My kid has never had an eye examine and I'm wondering if I should take her. She's 3 and a half and as far as we've noticed, she can see very well, however BD and his family all have really really bad eye sight and my sister and my parents wear glasses. Does she need one? If so, who do I take her to? Can she go to like... one of the places in the mall, Lens Crafters, Sears Optical, etc or does she need to go to a special place?
My kid got her first screening when she was 4, then again at her 5 year check up. I just brought her into a Healthy Steps screening (required when kids are on Medicaid in ND) and they checked her eyes.
So far, so good! ALthough, almost everyone in my family and bd's family have glasses, my eyesight got bad when I was about 8 ... I might bring her again this summer before K starts just to double check.
Community centres often have days where you can bring children in for free vision/hearing testing.
If you're in Ontario, Ontario Early Years Centres should have a nurse on board to do checks every so often. Maybe try calling public health and asking when/where they offer the checks? It's worth a try, especially if it runs in the family like you said.