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I have strabismus and have enjoyed the pleasure of having an eye turn for my entire life. But guess what? I am extremely confident and it hasn’t held me back, in fact I feel like it has given me a leg up in many ways. Why did I come through this experience with confidence and determination? I give credit to my amazing parents who handled my condition with zero drama and a whole lot of love. Let me share their secrets with you!
If you would like to learn more about coaching yourself or to see specific scenario dialogue suggestions, I have an article all about it at:
https://StrabismusSolutions.com/talk
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0:00
Hi, I am Melissa Daniels. I was born with strabismus and I've had severe eye turns for most of my life
0:10
I've had eyes that went out, eyes that went in, and everything in between
0:15
And I wanted to teach you today about how to talk to your kids about strabismus
0:20
if they have an eye turn or if they have any sort of vision problems. And technically this could apply to anything
0:25
I've heard people, adults say I have a lazy eye and I'll never get married
0:32
or I'm never going to be able to get a job or anything like that
0:37
they just think that it's completely crippling to them and they won't be able to have a normal life because of it
0:42
and I don't buy into that at all I think that yeah, it's definitely a dysfunction
0:47
and something that you want to treat whether you choose vision therapy or surgery
0:52
that's totally up to you but it doesn't mean that it's disabling or that you can't live a normal life
0:59
So hearing all of the people talk like that has prompted me to think
1:03
maybe it's the way I was raised and the way that my parents handled my business
1:07
that it's not been that big of a deal for me in my life. I mean, it's been hard, don't get me wrong, but it's not been crippling
1:15
So I wanted to share with you today three specific suggestions that can maybe help you as you're raising your child that has vision problems
1:23
that will help them turn into a very high-functioning adult with no complex about their eyes
1:29
So here we go. So first, I think the most important part is that you need to be in a good place
1:38
Where is your head? Are you sitting there thinking, this is terrible? Everything has gone wrong
1:44
Oh, my poor child. Because if you feel like that, it doesn't matter what you say
1:50
your child is going to take on that same thing. And maybe that's what you want. Maybe you just want to feel terrible about it. But I challenge
1:58
you to look at what results that's creating for you and for your child and consider
2:03
changing to more optimistic way of looking at things. So my parents, when they first found out
2:11
that I had strabismus, I was just an infant and my mom was pretty upset about the whole situation
2:18
You know, how am I going to keep glasses on my baby? This patching is hard
2:23
Oh, this is terrible. What if they can't see normally? You know, there's just all these things going on in her head
2:29
And then her neighbor across the street had a child almost the same time just a couple months after my diagnosis get diagnosed with a disease that would ultimately lead to their blindness So she sitting there like oh my baby has to
2:43
wear glasses while her neighbor's like, my baby has to go to blind school because they're going
2:49
to be blind by the time they're, I can't remember how old, six or 10 or something like that. Anyway
2:55
so it completely changed her whole perspective on the situation. Instead of being like, this is so
2:59
hard, she was like, this is no big deal. This is treatable. There are so many options available
3:06
There's science out there that we can reverse this. You know, my eyes might be like this right now
3:11
but they can be fixed. And so it changed everything and their whole approach to how
3:17
they talked to me about it. So that is my first advice to you is get your head in a better place
3:23
Now, I could go on about this forever. I love talking about changing thoughts and getting yourself into a healthier place
3:32
and I talk a lot more about that on my website. I have a whole post all about this topic at lazyisolutions.com slash talk
3:42
So head over there if you want more information about how you get some specific steps about
3:47
how you can get yourself in a better place mentally, because I promise you that is going
3:52
to be the key. The second thing that I want you to consider is not looking back
4:00
A lot of parents I watch online through social media say, well we did surgery but now I don't
4:07
know if it was right and now we're going to do vision therapy but it's so hard and expensive
4:10
I think we should have done just surgery and maybe we should have just stuck to glasses or maybe they're fine
4:15
You know, they like second guess constantly and they waste so much energy on that and
4:19
again there's that feeling of like something has gone wrong here and and when you're coming from
4:25
that place your kid's gonna pick up on that so the second thing is to just pick a treatment and
4:33
then move on so if you decide that your treatment's going to be surgery and glasses then great do it
4:42
and just say we're not looking back I did my research I feel like this is what's best and
4:46
we're going to do it. Or if you choose to wait on surgery and try vision therapy first, and vision
4:51
