I was exctied to discover the Bates Method because I just knew deep down inside that glasses weren't the answer to my daughters vision problems.
My husband and I don't wear glasses but in the last year our 8 year old daughters eyes went from 20/20 last time she was tested to really bad in the left eye and somewhat bad in the right eye. (I am going to test her when she gets home from school using the link you reference). In one years time!
I read Relearning To See and Dr Bates' book and I am just not clear what I should do to help her. Or actually it seems to easy so I assume I must be missing something. Here is my plan.
1.She breathes very poorly due to constant allergies, very shallow so we are spending time in the morning and evening breathing deeply and relaxing.
2.She used to be very stressed and a worrier due to some big issues before she joined my family so we have spent the last few months helping her relax and process her issues. She is doing 100% better now but we are still going to keep talking so she can let go of her worries.
3.We do the palming in the morning and evening now.
4.Every few days we are doing the sunning for a minute with eyes closed and then do the palming for a minute.
5.She doesn't move at all when reading or blink. So I am trying to get her to pretend to be a bobble head andmove all the time.
6.She is trying to do the infinity swing but really has trouble. We will keep working on that.
7.I printed out the Snellen chart and hung it on the wall but here is where I am at a loss. Both Bates and Quackenbush talk about using the Snellen chart every day but I don't know what to do every day? One book says look at the smallest text you can with each eye and look at the letters. Is it really just looking at the letters? Are you supposed to just move your eyes back and forth from the top of the letter to the bottom? Or close eye and imagine letter? I see all the testimonials in the books to using this chart but I don't get it.
Thanks so much for any help you can give.
I know it is very difficult to deal with a 8 year-old child. They are simply
not interested in what you are doing -- and the method to keep their
vision clear.
Bates described his "Method" -- which is to have the child INTERESTED
in her Snellen -- and her distant visual acuity. You did not provide it -- so
I assume you did not measure it. Do not rely on any OD to do this.
The purpose of reading the Snellen is to establish a base-line -- by
which you can determine improvements.
Further, it is necessary that the child take an interest in her distant vision -- by
reading a REASONABLE Snellen.
I would present the following chart to her. Click here:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.smbs.buffalo.edu/oph/ped/IVAC/IVAC.html">http://www.smbs.buffalo.edu/oph/ped/IVAC/IVAC.html</a><!-- m -->
Then press "Display" several times. 20/60 characters will be
presented. If you can, have her read at 20 feet. Reading
1/2 the letters passes the line.
If you can not get her to do this -- then you truly have a problem
of motivation with her.
Why not tell her others would like to learn from her. Then
have her teach herself how to "start" the Snellen and read it.
People who have "control" in their lives (over their distant vision)
are more likely to do this correctly.
I have asthma and find the Buteyko technique which my asthma nurse recommended to me the most helpful. In its entirity it's time-consuming but I find just applying the underlying principles to my breathing and when clearing my nose is all I've needed. It's similar to Bates in that it works on the principle that the disability gets into a vicious circle of poor function to poor habits and back again. Breathing deeply works to relax you by starving your body and brain of oxygen, as it produces more carbon dioxide than healthy breathing, which isn't an ideal way. When I used to have asthma attacks, I'd find the recommended slow deep breathing helped very well, probably because it forced me to organise and focus my efforts, but other than that, I noticed that deep breathing could create feelings of suffocation when there was none before. It's possible to be completely alert and fully functioning and relaxed at the same time; that's what most forms of meditation aim to achieve. Otherwise it seems to me you're training the brain to think it must be in a state of compromised consciousness and health in order to be calm!
Anyway I hope that's of some interest, it works for me at any rate.
There are lots of different things to do with a Snellen. Shifting, imagining the purest black, imagining smaller figures within the lines of letters, or just keeping certain thoughts at the back of your mind as you glance over them. All of it should be aimed towards central fixation and ease of eye movement. I find it useful to tell myself that all I'm doing is deciding which minute part of the screen in my head I want to see better than the rest, and let my eyes do their thing. The goal is to convince yourself not to consciously interfere with your eyes' job. Trust that they can focus without your help, can only focus without your help. I don't know how well this can be applied to a child, but it can't hurt to make sure that she understands at least the basic principles.
