Special Attention for Your Child’s Eyes

Healthy eyes and good vision are incredibly important to your child’s success, whether they’re in the classroom, making friends, or playing sports.

By bringing your child in for eye exams starting from a young age, you’re ensuring no vision issues go uncorrected or interrupt their development. We also check your child’s overall eye health too.

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When Do Kids Need Eye Exams?

The Canadian Association of Optometrists recommends that children have:

At least one exam between ages 2 and 5, before starting preschool
An annual eye exam from ages 6 to 19

During a kid-friendly exam, we’ll test the sharpness of your child’s vision, even if they don’t know their ABCs, and look for refractive errors, which will tell us if they need glasses.

We’ll also track how well their eyes work together, ensure their eyes can focus as expected, and test their depth and colour perception.

Common Childhood Vision Concerns

One of the most common vision problems is a refractive error, such as nearsightedness (difficulty seeing objects in the distance), farsightedness (difficulty seeing up close), or astigmatism (fluctuating vision at all distances).

A child’s refractive error is easily corrected with glasses. If your child is nearsighted, we recommend myopia control to protect their long-term vision.

Strabismus, or crossed eyes, is when a child’s eyes aren’t aligned with one another, and one or both eyes point in the wrong direction. Strabismus can be treated with glasses, prisms, and vision therapy.

Amblyopia, or lazy eye, can result from strabismus or occur when one eye has a much higher refractive error than the other. Treatment options include glasses, a patch over the good eye, and vision therapy.

Signs of Vision Problems in Children

Here are some potential signs of vision problems:

Tilting or turning their head or covering one eye while looking at things
Difficulty reading, including trouble recognizing words, mixing up letters, or losing place while reading
Having trouble concentrating on schoolwork
Complaining of frequent headaches or double vision
Rubbing their eyes often or squinting

Myopia Control

If your child is nearsighted, we recommend myopia control. Myopia control uses specially designed glasses or contacts to control how the eye grows so your child’s nearsightedness doesn’t progress as much throughout childhood.

This simple and effective treatment can reduce your child’s need for a high prescription and associated vision risks of high myopia in adulthood.

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