

Above all, instill confidence in your children that an occurrence of nearsightedness is not their

fault, and that it can be easily fixed.