Creating a Fear-Free Dental Experience for Children: Tips for New Practitioners

I'm excited to share a Guest Blog on how to help manage paediatric patients in practice....

Image Source

Dental phobia is one of the most common fears. Over 50% of people admit to being scared of the dentist, and often this is a fear that starts when we’re children. For you, this means you sometimes need to take on the role of therapist before dentist.

But what can you do? If you’re new to the profession and are a little unsure of how to deal with nervous children, here are a few techniques to try and alleviate dental phobia in young patients.

Show No Nerves

Children often pick up fears from adults. While trying to deal with a nervous child may take you out of your comfort zone, showing any signs of this may cause your young patient to pick up on this behaviour and replicate it. Therefore, the best thing you can do is to appear relaxed, calm and extra welcoming.

To prepare yourself, it might be as simple as rehearsing the scenario with yourself in the mirror when at home. Alternatively, if you’ve got little ones in your family, spend time around them to increase your confidence around children if you lack confidence in this area.

Speak to Other Dentists

A nervous child is a problem that any experienced dentist has likely seen hundreds of times before, so there’s a good chance that they’ll know best when it comes to dealing with a frightened young patient.

As a new practitioner, it’s probably worth ringing around your network and speaking to senior dentists to see how they deal with the situation.

Positive Reinforcement

Rewarding good behaviour is one of the oldest tricks in the book when it comes to creating good habits or breaking bad ones. This is a technique that’s often applied to treating phobias too and works especially well with child phobias.

Rewarding a child patient every time they visit your practice will help them build up a positive perception of the dentist. Whether that’s a sticker, a healthy snack or even just some positive words could do the trick.

Gradually over time, this should help them subconsciously build up a better relationship with the dentist and shake off that dental phobia in time for their adult life.

Manage Expectations

Experiencing the unknown for the first time can instil fear in both children and adults. In this scenario, parents often choose to fill their child’s head with what they want to hear which can unfortunately lead to broken promises which can cause a more severe fear further down the line. As a result, it might be worth speaking with parents about managing their child’s expectations ahead of an appointment.

For example, telling a child that it won’t be painful before they receive a sharp injection isn’t going to build trust with them, and will likely make their fear worse the next time they visit the dentist.


This article was written in correspondence with trained and experienced dentists at Beyond Dental in Leamington Spa.



 . INSTAGRAM XLINKED IN .

You Might Also Like

2 comments

  1. I lost over $23,000 to a Bitcoin scam and felt hopeless until I found NetGuard Network Asset Recovery. Their reputation gave me hope, and they didn’t disappoint—they recovered my entire investment in just two days! Their expertise truly changed my life. If you’ve been scammed, I highly recommend contacting them via WhatsApp at +1 (913) 218–6208 or email at support@netguardnetwork.com.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Get Quality Leads, Fullz, Pros, Database

    (USA STUFF)
    --------------------------------
    | SSN DOB DL Address Employee & Bank Info Fullz
    | Bank Account & Routing Numbers
    | USA DL Front back with Selfie
    | USA Passport Photos
    | Cars Database with MVR
    | USA LLC Docs with DL Photos
    | DL Fullz with Issue & Expiry Dates
    | Get Specific States, Cities, Gender, Age, Zip codes
    | USA CC's with CVV Fullz
    | High Credit Score Pros
    | Young & Old Age Fullz
    | Business EIN Company Fullz
    | USA Email Combos

    (UK STUFF)
    --------------------------------
    | NIN DOB Address Fullz Sort Code Account Number
    | NIN, DOB, DL Address Fullz
    | UK DL Front Back with Selfie & Passports
    | NIN Dob address info in bulk
    | UK CC's with CVV Fullz
    | All UK Counties Fullz
    | UK Email Combos

    (CANADA STUFF)
    --------------------------------
    | SIN DOB Address Fullz
    | SIN DOB Address MMN EMAIL & Phone Info Fullz
    | DL Front Back with Selfie
    | CA CC's with CVV Fullz
    | Canada All states DL & Passport Photos
    | Canada Email Combos

    USA Headers:
    FIRST NAME|MIDDLE NAME|LAST NAME|SSN|DOB|DL NUMBER |DL STATE|PHONE HM|PHONE WORK|PHONE CELL|EMAIL|ADDRESS|
    |CITY|STATE|ZIP|RESIDENT STATUS|EMPLOYER|OCCUPATION|JOB STATUS|MONTHLY INCOME|ROUTING NUMBER|ACCOUNT NUMBER

    UK Headers:
    FIRST NAME|SURNAME|DATE OF BIRTH|NI NUMBER|ADDRESS|CITY|STATE|POST CODE|EMAIL ADDRESS|NUMBER|SORT CODE|ACCOUNT NUMBER|ACCOUNT NAME

    CANADA Headers:
    FIRST NAME |LAST NAME |ADDRESS |CITY |STATE |COUNTRY |DOB |SIN |PHONE |EMAIL |MMN |ZIPCODE

    (ADVANCE TOOLS & TUTORIALS)
    ---------------------------------------------
    Spamming Complete Package
    Hacking Complete Package
    CC & Dumps Tutorials
    CC hacking tutorials
    Scam Pages & Scam Page Scripting
    C-panels & Web-mailers
    SMTP RDP Shells
    Bulk SMS Sender PC/Mob
    Kali Linux Package with Tutorial
    Cash out & Transfer Methods

    Available 24/7 at:
    WhatsApp – (+1) 605... 846... 1870..
    Telegram – @ Fullzpros (Watch out for cloned names)
    TG Chanel – @ bigdatatrader
    Mail – Silasclark99 at gmail dot com
    VK ID – Fullzpros

    ReplyDelete

Top Categories