Children often have anxiety when they experience something new. If they had a bad experience or are very nervous, our goal is to help them overcome this and help them realize that they can do it! We start with "baby steps" until we have gained the trust of the child.
The first thing we do when a new patient comes to our office is get a sense of their comfort level. Most children get comfortable very quickly as we show them how we do things and when they see other children around them.
We use proven techniques to help children. These include; modeling, communicative management, nonverbal communication, tell-show-do, positive reinforcement, parental absence/presence and distraction. The tell-show-do technique is where the dentists might name a dental instrument, show the instrument by using it to count your child's fingers, then use the instrument in treatment. The modeling technique pairs a timid child in dental treatment with a cooperative child, sometimes a sibling. They quickly learn that what the other child is doing is easy! The most preferred technique is praise. Every child does something right during a dental visit and our Doctors let children know that.
Most children respond very well to these techniques. Some children may still be uncooperative after we have employed these techniques. If this occurs we have other options that allow us to complete the work at hand. These will be explained to the parent or guardian in greater detail should it becomes necessary to use them.
If you have any questions or concerns, please talk to one of our Dentists and they will be happy to answer any questions.
We appreciate you trusting us to work with your children. We will treat them as our own and care for them to the best of our expertise and training.