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