What might help demonstrate it for her is to point out that when she looks at something she can see well (close objects if she's myopic) she doesn't make any effort to focus on it. She just decides she wants to notice it, and in less than a second her brain organises that for her without her even being aware of the process. Tell her the same applies to distant objects. She can't see them well because she's inhibiting that process with unnecessary effort/interference and certain ways of thinking about it, and that the techniques are to help her stop doing that. Also that when she reads close text, she'll notice that she only looks at small details, very quickly, one gliding to the next. She doesn't need to look at large sections of her field of vision all at once. In the same way, she should think mainly about small details in the distance at any one moment. Comparing the way I see close objects with the way I see distant objects has helped me a great deal, personally. It helps the theory make intuitive sense. It made me realise that the impression I had that distance made my field of vision larger and busier was false, generated by the fact that I can't see as much of it clearly, so there was no real reason to try to see more of it equally well each instant.
Hope that helps. In some ways it's actually better to have her start while she's so young. Habits will die easier.
Thanks for the feedback!
I used the test you recommended and the results were:
At 20 feet away she got 0% of the 20/100 with her right eye. She got 100% of the 20/200 with her right eye.
At 20 feet away she got 50% of the 20/100 with her left eye. She got 0% of the 20/80.
With both eyes she got 100% of 20/80 but then couldn't read the next smaller.
I will look into the breathing. We have started today practicing breathing deep whenever we are in the car. I really am shocked how shallow she breathes. I only noticed it because we are doing NAET for her allergies and you are supposed to breath deeply then and she just doesn't!
She is now interested in the Snellen chart and using it because the school tested her with others around and she had the worst eyes in the class and that embarrassed her. (Great, more stress in her head!) She wanted to read it at home before doing anything so I let her and then we did some palming and deep breathing and she could read about half of the line correctly when before palming she had 100% wrong. So she was excited herself to see the progress.
I still don't really understand though what she is supposed to do with the Snellen so I just had her go back and forth from one letter to the one next so she could practice shifting. Then I had her close her eyes and imagine the letter she had just seen.
Also, while teaching her swinging yesterday I noticed her eyes are so choppy.... when she moves her head and body to follow the imaginery pencil here eyes jerk. She is also FROZEN when she reads! I am so antsy I don't know how she became so frozen but she is.
Dr. Bates (in his 1913 study) described "the method" are reading the Snellen -- at
home and at school.
I personally think it is very important. I give you a "base-line" for further work.
It gets your child interested in YOUR INTEREST in this vision-clearing process.
You can now talk about what SHE wants to do.
I would "stick" with both-eyes as the official measurement -- by which you judge
progress. It is possible to function with that level of visual-acuity -- but
you can not let it get worse than that. Thus the use of Bates (and other
methods) is critical.
More commentary:
Quote:I used the test you recommended and the results were:
At 20 feet away she got 0% of the 20/100 with her right eye. She got 100% of the 20/200 with her right eye.
At 20 feet away she got 50% of the 20/100 with her left eye. She got 0% of the 20/80.
With both eyes she got 100% of 20/80 but then couldn't read the next smaller.
The problem in some of these schools is that the kids get "stressed", and lean forward
with their nose almost on the book. This is stress for every part of the body.
Does she read at a normal distance of 13 inches, or does she tend to lean forward
(particularly when writing) and do it at less than 6 inches?
If she does, I would talk to her about that "habit". It tends to be a result of stress --and
causes stress.
Over the weekend I read Help Yourself to Better Sight by by Margaret D. Corbett since I heard she explains the Bates Method well. Her exercises for kids are very helpful so we have been doing those for a few days now and my daughter is much more interested now that it is more game like. And she just loves doing the Snellen and wants to do it all the time so it is on the wall of her room. It must be relaxing for her or something....
Deep down inside I am not convinced that we can break her habit of staring hard because she stares at things so intensely and obsesses on details. She notices specs in the corner of pictures that noone else notices because she stares so intently. I do think that her emotional issues are the cause of her frozen eyes but that will take years to resolve!
And I also feel bad sending her to school and out into the world blind. Softball is starting and I don't know how she will see the ball. My husband thinks we should only wait one more week (2 weeks of working on this) and then move on to glasses or something else which I don't want to do at all but it has been a week and everything is the same. I am impatient!
Just used the online test to see if any progress has been made since it has been almost 2 weeks.
Worse than before, both eyes separately couldn't do any letters at 20/100. Both eyes together could do 20/100 but nothing at 20/80.
We are going the wrong way which I am surprised about because her breathing is much better since alleries have cleared and we have been doing the sunning and palming and swinging every day. We do the Snellen chart almost every day.
She is having hard time remembering to look up while reading so I am trying to get her in the habit of looking up when she turns a page.
