I need to twist the phrase “It takes one to know one.”

In the here and now of this children’s eyewear issue I need to verbally and literally mangle that phrase into “It takes having one (a kid, that is) to know one even slightly enough to understand what they need in terms of support where their precious sense of vision is concerned.”

I’m putting it right out there. One of the most important parenting issues in my now six-and-a-half year stretch as ‘Daddy-O’ has been as part of a caring team facilitating the seemingly complex demands assuring my son Gram can see his world properly. A very clear description of his particular opti-challenges can be found in the guidance of Andy Karp’s luminous L&T Basics. I don’t need to detail Gram’s need for glasses (and eventual vision exercises) to example him as a portrait of what it takes to keep a kid experiencing life at its fullest... IN FOCUS.

The leader of that team is, of course, you as the optical professional. Parents sometime think the school system is the vanguard of detecting early problems. And there is also considerable faith afforded the pediatrician since those able and medically capable professionals are the main structured care contact.

But you know that the schools and the medical doctors are not specifically honed in on the complex issues setting a child on the proper vision quest. Your main challenge is integrating your specific gift of eyecare into the spectrum of a child’s life. And the effort is daunting. It involves a studied approach to your connection to other medical professionals, unique bonding with your patients who have children AND specialized dialogues with your eyewear and lens sources for their offerings in this gifted and specialized mix of child-specific vision products.

Don’t you want to have a BIG person part in helping children clearly see their world... and their future?         


James J. Spina
Editor-in-Chief
[email protected]