Parents More Worried About Their Child’s Oral Health Than School Performance, New Survey Reveals
Parents play a key role in keeping their children’s teeth healthy and clean. As with many other things, prevention and proper education about oral health begins at home and thankfully, Canadian dental practices and Health Canada altogether are committed to raising awareness of proper dentistry services and care routines. Children require good oral hygiene habits since they can develop cavities long before having their first tooth. This is why it’s utterly important to practice healthy oral hygiene habits and take children to oral health professionals by age 1, or within 6 months of their first tooth coming in.
While taking a kid to the dentist might not be the easiest experience considering most of them are frightened by them, even ensuring their teeth are taken care of at home seems to be a challenging task. According to the 2018 Children’s Oral Health Survey, parents worry 39% more about their child’s oral health on any given day than they do about school performance (25%) or their child being physical active enough (24%). Moreover, about 73% of them consider their children’s oral health extremely important, a percentage that surpasses diet and nutrition (66%).
Key findings also reveal that a significant number of the parents surveyed (29%) admit to their children missing at least some school time in the last year due to an oral health issue, either because of the pain and symptoms associated with this or time taken off to take care of dental problems.
When asked to rank the most challenging day-to-day activities they have to get their daughters and sons to perform, participants chose flossing regularly as number one by almost half (45%), followed by tooth brushing (37%). Surprisingly, this was something parents found to be more difficult to do than getting the kids to make their bed (30%) or do their homework (25%).
At least 78% of respondents said their offspring’s oral health is not as good as it could, with well over half (64%) admitting their children are currently living with some oral health issue. Cavities were deemed the most frequent problem.
Paediatric dentistry is one of the most important branches of dentistry. Because a lifetime of healthy teeth can only begin with good brushing habits at an early age, both dentists and parents have a joint responsibility of ensuring this happens. Solidifying proper dental care starts with appropriate and easy-to-understand and follow instructions. The golden rule underlying all habits is brushing or making sure they do it, a child’s teeth twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. An overall of 2 minutes are recommended for best results, focusing a good portion of this time on the back molars as that is where cavities often first start developing.
