How To Instill Good Dental Hygiene In Your Kids

If you have children, you know how important and difficult it can be to try to instill good habits in them. From good nutrition and health routines to proper dental practices, these habits and routines can easily set your children up for health and success for years to come. We all know how stubborn and set in their ways children can be, which makes setting these boundaries and routines even more challenging. By being consistent and decisive with your children’s dental care, you can easily help avoid cavities, plaque, and much more invasive dental issues. You can easily bolster your whole family’s dental care plan by scheduling a full family visit to Fenton Family Dental today. Here are three tips to help set your whole family up for long-lasting dental health.
Lead By Example
If you have kids of your own or have ever watched someone’s children, you know that it is all but impossible to get a child to agree to do anything that you yourself aren’t doing as well. Take the time in the morning and the evening to brush your teeth with your child, show them how you thoroughly clean each of your teeth, and then help them do the same to their own teeth. As a parent, your children are fascinated with what you do, at least while they are young, and you have a great opportunity and responsibility to help them thrive in healthy and long-lasting ways. Simply by showing your child your routine and helping boost their confidence in their own, you can make a huge difference in their overall dental health.
Establish A Tradition
Nothing makes real changes easier than continued and repeated tradition. This is true across all aspects of our lives from work to exercise and even dental care. Take the time to make a tradition out of your child’s daily dental health, either having them brush their teeth before they go to the kitchen for breakfast, or even doing it together to really drive the point home on how important their dental health is. However you decide to make your child’s dental health a daily tradition, your actions now can lead to a world of difference.
Make Brushing & Flossing Fun
No one likes going to the dentist only for them to take out the plaque scraper and have to do some heavy excavation on their teeth. This experience can be even more jarring for children, and can even leave them with a long-lasting fear of the dentist. One way to guarantee that your children are taking the time needed to really clean their teeth every day is to make a game out of brushing. With tooth brushes with built in timers to fun designs with their favorite super heroes, Barbie, or even paw patrol pup on it, there are hundreds of ways to make brushing more fun. Trying to avoid bribing your children, as this could lead you to having to offer these prizes up on a daily basis.
You can easily help boost your child’s dental health and set them up for a life of strong and healthy teeth simply by following these three steps. If you would like to learn more about dental health or want to find the perfect dental practice for your whole family, come into Fenton Family Dental today. We look forward to seeing you and your family here at our local office!