An A to Z guide of timeless tips to help you become letter-perfect when dispensing to the younger set
Eyecare Business September 1, 2012
The
of Kids' Eyecare
An A to Z guide of timeless tips to help you become letter-perfect when dispensing to the younger set
Over the last 26 years of EB, kids' eyecare has gone from the back seat to center stage. And for good reason. According to the American Optometric Association, 25 percent of school-aged children have a visual impairment. So talking parents about their kids' eye health is important—especially at back-to-school time.
But dealing with young patients can be challenging. To help, we compiled some of the best tips from past issues for working with young patients—and their parents.
ALLURING DECOR
A “The office boasts not only a children's corner, but a separate frame dispensing area where kids can be fitted under Snoopy's saucy stare. A bubble gum machine may be the most popular office decoration.”
— David Atwood, OD, Phoenix November 1986
WILD IMAGINATIONS
B “Children like imaginative play. Whenever possible, provide the means for a changeable environment. Items that are portable and allow the child to ‘imagine,’ rearrange, organize, and manipulate sustain attention far longer than conventional solutions.”
— Office designers Diana Goldberg and William McLoed August 1987
A WORD ON WARRANTIES
C “Parents will be upset when their child breaks a frame, so I make sure I tell them up front which frames are warranteed by the manufacturer and which are not.”
— Judith Putter, owner, The Snooty Fox, Beverly Hills, Calif.August 1988
DIFFICULT SITUATIONS
D “Meet regularly with staff to discuss how to handle different situations with [kids]. The trick is to have the right attitude. For example, make an appointment for a crying child to come back another day, perhaps in the morning when the child is fresh.”
— Jon Gruen, owner, Gruen Optika, New York July 1989
A PERSONAL TOUCH
E “We realize that many of our young patients are frightened when they come in here and may get unruly. Treating each and every one of them as if they are our very own children eases the crisis for patient and practitioner alike.”
— Fred Spangler, optician, Kid's Point of View, Tulsa, Okla.July 1990
Dispensing to Children
Here are some tips to create a fun environment for fitting children's eyewear: ■ To boost a child's self-esteem and reinforce the theme that eyewear is exciting and special, feature a bulletin board in your dispensary with Polaroid pictures of your young patients in their new eyewear. Print the child's name, age, and grade on the bottom of the photo (later to go in his or her file), and place the photos under a heading such as, “Eyewear Stars of the Week.”
■ Use the toys, celebrity photos, and other props supplied by children's eyewear manufacturers to create a special area in your dispensary just for kids' frames.
■ Offer special discounts for young patients who make their class honor roll.
■ Sponsor field trips to your office to show children what happens during an eye exam and how eyewear is made and fitted on a patient.
■ Speak at a local P.T.A. on the importance of eyecare and the special vision-safety needs of children.
■ Use the ABC's of Eyecare program (for annual back-to-school checkups), offered free by the Better Vision Institute, to help you get involved in the community and school.
— Linda Wells, licensed optician, Rosslyn, Va. July 1992
FACE TO FACE
F “We mount our frame bars closer to the floor. We also have mirrors that come down low, and instead of buying lower dispensing tables, we put the kids on high stools to bring them up to our level.”
—Gwen Stevenson, optician, Children's Carousel of Frames, Orlando, Fla. August 1991
POINT OF PURCHASE
G “The consumer's decision on what to buy is made at the point of purchase, not beforehand. That makes the need to make products stand out at retail bigger than ever. And point of purchase has proven the most effective means of doing that.”
— Douglas Leeds, president of p-o-p manufacturer/designer Thomson-Leeds Co., New York July 1992
MATERIAL OBJECTS
H “Status derived from material objects is now prevalent even in very young elementary-age children. And with so many households earning two paychecks, more parents are willing and able to support their children's expensive tastes.”
— James McNeal,PhD, consumer behavior specialist,Texas A&M UniversityJune 1993
OVERCOMING FEARS
I “Parental concerns about a teen being responsible for contacts may be valid…. However, these fears can be overcome with disposables, as spares are always on hand and are inexpensive.”
— Neil Gailmard, OD, Gailmard Eye Center, Munster, Ind.July 1994
IN THE FAMILY
J “I do think kids deserve their own area in a store. They should feel special. As they get older, that store is the place they'll go back to when they buy their own frames. It's a great way to build a client base. Kids grow up and have kids themselves.”
— Ray Dow, O. C. Design June 1995
DIVIDE AND CONQUER
K “Clearly defined areas for men's, women's, and children's frames are a valuable selling tool. And further division within these broad ranges into smaller categories…will enhance frame sales.”
—Ed Muehlberger and Lori Korte, Fashion Optical Displays, Paradise, Calif.March 1996
MORALE BOOST
L “What you can't calculate into dollars when you add a new department or fix up your store is what that does for morale. It really invigorates the staff. So did we increase sales 34 percent in a year because of kids and the resulting family sales? Or was it because we were trying harder?”
— Diane Masterson, co-owner, Master Optical, Atlanta June 1997
What Brands Mean to Kids
In a recent survey, Kid Connection, a division of Saatchi & Saatchi, found that children see four key benefits to name brands.
M “The younger ones want their friends involved now, because glasses are such a popular thing. People want to wear them now more than ever before.”
