Posts from Little Four Eyes

(adapted from this post and the subsequent comments on it at Little Four Eyes)

I have to start be saying that I can only imagine how difficult it must be for pediatric eye doctors who work especially with small kids, who really can’t tell you what’s going on, and don’t understand why they are having these exams.  I know I really appreciate the kindness and patience of Zoe’s ophthalmologist.  But I've been thinking about how tough these eye exams can be, not just for our kids, but for us, as parents.  And so I've been brainstorming things that doctors and clinics could do to make it easier for us.

So here are a few things I can think of that have helped (or would help) with eye exams:

1. It’s really, really hard to focus and absorb what we’re being told when our child is crying.  And unfortunately, eye exams are often upsetting to our kids.  Give us 5 minutes to quiet our child down before trying to explain what’s going on with their eyes, or if that’s not possible, give us a phone number and time that we could call and discuss it when we’re not so distracted.
2. This is often a whole lot for us to absorb, especially at our first exams when we probably weren’t expecting to find out that our child had a vision problem.  We aren't experts in vision - you are.  Take the time to answer our questions or give us ideas of where to go for more information.  Most of these problems aren’t in family health books, and we probably don’t know anyone who’s children had these problems, and the information on the Internet can be pretty contradictory and frankly, frightening.  Giving us as much detail as we can understand, using the correct terminology - and giving us the correct spelling - is so helpful for us in doing research later.  In fact, having a sheet or brochure with explanations of various terms and aspects that we could look over later would be extremely helpful.
3. We often worry that we may have done something to cause whatever vision problems our child has.  Let us know what the causes are, and reassure us if there really was nothing we did to cause it.
4. Have a list of local or trusted online glasses providers.  Again, we probably don’t have friends that we can turn to for a referral for glasses for babies.  And our preferred optical shop may not have the frames or the expertise.
5. (This one is a little less serious…)  If you’re going to give our kids small toys as favors after the exam, can they be age appropriate?  Being told to cut out the bead eyes off of the finger puppet is, well, I given that we’re at an eye clinic, I guess it’s fitting, but it still feels a little weird.

What suggestions would you give an eye doctor who was going to specialize in pediatrics?  These could be things that your current clinic does really well, or things that you think would make it work better.  Or, if any clinicians are reading this, what can parents do to prepare ourselves and our children for the eye exams.