Children’s Dental Anxiety
Is your kid scared of going to the dentist? Children often feel fear or anxiety about visiting new places, even if they’re fun. The dentist’s office is such a place.
You may or may not understand the cause of your child’s fear of the dentist. It could come from an experience your child once had with a dentist that left him or her traumatized. Then again, it could be completely irrational and unfounded. That still doesn’t make your child’s fear any less real.
Feeling a little anxious about visiting the dentist may be perfectly normal. Still, if your child has an extreme fear of the dentist, there are some things you can do to help ease your child’s anxiety.
At our dental office in Florida and Maryland we know just how to help your child have a positive experience at every visit. Your child can enjoy a healthy mouth their whole life long. Just schedule a visit with us at Main Street Children’s Dentistry & Orthodontics and help reshape how your child views seeing the dentist.
Signs and Symptoms of Dental Anxiety
How dental anxiety shows up in a child can vary. By understanding both the obvious and not-so-obvious ways this can occur, you are well positioned to help your child relieve those anxieties.
Whenever you’re preparing to bring your child to see the dentist, keep a lookout for these signs:
- Anxiety increasing while in the waiting room
- Waiting room tantrums and meltdowns
- Problems sleeping the night preceding the appointment
- Increased stress at the sight of dental staff or instruments
- Getting physically ill
- Breathing difficulties or panic when they have dental instruments placed in their mouth
Why Your Child Gets So Anxious About Seeing the Dentist
There are many procedures that take place at a dentist’s office that can be associated with discomfort or, even, pain. When children consider the possibility of something causing them pain, they tend to feel some degree of nervousness or panic about it. Spending too much time sitting still can cause many children stress, especially those who already have issues staying in one place or avoiding moving. Dentists and dental hygienists often get in close to their patient’s faces. When those patients are children, that closeness can lead to feelings of anxiety and self-consciousness.
If a child felt a dentist was rude in the past or felt intimidated, if the child experienced pain or other complications after a dental procedure or other negative dental experiences, it could contribute to the child having dental anxiety in the future.
Ways to Help Your Child With Dental Anxiety
Encourage Them to Share Their Worries
If you know what is making a child feel anxious or afraid about going to the dentist’s office, you can report that to the dentist, so he or she can do their best to help keep those fears or anxieties at bay.
Schedule Dental Checkups Regularly
Let us partner with you in caring for your children’s dental health. At Main Street Children’s Dentistry & Orthodontics, our team is fully prepared to help you calm your child’s fears and anxieties, so they can get the best oral care possible.
You can help your child to feel more comfortable in a dental office by making semiannual appointments for your child to get a routine dental checkup and cleaning. That way, over time, the growing familiarity can hopefully lead to growing comfort.
Choose a Dentist Who’s Right for Your Child
To make sure the Florida and Maryland dental office you pick for your child is a good fit, find out what experience they have working with children and whether their office creates a pleasing environment to help keep the child calm and comfortable.
Your child may have questions about the appointment. Choose a dentist who welcomes such questions and is willing to patiently answer them in a way the child can understand. Then, you can encourage your child to ask all the questions he or she has in order to help lower his or her anxiety level.
The dentist and dental hygienist can use that information to walk the child through any procedure before starting it, so the child knows what to expect during it. This can, then, help alleviate the uncertainties that could be producing the child’s fears and anxieties. The child’s dentist and dental hygienist can also help keep their anxieties at bay by taking breaks anytime it appears the child may be growing overwhelmed.
To help relieve a child’s dental anxieties a dentist or dental hygienist may also try to distract the child during an exam or cleaning and reward the child once it’s completed for going through it.
Here at Main Street Children’s Dentistry & Orthodontics, our dental care team is experienced in all these ways and more to help relieve children’s dental anxieties so they can get the best pediatric dental care available.
Give the Right Example
If you make routine visits to the dentist yourself and prioritize oral hygiene in your own life, your child may feel more encouraged to do the same. They may decide that, if you’re not scared of going to the dentist, then there’s no reason they should be. By being sure to brush your teeth twice each day and floss once at least each day, you can set a good example for your child’s own oral care.
If your child has dental anxiety, it could make you feel confused and frustrated and make it difficult to know how to handle it, especially if you’re having trouble figuring out what’s causing it.
Call our Florida and Maryland dental office today to learn how we can help you alleviate your child’s dental anxiety and help foster a lifetime of good oral health care.
