Diagnosis
When DS had just turned 3, I noticed a white splotch in his eye in a few pictures (the other eye had typical redeye--my camara wasn't great, this before I had a digital camara). After looking throught photo albums and finding MANY the same from the time he was 12-18 months old or so I panickstricken took DS3 to the pediatrician with the photographs.
I had remembered reading & seeing on Oprah a few years prior, about an eye cancer that shows up in photographs. Adding fuel to my worry-fire, the pediatrician thought he saw a glint of something in his eye and agreed the pictures could be a sign of retinoblastoma. Pedi sent us to a opthamologist.
We were shocked to hear from opthamologist, no mass in the eye---BUT he needs glasses! We hadn't noticed any obvious vision issues prior. DS was extremely near-sighted in one eye and developed lazy eye/ambliopya (not able to see the "laziness" though). He was actually legally blind in one eye and stopped using that eye to see. We had to patch the good eye for many hours a day (wearing glasses always) to train his brain to start using the "blind" eye again. We are so fortunate to have caught this so early. Before age 7/8/9, this is correctable to some degree. Now over 5 years later, we're done with eyepatching and DS's vision has improved dramatically. Doctors are amazed. He may even not need glasses at all in a year or so. At age 3, doctors had said DS would need to wear glasses the rest of his life.
DH and others in family were concerned/felt bad for DS. I was so thankful to be dealing with glasses rather than cancer and chemotherapy or worse for retinoblastoma, I was carefree. Glasses and eyepatching I could handle.
It turns out, the reason why it showed up in photographs was because there was such a discrepancy in vision between the two eyes. I've heard of a friend of a friend that had need for glasses show up in photograph like this too.
Incentive
As other posters have said, sometimes kids are so amazed to be able to see, keeping the glasses on aren't an issue for preschool kids. With DS, the glasses were fine but he initially hated the eyepatch. He did not want to wear it.
It was a band-aid type patch. The first year he had to wear it 6 hours a day--a good part of his day considering he slept 11 hours at night and an afternoon nap too. I made a "treasure box". At first, after each 6 hours he was able to choose something from the box (stickers, dollar store items, thing grandparents had contributed, etc. ). Later (he wore patch for 3 1/2 years--went down to 1/2 hour near the end) I think i may have used sticker chart and built up to getting a prize with 5 stickers/days. Eventually, he didn't need the chart. From the beginning, i was careful to always explain WHY we had to put the patch on and why he needed the glasses --that it wasn't just me arbitrarily telling him what to do. I'm so glad I didn't give in and let him go now/then w/out glasses or patch for momentary happiness and appeasement in my child --for our efforts he may soon be done with glasses altogether.
I was, in a former life an optician in a practice that specialized in children s glasses. I agree with others he may just put them on and it not be and issue, epically if he is "extremely "farsighted as you said. If you do have a problem there is always getting a SHORT strap that will make it more difficult for him to take them off. Also he is at the age where a sticker chart may be helpful. He would get a sticker for everyday he kept his glasses on all day and at the end of a period of time have a small reward. Doesn't need to be much (infact when my DS was that age 1 of his rewards for doing things was me taking him for a drive over train tracks!
go figure)
Good advice on the sticker charts--i've used them for various issues with Dkids and positive reinforcement works wonders.
I bought the strap for DS but rarely to never had a need for it. Even playing at the park/on the playground they stayed on fine--but he didn't try to pull them off purposefully.
