How Old Does a Child Need to Be to Wear Contact Lenses?
April 11th, 2010 | See the Top Answers to this Question Below
My son is 10 years old and is due for his annual eye exam. He has broken 2 pairs of glasses in the past 3 months. Should I consider getting hI am contact lenses?
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Personally I wouldn’t get contact lenses for a child unless he could properly take care of them. Two pairs of glasses in 3 months shows he’s not taking proper care of the glasses, so probably isn’t ready for the responsibility of taking proper care of lenses yet.
With the glasses, if he doesn’t take good care of them all you end up with are broken glasses. If he doesn’t take good care of contacts, he risks eye infection, eye damage, etc.
No offense to your son, my kids have done the same thing to their glasses and I’ve destroyed a few pair on my own…lol. Kids are gonna be kids. When he shows the level of responsibility he needs, I say go for it. It might be an incentive for him to try harder.
Good luck!
12 years old
Ask the eye doctor at the next appt.
I feel you should talk to your physician but my kids, who are now 16 and 14, were not allowed to wear contacts until they could safely take care of them on their own. That meant washing before touching their eyes, taking them out as recommended by doctor and cleaning them correctly, putting them in and taking them out on their own. This may seem extreme but unless you talk to your doctor or you are in the medical field yourself you don’t realize the infections someone can get by not cleaning their hands frequently and then placing their fingers in their eyes or touching the contact lenses. My kids were 13 almost 14 before I let them.
P.S. If you are worried because he breaks glasses, it is MUCH easier to tear contacts. I do it sometimes and I am careful and I have been wearing contacts for almost 15 years.
My younger brother was in pretty much the exact same situation a few years ago. His eye doctor gave him a trial pair of contacts to see how well he could handle them and then they decided from there whether to actually go ahead and get them. I think most doctors will do this, so it can’t hurt to ask and see.
Usually when a child gets glasses and wears them for a year, then you can consider getting him/her contacts but I would wait until he is aliitle older maybe about 12 years old because contacts rip easily too. You can tear the contacts by scratching your eye or some thing. Also when you get contacts, you have to have eye solution to clean the lenses, eye drops to moisten your eyes that way it relieve the itchiness and another bottle of cleaner to disinfect them.