Both my soccer girls have poor eyesight and started wearing glasses in the second grade. Above are my little soccer girl’s glasses after the dog chewed the earpieces (bad Nutmeg!) and one of the lenses fell out. I knew a trip to the eye doctor was in order to check her prescription and order new glasses. Although she’s been wearing glasses at school for over a year now, she doesn’t wear them regularly outside of the classroom. When I realized that she couldn’t see her coach motioning her off the futsal (indoor soccer) field, the trip to the eye doctor quickly went to the top of the priority list!
My big soccer girl started her club soccer career wearing sports goggles in order to see on the field. They definitely helped her vision, but they were somewhat uncomfortable and tended to steam up as well as limit her peripheral vision. She started wearing contacts when she turned 10 and has been happy ever since.
When I tried to get little soccer girl to wear the discarded sports goggles, it was a no go. She insisted that she wanted to get contacts like her big sister. We go to a wonderful eye care center where they require a contact training and passing a test before they will let children have contacts. When big soccer girl went, they told us that 10 was the absolute youngest that they liked to approve contact use. Since little soccer girl is still 8, I wasn’t sure if they would even let her try the training.
To make a long story short, not only did they allow her to try the training, she passed with flying colors! She went straight from the eye doctor to her next futsal game and scored a cracking goal. She’s a determined little girl and even got the lenses in the next day…in less than five minutes! Big soccer girl took at least 30 minutes for the first week or so.
I can see! (Maybe now my coach will stop calling me Stevie…Wonder) LOL