Our Experience with School….so far

Year 1

This is when we started to notice things had changed. Dane was a pretty good reader – being so competitive he had to beat his older sister with sight word progression! But one night he was reading his school reader and I found he was making a lot of mistakes. I asked him to read with his ‘good’ eye and it was kind of okay but when I asked him to read with his ‘bad’ eye only (the contact lens eye) he pretty much couldn’t see the text. I was freaked out! We scheduled a trip to the optometrist the next day but everything checked out as far as the bad stuff went. What we worked out though was that because his ‘good’ eye does the majority of the work during the day, it was getting really tired by the end of the day. The text was also getting smaller as his reading progressed, which was putting more strain on his eyes. Dane was also showing signs of being long-sighted in his ‘good’ eye. So we ended up getting glasses for him, with a bifocal in his contact lens eye – or the ‘magic spot’ as we called it. This way he could still see the board but be able to use the bifocal spot for close up work. 

The good thing with the glasses was that it also helped with that daily fear of an eye accident – at least he now had some level of protection. All in all it was a great win. He’s fantastic at looking after his glasses and touch wood still hasn’t broken a pair. 

Year 2 and 3

Things progressed pretty steadily for these two years. The biggest drama we had was getting him to keep his glasses clean so he could actually see through them! I seriously do not understand how they could get so dirty! Dane was really good with switching his reading glasses for sunglasses when he went outside. This was about the time we learnt about acanthamoeba and the ‘water fear’ began. I felt like I lived at school part time as I was called up there a few times a week to remove his lens because some kid had splashed water in his eye. His teachers were really good about this – as soon as we explained the dangers they had chats with the whole class. They even banned those water mist water bottles that were the rage for a while. 

I did notice that his writing was really big in year 2 – and actually continues to be really messy and big unless he’s pushed to write neatly. Honestly I’m not sure if this is a vision thing or just a boy thing. It’s really hard having an older daughter who is an exceptional writer not to compare the two of them. I regularly checked in with his teachers though and they assured me he was doing great for his age and continues to do so. 

Year 4

Biggest change of my life – Dane learnt to put drops in himself AND take his contact lens out by himself. Unbelievable. The feeling of freedom this created was amazing. I still need to be close to school in case something goes wrong but if he’s just got water in his eye he can take the lens out himself. Winning!

A big change this year has been screen time. Ours is not a device school but his homework is increasingly being required to be done on the computer. Mathletics, Maths Online, and then just researching for assignments means he’s getting a LOT more screen time than we would normally allow. I do have to constantly remind him to put his glasses on when he’s on the computer – because he can see without them he forgets easily. So far his optometrist is not too concerned with the screen time as it’s realistically about 30-60 minutes per day on average and he plays so much sport to counteract it. But I guess it does make me start worrying about the years ahead when big homework starts!

Year 5

Well year 5 was a bit different thanks to COVID of course. We started the year with the usual information sheet to the admin office and teacher, an explanation to the teacher that if Dane is complaining he’s not trying to just get out of doing some activity, and restocking his lens kit to be kept at the first aid room. After an initial drop requirement, Dane ended up keeping his kit in his school bag so he could quickly administer drops if he needed to. Not ideal from my perspective because what 10 year old boy has clean hands but I had to give him credit for being responsible. 

He was excellent with wearing his sunglasses when outside, clear protective glasses for inside PE and his prescription glasses when in the classroom. There are quite a few kids that wear glasses at school so he’s had no dramas with being picked on. 

Then we had our little stint of home learning when the schools were shut down. His school didn’t do a lot of work so the computer time increased only slightly. 

The big change this year has been Dane’s increasing interest in computer games – bordering on obsession. His time is limited every day but every day he needs to be reminded to put his glasses on. Because he can function quite easily without the glasses he doesn’t always remember to put them on at home. This has just been a case of constant nagging. 

Don't be afraid to advocate for your child

So overall we have been really lucky. Dane is pretty bright, always puts in 100% and we’ve had great support from the school. When each school year starts we print out some information about Dane’s history and remind Dane that if he has any problems seeing the board or books then he is to tell the teacher or us when he gets home. Generally his teachers have let him sit near the front of the room just to be sure he can see. 

From one parent to another though I would strongly suggest advocating for your child and if you have any issues at all taking them to the teacher and the school. Kids are really good at just getting on with things and don’t realise there is a problem. No one is going to care about your child as much as you do so don’t be afraid to push as hard as you need to for them. 

Need more help?

If you need some more tips on the information that can be provided to educators, check out this blog post that has downloadable letter templates.