🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop

• 🧠 Body Awareness — Understanding how the body works — what makes hearts beat faster, why we need sleep, what food does inside us — builds the health literacy that enables informed, health-conscious decisions throughout life.
• 🛡️ Safety Knowledge — Learning about personal safety, body autonomy, and when to ask for help equips children with the knowledge and confidence to protect themselves and seek adult support in challenging situations.
• 🥦 Nutrition Awareness — Connecting food to body function — understanding that vegetables fuel muscles, water regulates temperature, and protein builds tissue — gives children an intrinsic reason to make healthy food choices.
• 🌡️ Illness Literacy — Learning age-appropriate facts about illness — what symptoms to tell an adult about, how germs spread, and why rest helps recovery — builds the health literacy that enables children to be appropriate self-advocates for their own health.

Strabismus is a technical term for misaligned eyes that can cause various degrees of problems, and is of particular importance when occurring in the critical preschool years of development. If you’ve noticed that your preschooler’s eye strays, even occasionally, here is an overview of the impact this may have and the importance of having even the tiniest of misalignments checked out.

What is strabismus?

Strabismus goes by various names such as a “lazy eye” or being “cock eyed,” but whatever you call it, it can cause a lot of difficulties if left untreated. Strabismus is when one or more of the muscles that control eye movements, in one or both eyes, is weak and not performing properly. Depending on the condition of the weakened muscle(s), a wide array of signs can occur. In one case, your preschooler may have one eye that turns in or out only when they are tired. In another case, both of your preschooler’s eyes may turn in when reading or doing near tasks. There are a myriad of symptoms in between.

A common type of strabismus that is accommodative esotropia. This is when one or both of your preschooler’s eyes turns in when reading or doing other near work. This happens because a weak eye muscle and an excessive focusing power cause the muscle to turn in too much. This can cause symptoms of headache, blur, and jumping and swimming words when reading, and eventually the avoidance of reading altogether. Preschooler’s are then mislabeled as poor learners when, in reality, it is the symptoms of the strabismus they are unknowingly avoiding. With a pair of glasses, this problem can be solved.

Another type of strabismus that requires special attention, and one that is often difficult to ignore, is a constant eye turn of one eye. This requires immediate attention and treatment! Untreated, this leads to amblyopia.

How can strabismus affect your preschooler’s performance?

Without proper eye alignment, your preschooler has reduced depth perception. Reduced depth perception can affect activities in play and learning activities. On the playground, your preschooler may show signs of more clumsiness when climbing and running around. In preschool, activities that require picking things up and hand eye coordination may appear reduced.

If you notice any signs of a turned eye, whether, out, up or down, in one or both eyes, it’s important to have this examined by a pediatric eye care professional (ophthalmologist or optometrist). Even if this occurs only occasionally, this should be reported and checked out by an eye doctor.

Treatments can include:

1. Eye surgery to tighten the weakened muscle(s)
   
2. Ongoing use of an eye patch
   
3. Ongoing eye/vision therapy
   
4. Glasses or therapeutic contact lenses
   

By: Pia Chaparro

Helpful Tips for Parents - Sun safety: seek shade between 10am–4pm, wear wide-brim hats, apply SPF 50+ sunscreen, wear UV-protective clothing. Childhood sunburns significantly increase melanoma risk in adulthood. - Preschoolers average 8–10 colds per year — this is normal and builds immunity. Frequent illness in a healthy preschooler is expected, not concerning. - Physical activity reduces preschooler illness frequency, severity, and recovery time. Active children miss fewer sick days and recover faster when ill. - Annual well-child visits are essential even when the child appears healthy. Vision, hearing, developmental, and growth screening catch issues that aren't visible to parents. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### When should I keep my preschooler home from school? Standard exclusion criteria: fever above 100.4°F (38°C), vomiting or diarrhea in the past 24 hours, a rash with fever or unknown cause, pink eye (conjunctivitis) that is weeping and contagious, or a child too ill to participate in activities. A child can return: fever-free for 24 hours without fever-reducing medication, diarrhea/vomiting-free for 24 hours, rash identified as non-contagious, pink eye treated for 24 hours with antibiotic. Runny nose, mild cough without fever, and general tiredness are not sufficient reasons to exclude from school. Related reading: See also our preschool sleep guide and our water safety guide for more ideas on this topic.