Helping Your Child Practice Positive Dental Hygiene – Tips for Parents and Kids

Alone, parents cannot provide an amazing structure at home, and a dentist provides a valuable services and expertise that a parent cannot offer. By partnering together, parents and dentists can create the ideal oral hygiene regimen for a child. Your child’s dental hygiene is extremely important, so ensuring that you have a positive relationship with your child’s pediatric dentist, you are setting your child up for a lifetime of great dental checkups. 

Watch Your Child’s Drinks 

When you really think about it, fruit juices and sports drinks are healthier than sodas, but just like anything else your child consumes, excessive intake of artificial drinks can cause dental problems in the long run. 

Sports drinks and juices contain a lot of sugar, which can eat away at the enamel on your child’s teeth. This is especially true if they consume them at regular intervals throughout the day, or they drink them from a refillable bottle or sippy cup. 

Even though these drinks are only one source of sugar, American children consume too many sugary drinks, and this fall into that category. Start weeding these out of your child’s diet and replace them with low-sugar alternatives. When your child does drink them, balance the sugar by mixing half a cup of the drink with half a cup of water. 

Teaching Your Child Good Oral Hygiene – Lead by Example 

Your child must learn how important brushing and flossing their teeth is. You may think your child isn’t listening, but they are, children just show their interest in a different way. Not only do your children listen to you more often than you think, they take cues from you as well. They watch your actions and they try to mimic you, so make sure to take great care of your teeth, and make sure you do it in full view of your child. 

You can reinforce your child’s want to learn by making brushing and flossing a family activity every morning and every evening. If your mornings are extremely hectic and you cannot schedule a family time to brush, make sure to schedule time in the evening. By taking time at night to brush and floss with your child, you can ensure that they are not cutting corners on brushing and they are brushing their teeth well every time. Contact your child’s pediatric dentist Missouri City TX.

There are a few things you should remember and teach your children along the way: 

• You and your children should brush for at least two minutes. You should make sure to brush all surfaces of your teeth, and your tongue. 
• When you are flossing, you should include every tooth, every time. It may be tempting to cut corners, but this can become a cause of tooth decay.
• If your child is under 2 years of age, you should brush and floss for them.

Use this time to instill positive habits in your child’s routine. My creating these habits, you will know your child is carrying out proper dental hygiene, even when you cannot be there to watch them. Reward your child for carrying out their routine the way you instruct them to. Eventually, they will carry out the routine on their own without prompting. 

As a parent, you can teach your child a lot by allowing them to watch your behavior and your routine. Children learn by example, not by being told what to do. Establish a positive relationship with your child’s dentist so that your child will develop the same type of relationship with them. By taking your child to regular dental visits, you can ensure that your child receives state of the art care for their dental needs.