This. I’ve worn glasses forever, but my daughter seemed fine until her (beloved) 3rd grade teacher mentioned that G might be having difficulties seeing. Sure, enough. The kid needed glasses. On our drive home, her new glasses on, G said: “Wow. Trees have leaves that you can see.” I laughed (and did a bit of a the “bad mom” cry, as well).
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I wonder if it would be possible to include a basic vision screening in pediatric checkups-- nothing too time consuming, but more of a “consult an optometrist at your earliest convenience” kind of thing. Or is myopia a sudden onset kind of thing?
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Always in favor of folks getting the accommodations they need to sense the world better. But I’ve never had an issue with eyesight myself, so partial impairment thereof and ability to see with glasses never seemed that big a deal until I heard the Mark Mothersbaugh interview here a couple months back. Hearing how it changed his life really brought home the impact these kinds of things can have.
Sometimes you can know these things in a general sense, but not feel quite the empathic connection with the situation.
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I got my first pair of glasses in the third grade when I was no longer able to read the board even from the front row. I had to copy my friend’s notes after class for a while.
I was really relieved to recognize friends from so far away but I remembered being able to recognize signs and friends from a distance when I was younger. I expected that change.
The biggest shock was definitely trees, I had completely forgotten what trees were supposed to look like. I was amazed at how much fine detail I was missing.
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Science! It works! It’s how the kid can see, and this entertainment-oriented video stuff is how you can see the kid!
(And for the person who wanted an inverse-unicorn-chaser, it’s how we can take pictures of cops beating people up, which is depressing but sometimes leads to cops being less likely to beat people up.)
My vision was fine as a kid, but it’s been really nice to have reading glasses since I reached the age that holding things farther away to read wasn’t cutting it. My wife’s vision was ok until about halfway through college, when she started noticing that she really needed to sit in the front of the room to be able to read the blackboard, and getting glasses reminded her how much she’d probably been missing (which she’d chalked up to classes getting harder and her not getting enough sleep, because college.)
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I’m curios - how do they check eyesight for kids so young?
Probably via ophthalmology. A pediatrician or the parents probably realized that she wasn’t able to discern things from far away (toys, not-toys), and an ophthalmologist likely confirmed and set the prescription.
I also doubt this is the first time she’s wearing them, but probably almost the first time. Despite the joy she feels at seeing clearly, she’s still a baby and I’m sure those glasses are not always on her face!
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I don’t need glasses (yet, though I imagine I’ll need reading glasses in a decade or so) but this appears to be a pretty common trend in people putting glasses on for the first time. I’ve heard this from a couple of different friends, when they first got glasses (some as late as into their 30’s!).
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This has to happen!
I was very, very far-sighted as a kid. I actually had trouble focusing on anything closer than about six feet, and when I got my first pair of glasses in 2nd grade, it wasn’t the trees that amazed me, but the gravel and dirt, car tires, books, bugs, grass, all that little stuff that looks homogenous from a standing perspective suddenly had fine detail! And all I had to do was crouch!
It was like getting my first microscope all over again.
So, while trees were definitely interesting to me, I could see the leaves and stuff all along, but I didn’t know rough bark also looks rough, and smooth bark “also looks smooth”.
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The doctor was really great! She had lots of toys and doodads that made clicking sounds or had flashing lights and such to get his attention so she could check his eyes with different instruments. They also had a little video that he watched that allowed them to check how he tracked with his eyes and some other things. They are mostly checking for abnormalities and making sure they are responding to various stimuli appropriately. It was an hour long process because they also dilate the eyes. She said it was easier with the 6 month olds (the age they start with and recommend), but my 12 month old did really great and had fun with it. I was pretty sleep deprived at the time so I can’t really remember the details that well. I really wanted it done because my husband has terrible eyesight and it wasn’t caught until he was in elementary school. He doesn’t notice details at all unless he is specifically looking at/for them. Thankfully, the baby has great eyes!
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Though after you get the glasses, the leaves are significantly less impressionistic…
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