Electronic Health Reporter

Childhood is a funny age. If we ask you to peak in the rear view mirror of your life, what would be the first memory that you’d reminisce? There must be loads of things to look back to, and why not—it is a golden phase in a small, tiny movie of life, but this little fragment of it is unusual.

It frames the rest of our life for these experiences mold us as a human being. Now the nature experiences (both good and bad) might vary from one person to another, but it all sums up our lifestyle—there’s no hiding that.

One very crucial aspect of our lifestyle, known as oral health, is something that shapes up our health and routine. We don’t just walk into adulthood with perfectly straight teeth and immediately start brushing them, flossing the slits, and rinsing our mouth. Our parents had to put us in Invisalign and create these habits through months of routine that was bred into our veins and whisked into our daily grind.

Dental health is no joke, and it has been seen that many kids with improper dental hygiene land into a sticky pool of trouble for long times to come. This problem needs to be prevented before the time comes that it has to be cured. Kids have huge issues with their teeth, and the reason is simple—it’s not a cakewalk to stop them from gluttonous food and sticky, gooey, and sugary stuff. That’s not the only problem, however, as it goes beyond that.

Taking kids to the dentist’s is crucial. They have to be comfortable about the fact that they’ll be coming to these visits now and then and anything else shouldn’t stop them—even if it is nervousness and fear of getting things inside one’s mouth.

It is essential to take kids to the dentists. It keeps the teeth shining and wise, and these values become the cornerstone of splendid dental and oral hygiene. But that’s not the case for a child, for whom a dentist’s visit is nothing short of a nightmare. Think of it this way—a kid lying on a cold, cushiony chair, in a room full of extraordinary people wearing masks and poking, whizzing and smoking out weird instruments that look like tools for torture. These vibes are exceptional and why not—funny people, strange noises, and unusually cold sensation between the teeth.

Do you know that once your child’s baby teeth start to grow and eventually fall out, you’ll have to take them for at least 10 trips to the dentist (yes, 10!). All of these trips can get expensive, so it’s a good idea to take out health insurance that covers dentistry to help cover the cost. Of course, you’ll want to choose the best insurance plan for your whole family, so take a look online and learn more here. But the question is, how do we take care of kid’s dental health in the first place?

Here are a few ways which ensure that your kid isn’t scared of dentists anymore and that whenever the dentist’s date comes in, s/he is ready for the appointment with all smiles and no tears.

Teach them while they’re young

When it comes to children having their dentist’s visits, it would be best if you start to prepare them as and when they are young. It’s a habit of dental health that they don’t wish to forget and one that they should very much emboss into their daily routine. But a dentist’s visit doesn’t happen every single day. For that very reason, it’s crucial to teach them as and when they are young. Children habituate to things pretty quickly.

The earlier you teach a dentist’s routine into your kid’s mind, the better it is for both the parents and themselves. When the kids know something about a “dental home,” they’re all geared up about the dentist’s visit rather than nagging about. Be it a preventive, regular visit or an emergency; they will at least know that they’re going to the dentist’s place for a reason. Your kid should see a dentist when his/her first tooth pops up or at least when s/he turns one year old.

Don’t badger them with information

What we often do is that we try to settle our kids for a visit to the dentist by sending him/her on a trivia fest. Although this strategy of telling your kids everything has its pros and cons, that doesn’t mean that you show all your cards.

When it is the first time, it is pretty usual for kids to have tons of questions about where we are taking them and why are we doing so. In that, we keep it all under wraps and only tell them what’s necessary.

Don’t delve into the details. Rather than doing that, try and stick to the basic stuff. The more information you get into, the worse it gets as their thirst for curiosity never plummets. When you get into the information on the treatment, a lot of questions will come, like how much a filling hurts and what dental procedures are. Also, you should refrain from saying, “everything will be fine” as much as possible because when it comes down to treatment, your kid might lose trust in you.

Stay away from the “F word”

Okay, we didn’t mean that F-word. What we said was some words that are common but ring alarming bells in heads of kids, and we should refrain from using them. Whenever we use these familiar words, they might sound reasonable to us, but in reality, just listening to them hurts the kids. Parents shouldn’t use words like a shot, hurt, pain, and anything equivalent of these words in front of kids. The staff at Pediatric Dentistry and Orthodontics advises on establishing a new form of vocabulary for the sake of it.

The best one is to tell your kids that the dentists are looking for sugar bandits by fictionalizing them into bad guys that are wreaking havoc in your kid’s teeth. Use the factors of positivity which glorify the fact that your kid is going to the dentists for health treatment and clean teeth rather than telling him/her that it’s for the sake of removing cavities or checking other ailments. Kids are honest to God creatures, and just because the little ones would believe anything that we’d say, don’t give us the license to do it.

Now you know what to do when your kid is scared to visit the dentists. Instead of picturing it as an evil place, explain to your kid that a dentist is a superhero that protects your teeth from the bad guys. SpongeBob SquarePants did an episode on that, you can showcase that to your kids, and they’ll surely be good to go.