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Getting kids hooked on the Dentist
So, somebody asked me what is the right age to bring their kid into my office.
Good question.
I always tell them to just bring the kids in with them whenever they come in after the kid is about 1 or 2 years old.
The advantage of having the kid see the parents (and older siblings) have their teeth cleaned and having fun in the office is immeasurable.
It gets to be like a privilege or a right of passage.
This is an benefit that I have as a general dentist is that it’s really easy for the parents to introduce the doctor, office and environment to the child in a very non-threatening manner.
I’ll usually let the child sit on the parent’s lap at the end of the parent’s appointment and do as much as the kid lets me.
Typically this might just be to have them open and let me check that their teeth are lining up in a healthy orientation. If I want to check the teeth I can usually get away with having the kid let me ‘count’ their teeth with an explorer and check for cavities at the same time.
Some times this might be just letting the kid ride up and down in the chair if that’s all that they are up to that day.
It’s very rare that I will have a child not be comfortable with actually having their teeth cleaned by the age of 4. This is probably around when they should get some X-Rays and Fluoride any way.
We usually try to make things fun. For the last 10 years we’ve been using a digital X-Ray system which shows the kid a giant picture of their teeth up on a computer monitor. We can colorize the image, blow it up and play with it several ways. Most of my adult patients turn into kids when they see this for the first time. We also have cameras that allow us to look in their mouths and put the images up on the screen.
As a cosmetic Dentist that treats the whole family I’ve been lucky with this so far. A lot of the time the technology that I have for my restorative and cosmetic stuff is actually beneficial for the youngest of patients.