EXPLAIN to a child that spectacles aid proper sight. Emphasise that some activities like reading require a child to wear spectacles.

Buy glasses that fit and are comfortable.
Let your child choose the frames you can afford.

Clean the lenses regularly or teach your child to.
Let your child watch pictures or movies with children wearing glasses. You can also reward your child for keeping their glasses on. With time, they get used to them.

Tie a strap around the frame of your child’s glasses to lower risks of breakage.
Do not lose your cool when he takes off the glasses. This may cause him to reject the idea.
Let your child wear glasses as they take part in an activity they enjoy to do.

A parent who can’t afford
Mary is struggling to raise money to buy spectacles for her daughter. Last year, an eye specialist at Mulago Hospital recommended that her daughter wears glasses after a test revealed that she was short-sighted. Mary was devastated because she could not afford.

“I am unemployed and my husband is a casual labourer. He earns about sh50,000 a month. We tried to borrow money to meet the costs, but nobody was willing to lend to us money because we are poor. We sold our bed and topped up with part of my husband’s salary to raise sh40,000 for the glasses,” she says.

“That month, we defaulted on rent and the landlord evicted us. We sacrificed our bed for the sake of our child because the doctor had warned us that failure to get the glasses, our daughter risked losing her sight. I dread the day my daughter’s glasses will break or need lense replacement,” she says.
As told to Anthony Olwoch