Many kids are myopic and need glasses. Sometimes the parents are worried that wearing glasses may make their eyes worse, or request to have a ‘weaker’ prescription for fear that strong prescriptions are bad for their eyes. Sometimes kids don’t wear glasses at all, despite having trouble seeing far away; mostly the kids are doing this, but I have had occasionally some parents refusing their children to wear glasses for whatever reasons.

So, when your kids have myopia, should they wear glasses?

The answer is YES. A review article [1] looking at previous research on this subject found that under-correction, which means to wear weaker glasses on purpose, more often than not, will cause the myopia to progress faster. Not wearing glasses is a form of under-correction.

When your kids have myopia, should they wear ‘weaker’ glasses?

The answer is NO. Under-correction, or wearing weaker glasses will not only make kids’ vision blurry, but also potentially make their myopia progress faster.

When your kids have myopia, should they wear glasses that are stronger than necessary?

The answer is NO. I cannot fathom why some people would want glasses to be stronger than what they should be, perhaps they want to save money when myopia progresses so that they don’t need to buy another pair? In any rate, it’s not good practice either, as stronger prescription does not help and may actually cause myopia to progress faster as well.

So there you have it, for children with myopia, a proper prescription of glasses is necessary, not weaker, not stronger, but just right. This way they will see well and myopia progression is not worsened by not having glasses or having the wrong glasses.

Reference

[1] Logan NS, Wolffsohn JS. Role of un-correction, under-correction and over-correction of myopia as a strategy for slowing myopic progression. Clin Exp Optom. 2020 Mar;103(2):133-137. doi: 10.1111/cxo.12978. Epub 2019 Dec 18. PMID: 31854025.