Did you tell her that her eyesight has gotten worse? Maybe she gets scared and nervous with the SNELLEN. That can change results dramatically. You seem little worried now, and she might be picking that stress up without you realizing it.
I purposefully didn't tell her it got worse. And I tried hard not to show on my face that it had gotten worse so I don't think she noticed.
She does enjoy the Snellen for some reason and asks to do that so I figure it is relaxing for her.
But she is so tense when she reads and comes home from school tense. I am not sure if there is a way to get her to relax. She had deep trauma at 2 before joining our family so trying to help her relax might be a losing battle.
I will try for another 2 weeks and then make a decision.
Try swinging and have your husband watch your eyes, I was told by my natural vision instructor that the eyes _should_ be choppy when swinging because it shows they are loosening up and allowing for siccadic (sp) movement. The instructor has 20/20 eyesight and I saw her eyes were very choppy during swinging.
About not telling your daughter that her Snellen is worse, trust me, kids know when parents are stressed or holding something back. I remember being that age, and I remember internalizing my parents emotions that they held back to protect us. I've since learned that talking and consolation go a lot farther than holding them back.
About getting her glasses. Could you try in your yard a few softball pitches to see if she can see the ball ok? My sister has much worse vision and just wrote on her blog (sassisailor.wordpress.com) that she can play racketball (much smaller ball) without glasses. But I understand she may need glasses. From my experience with optometrists and reduced prescription glasses, I would recommend asking the optometrist to give her a pair that corrects her eyesight to 20/40. In this way, she can see the board at school, she can play sports and everything, in fact, most things in daylight will be better than 20/30, it is at night that she will see 20/40, which I find better than satisfactory, and at least you can be comforted that her eyes won't be too strained. Also, teach her to only use the glasses for distant objects. If she doesn't need them for reading, eating, etc, PLEASE do her a huge favor and get her in the habit of only using glasses when needed and taking them off for these near activities where her eyes are fine to function. Then by the time she's in her 20s and might take an interest in Bates herself, perhaps she won't be so myopic as she will be if she wears strong and stronger glasses 24/7 for the next 15 years.
Have you tried the Bates method with her? It can be fun!
Cheers,
Sorrisi
sorrisblue, great ideas! Thanks so much.
Funny you mentioned softball....she actually just started playing and is the only kid who can hit the ball which surprised me with her vision. But she also loves sports so she is probably more relaxed!
If we move forward with glasses I will definitely teach her to use them only for distance and not make her wear them all the time. I will try to get them corrected to only 20/30 or 20/40. I will probably have to search for a person who will work with me on that one.
kristen, are you nuts? Putting glasses on your child is exactly the worst thing you can do. A kid in glasses is really something that makes angels weep. You better find a way to get her to relax. Try invent some relaxing games, with imagination and memory etc. Read how Emily worked with children. She always loved to work with kids and they were always the easiest to cure. By putting glasses you will ruin her eyesight and make her ugly and unhappy for years, until she will be able to realize what you have done to her and maybe turn to the Bates method. Then she will have hard time to get cured after years of wearing glasses. Everyone on this forum regrets bitterly that his parents didn't know about Bates method and put glasses on him when he was a kid. Think about it.
Quote:3.We do the palming in the morning and evening now.
4.Every few days we are doing the sunning for a minute with eyes closed and then do the palming for a minute.
That's ridiculously little! Every few days, are you kidding? You should palm or do sun treatment many times a day. She should learn to remember the relaxed and comfortable state she 's got after palming and sun treatment, and then learn to balance in that state. If she falls back into strain, palm again. In the comfortable state, she should shift and notice the swing, remember the black dot etc.
You should also read the ORIGINAL book by Dr. Bates, the Better Eyesight Magazine and Emily's "Stories from the Clinic". The books by Quackenbush and Corbett should go to the trash bin were they belong. Also, if you are myopic yourself, you should cure yourself first, or it simply won't work. The kid will pick your own strain, because it's contagious.
I have 20/15 and sometimes 20/10 so she isn't picking it up from me or my husband who is 20/20.
It may seem "ridiculously little".... but to get a kid to sit and do palming a few times a day and sunning is pretty impossible, especially since the sunning always hurts her eyes and she complains the whole time.
If the light hurts her eyes then all the more reason to practice more. She must become accustomed, but be discreet about it. Expose a little at a time and then more and more.
I personally have found that imagination of black objects or anything that distracts my attention away from the brightness helped me enormously in becoming able to look at the sun without discomfort.
