Kids and dental hygiene ways to inculcate good dental care habits

Kids And Dental Hygiene - Ways To Inculcate Good Dental Care Habits

One of the most effective ways of developing a healthy dental hygiene lifestyle in kids is by inculcating good dental care habits in early childhood. While good dental practices in adulthood can help to prevent dental infections and diseases, sometimes the dental habits picked up during childhood have long lasting negative repercussions on one's dental health.

Practicing good dental hygiene in adulthood may not easily reverse such effects. It is, therefore, necessary to encourage practices of dental hygiene in children to prevent the occurrence of teeth infections and diseases in adulthood.

Encouragement can be offered using some of the following techniques.

Kids And Dental Hygiene Firstly, when shopping for dental care products, parents should consider allowing kids to pick out their own toothbrushes.

Most children toothbrush brands are decorated with popular children's character animations. In view of this, kids will be more willing to brush their teeth for long periods if they can do so with toothbrushes decorated with their favorite cartoon characters. However, it is important for parents to realize that having fun while brushing teeth should not be the main goal.

Parents should ensure that kids pick toothbrushes that have soft but effective bristles.

While adults can easily concentrate on brushing each tooth at a time, kids have limited attention spans. Parents should, therefore, use techniques such as teeth counting games to ensure that children brush all their teeth. Kids should also be taught the importance of toothpaste at an early age. Since most brands of toothpaste used by adults have a relatively bitter taste, it is advisable to buy brands that are designed specifically for kids, which are generally less bitter.

Nevertheless, it is crucial to ensure that the kids' brand toothpaste is not too sweet since brushing teeth with such a product may cause cavities.

One of the best methods of encouraging kids to practice good dental hygiene is to practice what you preach. Child development studies have shown that children learn faster when they mimic the behavior of their parents or caregivers. A child who observes her parents brush and floss teeth regularly is therefore more likely to develop similar habits.

Finally, older children can be encouraged to develop a healthy dental lifestyle simply by providing straightforward and easy to understand reasons why they should do so. For instance, kids can be informed that they can kill bad breath with the right toothpaste when they brush teeth regularly since this is easy to understand. All in all, when the right encouragement technique is used, it is quite easy to inculcate good dental hygiene values in kids.

Resources: http://www.xpressdentalclinic.com http://ezinearticles.com/?Kids-And-Dental-Hygiene---WaysTo-Inculcate-Good-Dental-Care-Habits&id=7343428