Patching should start during a time when a parent can spend some quality time with their child.  The weekend is usually the best time to begin patching.  Almost always, the first few hours or days of patching will be the most difficult because your child is adjusting to using one eye with poor vision and dealing with the emotional disorientation of patching.  Activities like video games, computer games, and watching television offer visual stimulation that can be enjoyable for your child.  Activities that use fine motor skills (coloring, cutting, pasting) are also wonderful ways to encourage the use of the weaker eye.  At first the eye-hand coordination may be poor but they will improve with practice, this will also build their confidence.  Reading books, working on mazes or puzzles can also be fun activities that the whole family will enjoy.  Spending time together, encouraging and praising your child is the key to successful patching.  Motivating your child to patch can be a constant challenge.  What may have motivated your child to patch yesterday may not work today.  Patch Pals has created some new products that will encourage your child to use their imagination while patching.  Pretending to be a pirate, a princess, or a super hero can help to develop a positive attitude towards their patching time.  Being creative is the key.

When I taught 1st grade a few years back we did an activity with the kids to help illustrate what one of our patching student was experiencing.  I purchased a few boxes of the sticky patches.  We had the kids spend some time decorating the patches with markers and crayons.  We had a discussion about muscles and how important it is to exercise those muscles every day so they don't get "lazy".  We spent a few minutes exercising our arm, leg, and face muscles.  We then talked about how our eyes have muscles and sometimes one eye can be weak (or lazy) and one way to fix it is by exercising it.  I explained that by covering the good eye we force the weak eye to workout harder.  We then took the eye patches that we had decorated and each child wore the patch.  We walked outside for a few minutes, we worked on a tracing page, and then we looked at books.  A total of 15 minutes of patching.  We then got into a group and discussed how we felt.  Most of the kids struggled with the activities.  This gave them great empathy for the patching student and they realized how hard it was to patch.  They never teased him because they knew what it felt like to have the patch on.  In fact, many of the students offered him encouragement and praise when he patched.  When it comes to friends, they really will accept the patching as long as they understand what it is for.  It's just like someone coming to class with a cast on their arm.  No one is going to ridicule someone for breaking their arm, there is nothing funny about it.  If the students understand patching, the chances of teasing should lessen.  Of course an older student may tease one day, but the patcher's friend may just stand up and set them straight. 

Thank you so much for your wonderful product! I wanted to cry when I found out my daughter would need to patch but watching her excitement as she unwrapped her patches and picked out which one to wear made all the difference in the world!  When she starts to get frustrated we look for new patches and the excitement starts again. Thank you again for making patching positive for my daughter!

-Jennifer Miller

I just wanted to thank you for your wonderful patches.  My daughter had a 
cataract removed in September and has been patching all through kindergarten.  
She is a good patcher, but somedays it just takes a bit more encouragement.  She 
always loves it when new patches arrive in the mail, and I just wanted to thank 
you for making a sometimes difficult challenge more manageable for my daughter.  
Your patches are fun and she tells me that they are "very hard to peek 
through"...which makes me very happy. :)

Thanks so much,
Sarah Bogard, Manhattan IL