As summer is winding down school will be back in session before you know it. Whether your child will be in the classroom or learning from home, a healthy smile is still a back-to-school essential. These back-to-school checkups help prevent cavities and tooth decay, which can lead to pain and other issues. Kiddos with healthy smiles will have the confidence to smile and speak around friends.
What are the benefits of early dental visits?
When parents wait to schedule a routine dental visit for their kiddo, it can have negative consequences on a child’s dental and overall health. One of the most chronic diseases among children in the U.S. is tooth decay, tooth decay is preventable with good habits and regular checkups. Keeping your kiddo’s baby teeth healthy, will help with speech development, chewing food, and retaining nutrients. Your dentist can help protect the baby teeth from additional decay with sealants and fluoride applications.
Teaching Good Dental Habits
The best way to protect your kiddo’s teeth before and after back-to-school dental visits is to help enforce good dental habits. Start by guiding them through a traditional brushing routine so that the brush removes all the plaque. Once they become more confident in the brushing process you are able to proper a check-in after the brush to make sure they covered all surfaces on the teeth, during this check-in keep an eye out for areas of brown or white spots which might be signs of early decay.
Oral Care Counts With Kids
Oral health problems can have a big impact on the life of a kiddo, by having routine back-to-school visits you can help prevent these problems. If a child has tooth pain when they eat or drink, this can lead to a lack of nutrition, affecting growth and development. Oral pain can also distract children during school, affecting their ability to learn.
Oral Pain isn’t the only thing that can harm school performance. Poor dental health often hurts children’s self-esteem and lowers their self-confidence, this makes them less likely to raise their hands, ask questions, and participate in the classroom. Even if they’re doing fine in class, kids with oral health problems may struggle to make friends with peers and to gain the critical social education they need to learn about themselves and others.
Back-To-School season is a great time to schedule one of your child’s regular visits, this allows us to help get back on track if some of your kiddo’s dental habits fell away during summer, when normal routines can go out the window. Let’s ace this year!