A lot of Newcastle parents seem to be relieved right now – because their kids are back to school and we adults can resume our “normal lives”! New teachers, new classmates, and maybe new schools can all be challenges, for some kids more than others. But for some families, just doing routine nightly homework can also be a big challenge.
What many parents don’t realise is that vision and focussing problems can affect children in unexpected ways. For example, most kids who wear glasses don’t wear them in order to see better or more clearly. Instead, children’s glasses often allow the child to focus close up more easily, with less effort and more ‘stamina’, when reading for longer than a few minutes. This then translates into better concentration, better comprehension, and more enjoyment of reading, literacy and schoolwork generally – even though the child was never aware of any blurry vision in the first place.
So asking a kid if he or she can see the blackboard is often not a helpful question at all, especially if it’s literacy and concentration where the struggle is happening. For more information, read about behavioural optometry here.
