Proper dental hygiene for the sake of preventing gum disease is typically unimportant to children, even after they’ve seen the informative, cartoon teeth videos that show them why it’s so vital to practice proper teeth hygiene for kids. Have no fear, though. There are still many ways that you can teach your kids’ the importance of brushing and flossing. For your convenience, here are three ways you can get kids into brushing!
1. Create habits.
Every child, from the moment he or she has his or her first tooth, needs to start brushing their teeth twice a day. The best way to make sure that proper teeth hygiene for kids is taken care of it is to incorporate brushings into their morning and nightly routines. Teach kids to brush their teeth immediately after they eat breakfast, almost like a reaction. And that they need to brush their teeth before they go to bed.
2. Make it fun.
To practice proper teeth hygiene for kids, dentist Dr. Jeffrey May, gets his kids to enjoy their teeth brushings. He says, “Make it fun. Sing songs. Make up silly games. We call brushing ‘getting the sugar bugs out.’ I’ll say, ‘Oh! I see a sugar bug right there! Let’s get it!’ and they end up laughing and not fighting me.”
3. Positive reinforcement.
Compliment your kids when they’ve brushed their teeth. It’s a fairly well known fact that rewarding positive behavior works much better as a training method than does punishing bad behavior, so if you want habits that reinforce proper teeth hygiene for kids, reward them for doing a good job when they brush their teeth. Colleen Seto, a writer for Canadian Living, writes, “Ultimately, as with any task you want to encourage, praise your kids when they do it, especially when they do it with the correct strokes and for two solid minutes.”
Teeth hygiene for kids is more important than you realize. Tooth decay and gum disease are actually more common in children than fevers are, believe it or not. This is why teaching habits that reinforce proper teeth hygiene for kids is so vital. If you have any questions about teeth hygiene for kids, feel free to ask in the comments.