"I Want Contacts Too": Six Things Parents Should Check When a Child First Asks
Dinner table.
The thirteen-year-old says it.
"I want contacts too."
The reasons vary.
Hates photos in glasses.
Glasses slide off during football.
A friend has them.
The first parental reaction is usually the same.
"You're too young."
Then at the eye clinic you hear something different.
"Age is not the criterion."
There Is No Fixed Minimum Age
Neither the American Academy of Ophthalmology nor the American Optometric Association sets a minimum age for lenses.
Medically, special lenses are even used on babies.
The issue is not the eye. It is the hands.
A lens goes in by hand, comes out by hand, and is cleaned by hand, every day.
How reliable those hands are is the test.
So what the clinic actually looks at is not age but things like these.
Check 1. Do They Wash Their Hands Without Being Told?
Most lens accidents start with hands.
A child who needs "wash your hands before your lenses" every single day is not ready.
A child who washes after the bathroom, before meals and after coming home, without prompting, is.
This one predicts the other five.
Check 2. Do They Keep Track of Their Own Things?
The child who hunts for their glasses every morning.
The child who leaves textbooks at school.
The lens case and solution will meet the same fate.
The child who packs their own bag and lays out tomorrow's things tonight will manage lenses too.
Check 3. Do They Obey a "Don't"?
Lenses come with a few never-dos.
Sleeping in them.
Swimming in them.
Rinsing with tap water.
Trying a friend's.
Is this a child who hears "no" once and keeps it, or one who does it when nobody is looking?
In a 2017 survey by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 85 percent of adolescent lens wearers were doing at least one of these.
Adults were not much better.
Your child is not unusually careless; lens habits are simply hard to keep.
That is why the answer is to set fewer rules from the start.
Check 4. Why Do They Want Lenses?
"Because my friend has them" is a weak reason.
Sport, the stage, a prescription that glasses correct poorly: concrete reasons give the child a reason to take care.
Weak reason, weak care.
Check 5. Do You Have Time to Watch?
The first month costs parental time.
Watch them put the lenses in each morning and take them out each night, and check the case.
Without that month, a wrong method sets before the habit does.
If it is a busy season, start during the holidays or a quieter month.
Check 6. Does the Child Actually Want It?
Lenses started at a parent's suggestion do not last.
If the child raised it first, half the work is done.
Why the First Lens Should Be a Daily
The number of rules is different.
Monthly lens: clean daily, manage the case, replace solution, replace the case, remember the replacement date.
Daily: new lens in the morning, bin at night.
The rules teenagers broke most in the CDC survey were "wearing past the replacement date" and "sleeping in them".
Dailies remove the first one structurally.
A lens you throw away cannot accumulate care mistakes.
They cost more than monthlies, but that is the price of a safe first year.
Rules for the First Month — Exactly Five
Too many rules and none get kept.
Put five on the wall.
- Wash hands before inserting and before removing
- Never sleep in them
- Take them out before water (shower, swim, bath)
- If it hurts or goes red, take it out and tell someone right away
- Dailies are one day only, fresh pair tomorrow
Keep these five for a month and the rest follows.
At School and on the Field
PE. Lenses are safer than glasses. In sports where a ball can hit the eye, add protective eyewear.
Swimming lessons. Lenses out, prescription goggles on. Keep a spare pair of glasses at school.
When a lens falls out. A lens that touched the floor gets binned. Keep a spare pair and a small mirror in the bag.
"Can I try yours?" Absolutely not. Make this clear from day one.
Signs for Parents to Watch
Children often say nothing when their eyes are uncomfortable.
They fear losing the lenses.
So parents watch.
- Rubbing the eyes a lot
- One eye red
- Avoiding light
- Starting to say "lenses are a hassle"
Any one of these: glasses for the day, and a doctor if it lasts more than a day.
Teach them from the start that "taking it out when it bothers you is winning".
What Lenses Give a Child
Not only sight.
The experience of managing, every day, something that goes into their own body.
Learning with their body that keeping rules makes life easier.
Started well, a contact lens becomes the first medical device a child is responsible for.
The test is the hands, not the age.
If the hands are ready, the child is ready.
References
- US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Contact Lens Wearer Demographics and Risk Behaviors — MMWR 2017
- American Academy of Ophthalmology, Contact Lenses for Kids
- American Optometric Association, Contact Lenses
- US Food and Drug Administration, Contact Lens Risks
This article provides general information. Whether and which lenses a child or teenager should wear is decided by an eye-care professional. If there is pain, redness or reduced vision, stop wearing the lenses and seek care.