The year 2015 is almost over, 2016 begins tonight. The beauty of a new year, is we all get a chance to start over.  A chance to organize our lives and reboot.  A chance to exercise more, eat healthy, and be kinder to those around us. If you have a child that wears an eye patch, now is the time to make new goals with their eye patching therapy.  Throw out that old ratty eye patch and order a new eye patch that will excite your child and keep them motived.  Sit down with your child and download a new incentive calendar  http://patchpals.com/calendar​ , decide which rewards will be given when they do a good job.  If your child is too young to understand, make a resolution for yourself to make eye patching a priority.  Eye patching works when you are committed to it, just like exercising, eating healthy, and being kind.  Think how gratifying December 31, 2016 will be when you can look at your child knowing that you helped improve their vision. Now that's an excellent New Year's resolution and a precious lifelong gift.

Every year we search for the perfect Christmas gift for our children.  The kids usually want the latest and greatest video device along with the most popular video games or apps.  Our team here at Patch Pals actually recommends using the TV, computer, iPad and iPhone with your eye patcher, especially at the beginning of their eye patch therapy because the kids are easily persuaded to wear an eye patch during tech time. However, spending all their eye patch time on an electronic device isn’t always a good thing.  We have researched some alternative toys, games and activities that would be wonderful gifts for your eye patcher.  They are fun, inexpensive and can actually improve hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.  Many of the games on this list you will remember doing yourself as a child.  Remember the best gift you can give your child is your undivided attention, especially during eye patch time. Check out our list:

Lacing Cards                                        Paint by Numbers
Rainbow Loom                                    Bead Stringing
Mazes                                                   Peg Boards
Melty Beads                                         Light Bright
Finger Paints                                       Stencils
Playdough                                            Legos
Lincoln Logs                                        Tinker Toys
Dot-to-Dot Activity Books                 Ants in the Pants
Operation                                            KerPlunk
Jenga                                                   Don’t Break the Ice
Fishin Around                                     Toss Across
Playing Catch with a Ball                  Perfection
Connect Four                                      Dominoes
Puzzles                                                 Memory Games
K’Nex                                                    Jigsaw Puzzles
Scrabble                                              Sand Art