Straining is one of the worst things you can do to your eyes. You can cause permanent damage to your eyesight with too much mental strain and focus. Unfortunately, these are bad habits that are a result of childhood, mainly during the school years. Unfortunately, these are bad habits that follow us all the way to adulthood, which causes even more damage to the eyes. Therefore, many of the eye problems that we experience as adults can be directly attributed to the bad habits that we learned during childhood.
There is a natural curiosity in children to learn new things. That is why if you were to ask a child of kindergarten to fifth grade age if their excited about the start of a new school year, they’ll all respond to your question with unpretentious enthusiasm. On the other hand, if you ask the same question to a child of junior high school or high school age, I’m sure you’ll get a totally different reaction.
As you can see there is a big difference between the two, why is that? When children attend school, they’re disciplined for about eight hours daily memorizing and learning things that do not interest them. The subjects that are not interesting tend to cause them to concentrate more, which make the eyes strain. Keep in mind that different kids like different subjects; however, they’re all forced to learn things in way that do not interest them.
Whenever we see images that do not interest us, the eyes tend to strain. For instance, watching a bunch of numbers on an analytical report at the job is not going to be interesting to all employees. Just like science, English, and mathematics is not going to be of interest to every student. I’m not saying that having a good education is not something to strive for and should be put to the side. All I’m saying is that there needs to be some reform to how we teach our children.
A very well-known eye doctor by the name of Dr. William Bates discovered what is known today as the Bates Method. Using the Bates Method, Dr. Bates assembled a large card that was covered in shapes that are common to many children of school age as well as familiar letters that they could relate to. This card was suspended at the front of the classroom so that the children can have something to look at whenever they got tired or felt overwhelmed. The reason for the card in front of the room was to give the children something that they can look at to rest their eyes. Whenever you see something new, it puts strain on the eyes, but when you see something that you’re familiar with, it relaxes the eyes.
When you teach kids not to strain their eyes from the time they’re young, you will prevent eye damage and you will help them to keep their vision sharp for many years to come.
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