Helping Your Kids See Clearly

A short excerpt from GUY STUFF to share with your kids. Summer is an excellent time for a vision check!

Even if you aren’t having difficulty with your vision, your eyes need to be checked just like every other part of your body—it’s important to make sure that they’re healthy, even if you are seeing well. Your eye doctor will have you read a few charts and check your eyes with a tool called an ophthalmoscope, which can see all the way to the back of your eyeball. Your eye doctor may have a few more vision games, like trying to see flashing lights in the corner of the room or looking at screens through cool machine lenses.

Your eyes change as you grow. That’s why some kids need glasses early but outgrow them by the time they are teenagers or adults. Other kids might have perfect vision until they are older, and then they suddenly need some help seeing things. These days, wearing glasses is pretty cool.

Not sure if you need glasses? Here are some clues that you might:

• You have trouble reading or seeing what’s written on the board at school.
• You get headaches while reading or right after you have finished.
• Objects look blurry either at a distance or up close.
• You see double (but not when you are crossing your eyes!)

GUY STUFF, page 24, published and copyrighted 2017 by American Girl Publishing. Illustration by Micah Player. All rights reserved.