Most children adapt pretty quickly to having their teeth brushed once you get them in the habit. Their mouth feels invigorated afterwards, the toothpaste tastes yummy, and they even like to run their tongue over their teeth to “feel the clean.”

For most kids, however, flossing is quite another matter: especially when they first start. It makes sense if you think about it; most kids don’t like having someone else’s hands that close to their mouths; it might make them feel “funny” having the stringy floss going so tightly between their teeth; and  from a child’s perspective, the health benefits are not as easily apparent with flossing as they are with brushing. So here are some tips for teaching your child to floss correctly and making the experience­­­­ — if not fun — at least more positive.

–Start young: A good time to start flossing your child’s teeth is at around age 2 1/2, when your toddler’s teeth have grown in enough to begin touching one another. You should floss your child’s teeth yourself until she is old enough to get the hang of it and has developed the necessary manual dexterity. Even so, it is wise for parents to supervise their child’s flossing technique until about the age of 10.

–Give her choices: As with most things, kids are likely to take to something more willingly if they’ve been allowed to be part of the decision-making process. Pre-threaded floss, appropriate for young children, comes in all kinds of pretty colors and tasty flavors: let her choose the one SHE wants you to use. When she gets a little bigger, let her choose from the wide selection of child-targeted self-flossers engineered for small hands.

–Be an example: If you want your child to floss, you need to be a regular flosser too. Example is everything! Demonstrate on yourself first then show her how it’s done.  Show her how to hold the floss, then teach her to use a gentle back and forth motion between teeth and an up and down motion on the front of the teeth to clean at the gum line. Let her try it herself, of course, but you need to remain in charge of “cleaning up” after her and making sure the job was done right. Follow up the flossing with a thorough brushing, and you will have taught your child the fundamentals of sound oral hygiene habits.

If you don’t think you can teach your child the proper techniques for flossing, or if you’re still not sure how to go about it, make sure to discuss the topic with your pediatric dentist during your next visit. When you partner with an excellent Utah pediatric dentist like Stevenson Pediatric, you will have plenty of support in teaching your child the right way to floss, floss, floss.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 24th, 2010 at 3:16 pm and is filed under Floss. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.