Kid Friendly Dentist Simi Valley, CA

What You Should Know

Being a parent, you instinctively want the best for your child. Oral health and dental care are often overlooked by parents as part of that. According to the Center for Disease Control, tooth decay (cavities) is the most common infectious disease among children. It is a cause of numerous toothaches, school absences, and making the child uncomfortable. It is a condition that can greatly affect the child by creating pain and even affecting their eating, speaking, and playing. If in Simi Valley, you are thinking that your child will escape the tooth decay trap, you are wrong, the statistics say otherwise. Home brushing and flossing will help, but they are not enough. You need to take your child to our kid-friendly dentist twice a year for monitoring and cleaning of his/her teeth. This way, we will be able to get rid of the plague and bacteria that cause cavities to start with.

Resources You Can Use at Home

Besides going to our kid-friendly dental office, it is necessary for you to maintain good oral hygiene at home and to educate your child in the same way. In our practice, we deal with many kids aged below eight and have come to know how difficult it can be to get them interested in brushing. Youngsters are occupied with different activities and stopping them from doing what they like – riding bikes, making Lego creations, or dressing up – to ensure they have good dental hygiene can lead to arguments quite quickly. We understand. At Alamo Family Dentistry, we can manage very young kids and are not mistaken about their lack of interest in oral health. However, it is our duty to change their perception of dental treatment and to prove to them that it can be fun and thrilling. They will then want to brush and floss their teeth without being prompted. With this in mind, we have a few tools that we have found to be effective and that we would like to suggest you use at home.

If Simi Valley or its surroundings are your place of residence, then do not hesitate to make an appointment with our dental clinic so that we may take a look at your little one’s teeth and demonstrate the proper way of brushing them. Even if your child is already taking care of his teeth, there is still a good possibility that he is doing it incorrectly and not removing a lot of the plaque that has accumulated on the teeth. A short video tutorial is a tool that you can always access at home. There is a nice one on the website of the American Dental Association and even on YouTube. Showing a video that teaches your child how to brush is not only a good reminder, but also because they are already used to receiving information in this way, they will most probably receive and understand it better than if you just remind them.

When your child has mastered the correct way to brush teeth, move on to the next step, which is the duration of tooth brushing. We at Alamo Family Dentistry suggest that all patients, regardless of their age, brush their teeth twice daily for two minutes each time. The prescribed duration, however, is extremely challenging for some children who hardly manage to concentrate on a single task or to keep quiet for two minutes. Our clinic specializes in treating children, and we would really like it if they brushed, but still, we do not require being silent as a must. Why not make it a fun and exciting activity by playing their favorite song for two minutes and allowing them to brush their teeth while dancing? Or you could show them a two-minute video clip or a cartoon during their tooth brushing routine. The American Dental Association has a whole section on its website for these short videos, and by watching them, kids will get used to the full two minutes of brushing. We have been helping families in the Simi Valley area and discovered that using media is much more effective than standing there with a timer. The aim is to make your child consider dental care as a fun activity, so he/she will keep brushing their teeth throughout his/her life.