Advice for Parents
When your child starts to learn colors, the question of color blindness often arises. Does your child understand the colors correctly? Are they mixing some colors or can't name them correctly. Is this color blindness or is it just too early to know? Try to determine as early as possible if they have trouble with all colors or only a few.
Parents should understand the special needs of color deficient children and what can be done to help them in their quest to learn. Finding out if your child is color blind doesn't mean they're in for a difficult life ahead of him. Of course, there will challenges ahead, but these are by no means insurmountable.
Detecting the Early Symptoms of Color Vision Deficiency in Children
- The initial indication of color blindness surfaces when individuals have difficulty in discerning if colors are red and green, or blue and yellow.
- Trouble seeing colors and the brightness of colors in the usual way.
- Difficulties recognizing and identifying different colors beyond the age of approximately four years old .
- Low attention span when coloring in work sheets.
- Children may complain that their eyes or head hurt, if looking at something red on a green background, or vice versa.
Here are some helpful advice for Parents to cope with their Colorblind kids
- After you come to the conclusion that your child is colorblind, do not ask them, "What color is this?" anymore. It is not only degrading but will more than likely become a pet peeve of theirs.
- If you find out that your child has a color vision deficiency, let them know what it is and tell them it will only hinder them as much as they let it.
- Pick out a few outfits and ask the child to pick which outfit they want to wear if the child wants to dress him or herself. It empowers the child. Kids will be kids, so teasing may occur at school if they wear what they choose and it doesn't match. Please be aware of this. It occurred to me quite often but I was so oblivious that it went over my head.
- Don't dwell on careers or hobbies that the color vision deficient child may not be able to do (Ex. pilot or boat captain). More than likely the child wouldn't have even wanted to go into those specific careers. Focus on the can dos and not the cannots! When I was in kindergarten, the administration believed I had a learning disability. I now have two Masters' degrees and will more than likely pursue a Ph.D. Empower your children.
- When the child begins school, go discuss with the teachers that your child is colorblind. You can then give them tips on how to help your child. You can also refer them to our website because we do have a section for helping teachers.
- Don't try to pressure your child into learning their colors. It is impossible and degrading to the child because they feel that it is their fault for their inability to distinguish colors.
- If for some reason you must use color-coding for something, also label whatever it is that is color-coded. Otherwise, it will take the child quite a bit of time to find anything in your color-coded "organization".
- When purchasing coloring utensils (crayons, markers, etc), make sure that you purchase utensils that have the color labeled on it.