While Santa and his elves have wrapping up the toys for all the good boys and girls and have made arrangements to “magically” deliver these special gifts, it is our job as parents and grandparents to be especially alert for potential holiday eye hazards to young children.The obvious advice is to avoid toys that can cause serious eye injuries and vision loss. These of course include projectile-firing toys, sharp or pointed parts or toys with flying parts.

As a note of acknowledgement, for the past 30+ years our optometric colleague in Illinois, Dr. Phillip Kaufman has annually visited  toy and department stores identifying dangerous toys and then publishes his annual list of toys that can cause eye damage.  Click here to see Dr. Kaufman’s recent article about this doctor who has “an eye for danger.”  It also has a link to Dr. Kaufman’s list of current “eye dangerous toys”.  Of particular note, Dr. Kaufman points to statistics that reveal that “As many as 160,000 children suffer eye injuries from toys every year, and most of those injuries are around Christmas.”

But don’t forget to look around the festively decorated house for not so obvious potential hazards, for young children, such as:

• Ornaments that are breakable, have small detachable parts, or metal hooks near the bottom of the tree where kids can reach them.
• The lower branches of the tree trimmed so children don’t accidentally poke their eyes on the branches.
• Spray snow is very dangerous for the eyes. The substance is made up of dangerous chemicals, so avoid spraying it near the eyes.
• Packaging may also pose a risk, especially for young children. Stiff cardboard and heavy-duty twist ties that are often used to secure toys in the packaging may both poke or scratch children’s eyes.

If you are looking for the perfect gift for the 4-10 year-old our gift advise this year is the geo-board.  It’s fun, allows kids to play on their own or involve older kids and adults in this fun visual learning activity. Click here for a link to our blog on how we use the geoboard to develop visual thinking.