Been eye patching for 2 year and 6 yr old DS is fed up!

[Numberfour]

DS is very far sighted in one eye with the other eye having almost perfect vision so he has had to undergo occlusion therapy. His eye has improved remarkably and at our last check up , it was still improving.
However, he is getting really fed up with wearing it and truth be told, I am getting fed up with having to bribe, force or cajole him into wearing it.

Any ideas on how I can convince him to keep going? I would HATE for all the effort he has put into this to go to waste.

I had to go through that, very long sighted in one eye, normal in other. can he be a pirate? pirate reward chart?
has he really worn it for 2yrs?

Can't help with ideas to make it any easier - just to say we're in exactly the same (pirate!) boat - my DS6 hates his patches with a passion - despite the fact they're colourful/patterned etc and will do anything not to wear them - and TBH I'm not b good at remembering to put them on him....

Sometimes, when I explain it to him why we're doing it and what we're trying to achieve he does wear them happily for a few days.... the potential of not having to wear his glasses for ever is a good bribe too!

Have just had battle to get one on today....... thanks for reminding me and making me do it.

"the potential of not having to wear his glasses for ever is a good bribe too!"

I'm sorry, this might seem really pedantic but I hear this a lot and I wanted to just say that wearing or not wearing the patch is not really going to alter whether a child wears glasses when they're older.

The patch is to do with their vision in their weaker eye.
The benefits of wearing glasses are dependent on the vision in the better eye.

Patching doesn't alter the glasses prescription and unless it improves the weaker eye to be better than the better eye (a failure of monitoring by most standards).

I'm not saying that your DS (or anyone elses for that matter) who is patched will have to wear glasses when they're older.
But that patching is irrelevant to that issue.

Does that make sense?

DBennet, the way our orthoptist explained DS's eyesight to me, that his weaker eye's structure is such that he will always need glasses. However, the stronger eye had been doing all the work to the exclusion of the weaker eye so the functioning of the weaker eye was very bad. The structure remains the same but the patching improves the functioning.

So as his vision in the weak eye improves, so the binochular vision improves. The wearing of glass is is not actually dependent on the vision of the better eye, DB, but to do with the structure of either or both. You are right in saying that patching will not change the prescription of the eye, though, but it will improve the functioning thereof.

WhipmeIndiana, DS started patching before he began reception and he is now going into Year 2 in September, so yes, been patching for 2 years. The orthoptist said we should continue for as long as there is improvement and his eye has improved dramatically.

I am afraid that the pirate thing will not convince him but I do think that a straight forward bribery chart might do the trick.

thanks, everyone.