Eye injury prevention is as important as proper eye care. Eye injuries can include painful corneal abrasions, blunt trauma or penetrating injuries, inflammation of the eye, fracture of the eye socket, swollen or detached retina, traumatic cataract, hemorrhage in the eye and many others. An eye injury may lead to temporary vision problems as well as to permanent vision loss and even blindness.
According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, half of all eye injuries occur in and around the house, while kids’ are doing everyday chores or playing. Fortunately, there are lots of things parents can do to minimize the risk of eye injury and prevent vision problems due to eye trauma.
Here are a few tips for eye injury prevention and children’s eye safety.
Increase eye and vision awareness
Educate your kids about the dangers of eye injury. Explain why certain activities put their eyes and vision at risk and create a list of eye injury prevention rules together with your children.
Set an example
Set a positive example by wearing protective eyewear while doing risky tasks (working with chemicals and/or sprays, working nails, screwdrivers and other tools, and so on). Encourage your children to wear safety glasses when needed.
Make your home a safer place
• Cushion sharp corners and edges on furniture and fixtures.
• Keep all chemicals out of reach of children. These include absolutely all chemicals: detergents, cleaning products, nail polish remover, mouth wash, hair sprays and so on.
• Keep nails, glue and any tools out of reach of children.
Don’t leave your kids unattended
• Supervise your kids when they use/play with potentially dangerous objects (pencils, scissors, forks, knives, etc).
• Don’t let your kids run around with potentially dangerous objects (knives, forks, scissors, pencils, combs, toothbrushes, etc).
• Teach children not to throw objects or toys at each other.
• Keep kids away from work areas where power tools are used.
Make playtime eye and vision safe
• Carefully select your children’s toys. Avoid toys which are potentially dangerous (toys with sharp and/or pointed edges, long-handled toys, slingshots, air, bb & spring guns, darts, bows and arrows, etc).
• Teach your kids how to use their toys.
• Keep toys for older kids away from younger kids.
• Don’t let children play with fireworks.
• Teach your children to wear eye protection when playing baseball, basketball or other types of contact sports.
- Eyesight and Age: School Vision Facts & Tips for Good Vision
- Eyesight Safety Ideas For The Workplace
- Eye Activities for Kids: Vision Perception Eye Exercise
