Encouraging Children To Look After Their Teeth

Early years dental care is important, and continues through into adulthood.

Many of you reading this blog will already have children of your own, or are perhaps planning to in the future. As parents, our job is to teach and encourage them in all aspects of their life, including teaching them about oral health care. This, as some of you will already know, can be quite a challenging task!

Initially, we take care of looking after their teeth ourselves, gently brushing them for them and arranging their dental appointments. The challenges begin when they take more responsibility for looking after their teeth themselves.

The right tools for the job

Making sure that your children have all the equipment needed is a good place to start. Using a child friendly toothbrush and toothpaste will encourage them to actually brush their teeth instead of pretending that they have. While you will still need to supervise until a certain age, involving them in the choice of brush, perhaps one with a popular cartoon or TV character on it, and also a flavoured toothpaste (with fluoride of course) can make it more enjoyable for them.

Flossing between the teeth is also to be encouraged to help them keep their gums healthy but this is likely only to be possible a little later on as they begin to understand more about their teeth and gums and why they will benefit by using floss.

Education

From an early age, it is a good idea to introduce them to oral health care, perhaps through books, or increasingly, videos that can be found online. While there are many advanced videos for adults, there are also cartoons which explain in simple terms the thinking behind why children should brush their teeth. Some will also be instructional so that they can follow the video and clean their teeth along to it. Naturally, this phase only lasts for a limited time before children start to become  more independent.

Pre teen years

Once your children start school, they learn a lot of social skills, some of which are probably not what we had hoped for. Rebelliousness and defiance can stem from these years and can also manifest in their refusal to brush their teeth. This can be a challenging time for the parent and all you can do is to encourage them to maintain a regular oral health care regime as best as you can. Encouragement may even come in the form of ‘bribes’ such as rewarding them with extra pocket money, or similar, if they brush their teeth.

You should also make a point of booking their appointments at the Cygnet Dental Practice for them or they may never happen. With irregular brushing especially, skipping check up appointments could lead to significant damage to their adult teeth or even tooth loss. Once their adult teeth have erupted, there are no more to erupt and your child could face needing to have a replacement tooth such as a denture or implant at our Wickford dental clinic, some time in the not so far off future.

Dental hygienist

If you struggle to get them to clean their teeth or perhaps see the dentist, one thing that you can do, and should do too, is to make them an appointment to see our dental hygienist. You can assure them that no invasive treatment will be carried out which is likely to help, especially if their reason for missing dentist appointments is that they are afraid of a treatment being painful.

Hygienists carry out a non-invasive procedure called a ‘scale and polish’. This is very useful in helping avoid gum disease. The other significant thing that they do though is to discuss ways that patients can improve their oral health. You might well be thinking that you have already explained this to them, but adolescents especially, will often listen to adults that are not their parents. This might be frustrating, but as long as someone can improve the way they look after their teeth and gums then this can only be a good thing. We strongly recommend that you encourage your children to do this.

Other factors

Lifestyle choices also affect children’s oral health. One common way is through high levels of sugar consumption, whether through sweets or fizzy drinks. As teenagers become older though, other factors such as smoking, drinking alcohol and even drugs may also come into play. Keeping your eye open for any signs of these problems and addressing them at an early stage may not only save your children’s teeth but possibly their general health too.

At the Cygnet Dental Practice, we treat patients of all ages, from one year of age until their nineties and beyond. Giving your child an early start can only be a good thing and set them on the right path for life. If you would like to book an appointment for your child, whether that be a check up or hygienist appointment, you can contact our Wickford dental clinic by calling us on 01268 733078.