There is always so much to do just to prep for back to school; the back to school hair cuts, the school clothes shopping, the school supply shopping, the physicals for the older kids.
While you are doing all that, there is one thing you are forgetting – the back to school eye exams!
I first had glasses in second grade.
I would get constant headaches and after running several tests on my actual head with no real results, we did an eye exam and sure enough, I needed glasses. That was my first round.
I have now had glasses since I was 16 so it was no surprise that during 1st grade my daughter came up to me and said that all of a sudden she couldn’t see the board.
We took her to an eye exam and as suspected, she needed glasses.
It hadn’t occurred to me to get her eyes checked prior to then. Mainly because I was uneducated and secondly, she had never said anything about her vision. Now it is a part of our back to school routine for the entire family to make sure we all have healthy eyes.
Even if you or your child are not experiencing vision issues, it is important to get the health of your eyes checked. Annual eye exams allow eye doctors to detect eye conditions as well as early signs of health conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
About VSP Vision Care (VSP)
As the largest national not-for-profit in vision care, VSP Vision Care reinvests in the things its nearly 66 million members value most – the best care at the lowest out-of-pocket costs. With a network of 30,000 eye care providers, VSP members have the freedom to choose the provider, location and eyewear that’s right for them. It’s easy to see why VSP is consumers’ #1 choice in vision care.
SeeMuchMore.com is a one-stop site for all the information you need about enrolling in vision benefits. The site includes a virtual savings calculator to estimate your savings with VSP vision benefits. There is also helpful information about maintaining healthy vision that can be found at the Learn About Your Eyes section of the site. You can even play an interactive game for a chance to win prizes.
Facts regarding children and vision:
It is believed that 80 percent of what we learn is through our eyes. Imagine if your vision isn’t right?
1 in 4 children have an undetected vision condition.
A child doesn’t know what good vision is if he or she has never experienced it.
Because eye health plays a major role in academic growth, it’s common for a vision problem to be mistaken as a learning disability.
Undetected vision conditions can negatively impact learning development and contribute to frustrated students, poor grades and behavioral issues.
Comprehensive eye exams can detect what school vision screenings cannot. While in-school screenings do help identify some vision problems, such as near and farsightedness, they do not test for all of the problems that a comprehensive eye exam does, like diabetes and hypertension – both growing health concerns for children.
Two of the most common vision problems a screening can miss are eye coordination and lazy eye. These conditions can usually both be corrected as long as they identified and treated early! (Here is more information regarding
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Children’s eyes develop rapidly until about the age of seven – making early detection essential in correcting potentially permanent vision issues.
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To help with the back to school to do list, I have helped with a printable:
Be sure that before your little ones return to school that they have had their comprehensive eye exam!
What grade is your kid in this year?