The 4 Best Tips to Protect Your Kid’s Eyes

You’ve eliminated high fructose corn syrup from their diets, curbed their screen time, and make sure your kids take their vitamins to stay healthy.

But what have you been doing to protect your kid’s vision?

Your children’s developing eyes need to be shielded from UV damage, sports-related eye injuries, and even harmful blue light from their computers and mobile devices.

Without taking the necessary steps to protect your children’s vision, they’ll be more susceptible to developing cataracts, vision loss, and macular degeneration when they’re older.

Today we’re going to discuss our top four tips to take care of and protect your children’s eyes.

1. Always Choose Impact-Resistant Safety Lenses

One of the biggest things to look for when shopping for lenses for your children is the safety of the lens material.

If your child should trip, walk into something, or get elbowed in the face accidentally on the bus, you don’t want to worry about their prescription lenses shattering near their very sensitive eyes.

Polycarbonate or Trivex lenses are much safer than traditional lenses for kids.

Not only are they much lighter and more comfortable for your children to wear (read: less complaining about wearing their glasses), they’re stronger and more durable too.

Trivex was initially developed for the U.S. military thanks to its thin, lightweight, high impact-resistance.

It has up to 10x the impact-resistance of other standard lenses so it’s built to withstand all the physical activities kids get into.

However, if your child is really into playing sports, they should have a pair of ultra safe sports glasses because their regular eyeglasses just don’t cut it.

2. Every Active Kid Should Have a Pair of Sports Glasses

According to Prevent Blindness, 43% of sports related eye injuries happen to children under the age of 14.

And yet 90% of those injuries could have been prevented with the right safety glasses or safety lenses.

If your child plays basketball, baseball/softball, racquetball, or water sports, they have an increased likelihood of sustaining an eye injury.

That’s why we carry a wide variety of prescription sports glasses for children.

Sports glasses will keep your children’s eyes safe while enhancing their vision.

Slightly larger than regular glasses, sports glasses wrap around your child’s eye area for maximum coverage.

They should also fit more securely so your child can perform all their physical activities without worrying about their glasses slipping off.

Our “kidproof” frames are made of lightweight materials that won’t slow your athlete down.

We fit all our sports glasses for kids with Trivex lenses for the highest impact-resistance and safety.

Bonus: Trivex lenses even block 100% of harmful UV rays so your child is protected when the game’s outdoors.

However, polarized lenses are still the safest for your children if they spend a lot of time under the sun.

3. Polarized Lenses are the Safest for Outdoor Activities

Children’s eyes don’t have the same ability to block out UV rays as much as adults can.

Studies have shown that kids who have long-term exposure to UV rays have higher incidents of eye related health issues later in life.

And skipping UVA/UVB protection also leaves your child’s sensitive skin around their eyes vulnerable to skin cancer.

Sunglasses that block 100% of UV rays are great for solving these issues.

But polarized lenses are the only lenses that remove glare from your child’s vision and block UV.

Blinding glare may cause your child to swerve off their bike, cross the street when the light’s the wrong color, or disorient them and hurt their eyes.

Polarized lenses not only provide the best vision in bright sunlight, they help your child see better.

They even help your child squint less, reduce eye fatigue and strain, and ensure clear vision to last as long as their energy does.

Did you know that your child’s eyes can also experience fatigue and damage from blue light?

4. Kids Need Anti-Blue Light Coating for their Lenses

With children now coding, doing homework, and reading textbooks all from their laptops and mobile devices these days, anti-blue light coating should be a no-brainer for your child’s lenses.

Almost everything in our modern world gives off blue light, from natural sources like the sun to the artificial glow of fluorescent lights in school, computer screens, tablets, and even LEDs in your refrigerator.

The problem is that prolonged exposure to blue light has been connected to damaging your child’s retinas and even insomnia.

Why’s blue light so scary?

Because children absorb more blue light than adults.

This light penetrates deeper into your child’s eyes than other types of light.

Blue light reaches your child’s retinas, which causes stress and strain, and speeds up the development of age-related eye conditions.

Blue light also messes with your child’s hormones and natural circadian rhythm, so they may be harder to wake and take longer to settle down for bedtime.

Though known by different names, anti-blue light coating, digital block coating, or blue block coating will eliminate this light from your child’s vision.

They’ll be protected and experience less eye strain whether they’re writing papers or watching a movie with the family.

Your Child Doesn’t Need a Prescription to Wear Glasses to Protect their Vision

If your child already wears prescription glasses to manage their astigmatism, hyperopia, or to control the progression of myopia, you just need to make a few simple tweaks for greater safety.

Start by switching their regular lenses to ones that deliver more impact-resistance. Then make sure to add an anti-blue light coating to them.

You can also purchase a pair of kids glasses with anti-blue light coating on the lenses for your child without a prescription to wear during computer use or video game time.

All children will benefit from polarized sunglasses and a pair of safety-focused sports glasses. Neither of these need a prescription to be effective, but can be used in conjunction with your child’s prescription if they have one.

You can find an awesome collection of sports glasses for kids and sunglasses for kids online at Glasses Gallery.

Your child will have fun picking out their favorite frames and you’ll have the peace of mind knowing their eyes will be protected for their future.

What’s your biggest concern when it comes to protecting your child’s eyes? Let us know what you think!