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Back to School Time
Offers Chance to Put Good Dental Hygiene into Daily
Routine
by Greg Hill
Going back to school often means
adjusting to new schedules and routines for both
parents and children.
But that new routine offers a great
opportunity to make sure good oral hygiene is part
of your child’s everyday routine.
“I always tell parents that going
back to school is a great time to integrate good
hygiene into their routine,” says John Fales, a
Pediatric Dentist from Olathe and a member of the
Kansas Dental Association.
“Every Monday is like every other Monday.
The hard part is finding time to make it part
of their daily regimen.”
Good dental hygiene doesn’t take
that much time, according to Fales and can even be
done as a family activity.
It’s showing your children what you do that
helps establish good habits as they get older.
“Really what we are asking them to
do doesn’t take much longer than a television
commercial.
A very, very easy way to do it is to make it
a family affair.
Kids are like little sponges and they are
paying attention to what their parents do and try to
emulate it.
So if the kids see their mom or dad brushing
their teeth, they will pick up on that."
Over the course of the school year,
kids will be involved in various activities,
including athletics which have a higher likelihood
of injury to the mouth.
Parents need to pay attention to the types of
activities and that risk.
“Any time you are involved in any
type of contact sport you need a mouth guard.
But
I also tell parents that activities where you
accelerate your body can be dangerous. People often
think of just football and wrestling, but children
need to wear a mouth guard for things like
skateboarding and jumping on a trampoline.”
Fales says that there are very good
off the shelf mouth guards and that generally
speaking, the brand names and the more expensive
mouth guards are usually better.
In addition, he says that the mouth guard
should only be used for one season and then replaced
the next year.
And while the awareness of soft
drink machines in schools has grown, parents often
don’t have the same rules at home and this often
leads to increasing risk of dental decay.
“Those drinks expose the kids to
high levels of carbohydrates and empty calories,”
says Fales.
“Pediatricians
feel that kids are exposed to too much of a
carbohydrate solution that leads to higher decay
rates in children.”
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