Something which I have been trying fora long time now is to get the kids interested, and excited if possible, ini their own oral hygiene. I have been very blessed recently as here in San Diego there is a greta dental community who are doing work with kids in their schools, to try and get them a little bit wiser when it comes to oral hygiene. It was here that I met the amazing Dr. Kami Hoss who has a dental studio in Los Angeles, California, and he has been brilliant with me and the kids in helping them to engage a little bit more. If you need to get your kids excited about dental hygiene, here are some tips which may help you out.
Switching Dentists
The large majority of this education is going to come from your dentists and so you need to make sure that you have a dentists who the kids like and who they will listen to. Our old dentist wasn’t really up to much in this regard and although it involves a bit of a trek, we switched SD to LA and joined Dr. Kami Hoss’ dental practice. This is the first place to start as you need a dentist who is great with kids and happy to educate them.
Competition
I asked Dr. Hoss to start giving my kids a mark out of 10 based on the quality and cleanliness of their teeth. To further help things I offered a reward to my kids for who got the best marks each time that we went. My kids love nothing more than competing against each other and the battle is well and truly on to see who can get the highest score. My kids now brush their teeth better than ever before, they are learning about the foods which will damage their teeth and avoiding them, and they are having arguments about whether or not something has the potential too damage their teeth. This competition has got them massively engaged with their real hygiene and they cannot wait to get to the dentist for the next appointment to fin out how they have fared.
Rewards
I don’t always like to use incentives with the kids but there are times when the promise of a reward can really help things. This has certainly been the case with oral hygiene and I will always take them to the cinema after the dentist if they have done well. I also like to try and give the kids pop quizzes about oral hygiene, with small rewards for them if they do well. Ultimately oral hygiene is completely necessary to learn about but it can be a little bit boring which is why I make sure that I incentivize the kids to help them learn better and be more passionate about it.
How do you get your kids more interested in oral hygiene?