— Cynthia Cohen, president, MARKETPLACE 2000 April 1998
GET CONNECTED
N “If you are going to have a children's specialty shop, you must somehow be connected with pediatric ophthalmologists…you have to let them know your knowledge and your background.”
— Bill Franz, co-owner, Dallas Youth Optical, Texas November 1999
BIG INFLUENCER
O “Younger children, ages 3 to 7, are really influenced by youth-oriented merchandising and P.O.P. imagery. It's great for them to see other kids wearing glasses, looking good, AND having fun.”
— Susan Boyd, CPOA, optical manager with Richard F. Meier, OD, Reno, Nev. June 2000
P.O.P. PRIORITY
P “Change [P.O.P.] as frequently as possible. Every time you change something, people will assume you have new inventory. Which means they'll pop in just to see what you've got.”
— Sandy Bright, president, Bright Displays June 2001
Troubleshooting
Kids aren't always keen on their first pair of glasses. Rosiland Hursh, OD, of the Eye to Eye Clinic in Oregon, offers these tips for tricky tykes:
1 Ask the child if he or she has friends or siblings who wear glasses. Kids don't like feeling singled out.
2 Kids who see an older sibling wearing contact lenses may want to try them. Give the child 20 minutes in the chair with a trial pair. They often gain an appreciation for CLs and realize glasses are a better choice for now.
3 Consider putting kids in polycarbonate lenses, which are lighter, thinner, and more durable. Also, package all of your lenses, making it easier on parents, too.
June 2006
SPORTING GOODS
“I always recommend prescription sport goggles for kids who engage in any kind of athletic activity as well.”
R “[Children] love to look at themselves, so mirrors are important. I like to use eccentric mirrors with funny shapes.”
— Justine Kish, interior designer, Ennco Displays June 2003
ALL GROWN UP
S “Tweens don't see themselves as kids; they think they are already teenagers. So you've got to grab their attention fast by showing them a frame in a recognizable brand name that's basically a pint-sized version of what grown-ups wear.”
— Tonia Abdul-Kader, optician, Wichita Family Vision Clinic,Wichita, Kan. June 2004
TEACH PROPER CARE
T “Teach parents and kids how to take off and put on their glasses properly, and how to clean and care for them. Most kids understand that they see better with their glasses on, don't want to take them off, and treat them carefully.”
— Joe Black, LDO, Eye Associates, Boca Raton, Fla.June 2005
GONE MISSING
U “I often encourage parents to listen to their kids when it comes to picking out eyewear. If parents force a child into a pair of glasses, that piece of eyewear tends to never get worn or ends up lost.”
V “People can get glasses for their kids anywhere; but when they come to us, we take our time. We are passionate about what we do and we make it a fun experience. We involve the child in the process and spend much of our day on our hands and knees on the floor so that we can be at the child's level.”
— Dana Cohen, OD, Medford Optical, Medford, Mass.June 2007
PLAYING THE FIELD
W “When we offer Trivex to kids because of safety in sports, some parents report that their child doesn't play sports. We point out that at school every child is on the playing field.”
A radical yet practical tip for high-plus lens kids dispensing: Don't go with small frames (yes, you read that right). High-plus lens availability is limited now that intraocular implants (IOLs) have greatly reduced demand and the highest plus powers will be lenticular/aspheric lenticular lenses. Ideally, according to pediatric dispensing expert Kathryn Dabbs Schramm, ABOC, RDO, and CEO of A Child's View with four Southern California locations, “A child requiring an especially high-plus power should be fitted with a round frame equal in size (frame PD) to the child's PD.” This, she says, would result in lenses with maximum usable field, since the aperture would be equal nasally and temporally. “If fitted too small, the nasal cut will be through the thickest part of the lens, not the thinner aperture,” she points out.
One of her pet peeves: selling aspheric lenses inappropriately. For example, to a two-year-old prescribed a +3.00D. “The center of an aspheric lens is spherical, so all the asphericity is cut off when edging a lens like this in such a small eye size,” she observes. “Often these lenses come out thicker than if they were non-aspheric!” 2011
Dollars and Sense
According to a fact sheet composed by Susan Linn, associate director of the Media Center of the Judge Baker Children's Center and an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School:
■ From 1992 to 1997, the amount of money spent on marketing to children doubled, from $6.2 billion to $12.7 billion. Today they are spending at least $15 billion.
■ Children influence purchases totaling over $600 billion a year.
■ The average child sees about 40,000 commercials each year on television alone.
■ 65 percent of children eight to 18 have a television in their bedroom, as do 32 percent of children two to seven and 26 percent percent of children under two.
■ The marketing industry has found that babies are requesting brands as soon as they speak.
■ Children are more vulnerable to marketing than adults. Very young children are not able to distinguish between commercials and television programs.
■ Until about age eight, children can't understand persuasive intent—that the purpose of commercials is to entice them into buying the product being advertised. June 2009
INCREASING COMPLIANCE
Y “I sit down with each parent and discuss at great length the visual conditions that their child has When the parents completely understand their child's vision problem and recognize how it's impacting the child and the entire family, they are very compliant and involved.”
— Christina M. Danley, OD, The Center for Vision Development, Inc.Franklin, Tenn.June 2010
LOVING LIGHT
Z “I use a pupilometer for kids who are five-six and older; they love looking at the ‘Life-Saver’ in the middle. I use a flashlight for the little ones. I give them one to play with and use one to take their PD.”
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