If your child is always well-behaved and engaged at home, it can be a shock to receive school reports that claim they're the opposite in the classroom. If you can't believe the problems your little one's teacher is describing, you may not just be looking through rose-coloured glasses. Instead, it could be your child who needs the glasses. It may sound surprising, but vision problems are actually a major cause of numerous issues in the classroom.
Here are 2 common school report comments and how they could be caused by vision problems.
"Your child isn't paying attention in class"
Has your child's teacher complained that your child would be a great achiever if they just applied themselves in class? Such comments are usually accompanied by reports of your child daydreaming, staring off into space, or looking at anything but the board or their work.
If this doesn't sound like your child's usual behaviour, the problem could be their vision. For children with blurred vision and other eye problems, focusing on work is incredibly difficult. These children need to strain their eyes to make out words and images, which can quickly lead to fatigue and frustration. Understandably, many children who have trouble seeing the whiteboard or reading their book give up entirely and let their eyes wander to things they can see. To a teacher, this comes across as a lack of focus. For the child, it's an inability to focus.
"Your child is being rude to teachers and classmates"
Another common complaint on school reports is rudeness. This can encompass a variety of problems, from children interrupting their teachers to children ignoring their classmates. Such behaviour is seen as disrespectful and can cause a lot of upset for all involved. But, as surprising as it may sound, 'rudeness' in class can actually be caused by poor vision.
Many people believe the only important sense in conversation is hearing. However, communicating effectively isn't just about hearing each other — it's about social cues too. In fact, studies estimate that over half of communication is based on body language. Children with vision problems have trouble seeing body language, which leads to social problems. Bodily cues can indicate when a person is finished talking, for example. A child who cannot see a teacher giving these cues may speak up out of turn and be accused of "interrupting". Likewise, eye contact is a way of indicating who you're speaking to in a group conversation. If your child can't see one of their peers looking at them, they may assume they're not the target of the conversation and ignore what their classmate is saying.
If you think your child's school report may indicate eye health problems, you can take them to an optometrist for diagnosis and treatment.
Share17 October 2019
Hello there! Welcome to my blog. I would like to start by telling you a story about something that happened to me many years ago. I was working in Sydney at the time as an investment banker. The hours were long and I would party every weekend to de-stress. I put on a lot of weight and began to have problems sleeping. I didn't pay much attention to the problems, as I thought I was invincible. However, one day I collapsed at work. At the hospital the doctors saved my life. Since then, I have become very interested in health and medical matters.