Are Your Kids Smiling Over Their Dental Care?

With most kids home for the summer, it makes a great time of the year for moms make sure their younger ones have healthy teeth before heading back to school in a couple of months.

For many parents, keeping their children’s teeth bright and healthy can be a bigger task than one might think.

photo not mine

For starters, getting kids to remember to brush several times a day can be a chore in itself.

Another challenge can be your child’s diet, something that is not always the healthiest it can be.

That said are your kids smiling over their dental care?

Start the Right Dental Lessons Early

So that your kids can learn the importance of good dental care from an early age, brush up on these tips:

· Seeing a dentist regularly – First and foremost, make sure your children have regular visits to the dentist’s office. While someone can brush multiple times daily (and that is a good thing), it is the dentist who can spot problem areas most customers can’t and won’t discover. Whether you need to find a dentist in Flagstaff (Arizona) or some other portion of the country, make sure you have a good one for both you and your children to visit annually. He or she can likely save you discomfort and money over time, finding issues like potential cavities, gingivitis, and other dental problems. Make sure that your dentist is top-notch when it comes to customer service. That also means his or her staff treats you and your children with respect and compassion;
· Avoiding sugary foods and drinks – They say just about everyone has a sweet tooth in them, so it can be quite challenging to get your young ones to avoid sugary foods and drinks. That said the alternative is dealing with potential cavities or worse. While sneaking a little candy or sugary drinks on occasion is fine, don’t let it become a habit for your children. Along with being bad for their teeth, sugary foods and drinks can also cause havoc with their stomachs, along with leading to too much weight and other health issues. Summertime is typically the critical time of the year to keep an eye on what your kids are eating and drinking, especially since they are home from school and/or spending times visiting friends. The same discipline holds true for when they visit their grandparents too;
· Having affordable dental insurance – One excuse a parent may make for their child or children not getting to the dentist regularly is that they have no or little dental insurance. As a result, having a child visit the dentist twice a year (or even one time a year for that matter) can prove too expensive for many parents. While dental care without insurance can in fact prove pricey, there are alternatives to this problem. For one, you can set up a payment plan with your family dentist, allowing you to pay your bills in installments instead of all at one time. You can also look to cut back on the typical two visits a year to one for your kids. The main thing is that they get to see a dentist at least once a year. Even that one visit can prevent them from having to undergo fillings and other procedures, that is if problem areas are caught in time;
· Teaching kids to trust the dentist – Finally, do you remember when you were a kid in your parents took you to see the dentist regularly? Okay, it may not have been as much fun as going to the park or getting to play with friends, but it was an important date nonetheless. Teach your kids not to be afraid of seeing the dentist annually. In fact, you can show your kids how cool it can be to see the dentist. Since many kids will in fact get braces one day, show your kids (if they are headed down that path) how cool looking some braces are. Yes, visits to an orthodontist are more involved than a regular trip to the dentist, but the main goal is to get kids to trust their doctors, not fear them.