As part of a full health screening for your child, they should be having regular eye exams. While they’re young, these can take place in your doctor’s office as they make sure that your child has decent enough vision. But once they’re able to read or if your child’s doctor has concerns about their vision, taking them to an eye doctor will become necessary.
Since it can be scary for anyone to have a new experience, especially one that involves seeing a new doctor, your child might be nervous about their eye doctor appointment. Luckily, there’s a lot that you can do to help calm their nerves and prepare them for this visit.
To help you learn how this can be done, here are three ways to prepare your child for their first eye exam.
Give Them A Rundown Of What Might Happen
With this being your child’s first time going to an eye doctor, they likely have no frame of reference for what to expect, which can be very scary for a young child. This is where you come in.
Well before the day of their visit, start speaking with your child about what might happen during their appointment. You can talk about the eye doctor shining bright lights into their eyes, having them look at charts, putting in eye drops, and asking them questions about what they can and can’t see. You may also talk to them about the possibility of having their eyes dilated and what that might feel like.
Help Them Get Used To Answering Questions
The only way that the eye doctor is going to know what your child can or cannot see at their appointment is by talking to the doctor. But for many young kids, talking to an adult that they don’t know can be scary and intimidating.
To help them through this part, you may want to assist them in getting used to answering questions, both from you and from other trusted adults. This way, when they get into their eye doctor appointment, they can tell the doctor which shapes or letters they can see and which ones are blurry.
Consider Practicing With Eye Drops
There could be various reasons that your child would need to have eye drops at their eye exam. Having their eyes dilated will require the use of drops in their eyes. But if they’ve never used eye drops before, or they’ve used them and had a bad experience with them, you may want to consider practicing this skill before you go to their appointment.
Rather than having your child try to let you put the drops in with their eyes open, consider having them look up with the eyes closed and having you drop saline into the corner of their eye. Then, as they blink their eyes open, the eye drops will get into their eyes in a less traumatic way. This is a strategy that many eye doctors use for eye drops with little ones.
If your child has their first eye exam scheduled and you’re both feeling a little nervous, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you assist them with some practice and preparation.