therapy is hard, don't be like, oh, this is so hard. We should have just done surgery. Just say, no
4:56
we picked the right thing. This is what we're doing. We're moving forward. And it doesn't mean
5:00
that you might not try another option later on down the road, but don't go back and live in regret
5:05
Again that just going to make it so that you aren in the place to like help your child through this So the third is that when you having dialogue with your kid when they come to you with a question like why are my eyes not straight Or why can
5:20
I see? Or why do I have to wear glasses? Or why can't I hit the softball when I'm playing
5:27
baseball, right? Why can't I hit the ball? When you're having those types of dialogue
5:34
My tip for you is to take the drama out, especially for you
5:39
Your kid will probably do that naturally. They probably won't think twice about the eye turn when they're four years old
5:45
and someone says, why aren't your eyes pointing the same direction? And they'll be like, I don't know, and play on
5:49
And you'll be there like, oh, this is so sad. Don't do that
5:54
Just take the drama out and get to the fact. So one example that I think would be particularly hard as a parent
6:02
I know that it would be, you know, probably a little bit of a struggle for me, is if my child had a lazy eye and, you know, we might be working towards fixing it, but it wasn't all the way there yet
6:13
And they came home and said, someone made fun of my eye today
6:17
And they were sad about it. And I think as a parent, it would be really hard not to be like, oh, that is sad
6:24
Oh, I feel really bad. Oh, this is terrible. um and so I think that knowing in advance that this is a tough situation this is one that you
6:34
might want to explore before it happens by yourself not with your kid because again the more you
6:41
when you're not in a good place if you're thinking all those things like oh this is so terrible and
6:46
sad they're gonna feed off of that so get yourself figured out first before you go talk to them
6:51
mess them up too. Anyways, so some things that you might consider, instead of thinking like
7:00
this is really hard, or this is so sad, you could choose to think about it differently, like
7:07
this is totally manageable, or this is easy. This is so easy. I know exactly what to say. Or
7:15
my child is going to become the exact person they are supposed to be because their eyes don't work
7:24
properly. This is going to be a challenge that shapes them into the person that they are meant
7:28
to be and I am going to help them get there. I am the perfect parent for this. So you don't have to
7:34
say like, oh I'm so glad that they're getting teased at school or I'm so glad that all that's
7:41
but if you can come in a place like, yeah, it might be kind of hard, but guess what
7:46
We got this we can figure this out together And I sure as you listening you thinking oh yeah of course if you thinking in that positive forward mode then you going to come
7:59
off to your kids in a way that is positive, that isn't drama, and it's going to help take the drama
8:06
out of things for them. Because I think that's where people with strabisms have the biggest
8:11
problem is they're just like they think everything is just really bad like oh oh oh it's so sad it's
8:19
so bad but if you don't allow yourself to get into the drama and you stick to the facts it's not
8:24
going to be a problem one last bonus tip when your kid does come home and say so and so made fun of
8:32
my eyes today instead of immediately jumping in and talking to your kid which will be what you're
8:39
tempted to do. Just ask questions like, what exactly did they say? Because maybe the kid just
8:46
like looked over their shoulder because they didn't know where your child was looking
8:51
which is totally understandable because it's kind of hard to know which eye to look at when
8:56
you're talking to someone with strabismus. It's not mean. It's just confusion and it's totally okay
9:02
They might have said, oh, why don't your eyes point in the same direction
9:06
right is that making fun of someone or is that curiosity it something that is kind of unusual
9:13
so you can talk to your child about that you can but and as you ask them those questions
9:19
and kind of create some awareness like yeah people aren't it's not necessarily mean to be curious and
9:25
talk about the difference between being mean and being curious and is that okay for people to have
9:29
questions is it okay for you to have questions and i think if you get down to the facts and ask like
9:34
what exactly did happen, then you can kind of create more awareness about it. So I'm going to
9:42
just leave it there. I have a lot more on my website about this exact topic. If you go to
9:47
lazysolutions.com slash talk, I have several different scenarios and dialogue ideas that you
9:53
can have when you're talking to your kids about these difficult topics and some ideas that will
9:59
help you get yourself to a better place so that you are not, you know, spreading your worry and
10:07
drama to your kid. So I believe in you. This is going to be great. You are the perfect parent for
10:13
this. Believe in yourself. Head over to my website. Do a little self-coaching if needed
10:19
Sign up for a Zoom call with me if you think that that could be helpful for you, and I will see you later
10:29
Thank you
#Vision Care
#Eyeglasses & Contacts
#Kids & Teens
#Eye Exams & Optometry
#Laser Vision Correction
#Self-Help & Motivational