 Everybody Andrea here with dental L. Let's talk about some things that I do to make my child patients more comfortable when I go to their house to clean their teeth, do a dental hygiene checkup, even if I'm just there for a dental screening. So let's say they're age two or three, too young to clean the teeth most likely, too young to polish, you're just kind of there to get them used to everything. So let me talk about a couple of things that I do do and kind of how I approach that appointment differently than if I would if I was seeing an adult. So the first thing that I find really works is Rex. So this is Rex. I am so glad that I got him because kids love this guy. If you're an adult, every adult tells me like he looks kind of freaky, like, oh my God, look at those teeth. Kids love him, but let me tell you, depending on the age or the child, they might be afraid of him. I find age two or three, it's a 50-50 chance they might be scared of Rex. So what I do is I come in and I am holding Rex, and I'm usually just holding actually my mobile dental bake. So I just come in when I first meet patients holding these two things. I don't come in holding my chair, the stool, my luggage. I keep it simple. I just come in holding these at first so I can meet the child. Cause they're normally in the hall or they're waving at the window. They're excited to see me or they're shy. So it could go either way, but I am always holding him and I wait to see what the child does. I don't automatically go, here's Mr. Rex, play with him. I kind of see if they look excited or if they're hiding behind mom or dad. I tell mom or dad, I say some kids don't like Mr. Rex. They're kind of scared. So I'm just gonna leave him on the floor here while I bring in the rest of my stuff. And if your son or daughter wants to play with him, great. Here's his toothbrush. You can kind of show them to brush his teeth while I'm not here. So I'm coming in, setting everything up. So mom or dad likes Mr. Rex too. They can kind of help the child brush the teeth while I'm not there. If the child doesn't want to hang out with Mr. Rex, that's okay, don't force that. But that's what I do. So I literally leave Mr. Rex or Rex on the floor. And then as I come in, I usually make two or three trips depending on if I'm seeing the whole family or just a child. And I bring my patient chair in, I bring my stool, I bring my pink cart that has all of my stuff. And I have Mr. Rex already and I have my mobile dental bag and that's it. And then I just kind of set up where they tell me to set up. But let's say your child loves Mr. Rex. Then I have a lot of fun with them. So what I do is I explain everything to the child again, depending on the age. If they're two years old, I'm not gonna make them sit in my patient chair. Let's say they're four years old, I give them the choice. So I will get down on my knees at their level and I will say to them, we are going to count Mr. Rex's teeth and then we're gonna polish them. Do you wanna sit on my patient chair, my super cool chair, or do you wanna sit on the couch? I give the child the choice. They have to pick, but they have to pick one of those. They can't just say, I wanna sit outside. They have to pick one of those. And some children, they're super excited actually to sit in the dental chair that I have or they're like, no, I wanna sit on the couch. That's fine. So what I do is first I count the teeth. I do have a plastic tooth mirror, which I forgot to bring with me, but I have a plastic tooth mirror that I give one to the child and I am holding one too. Plastic because the child might wanna put it in their mouth. They might wanna put it in Mr. Rex's mouth. And if it's stainless steel, it could hurt them. It can't hurt Mr. Rex, of course, but it could hurt them if they try to like shove it in their mouth because kids will do that. And they get excited when they get to hold the tooth mirror too. So then I count the teeth. While I'm counting, I will then say to the child, how many teeth do you think you have? And they're excited because they're seeing me count the teeth getting excited. And then the child normally just opens up like, and I go, okay, they're ready. So then I will count the child's teeth. If they're super excited, I count all the teeth. If they're kind of hesitant, I will count like two teeth. I'll go one, two, oh, that's so great. Now let's do Mr. Rex. And then when they're excited again, then I offer to count their teeth and they love it. So that's how I get to the teeth counting part. And then the polishing, again, depending on the age, I do try to polish because it gets them used to having something in their mouth. I have a cordless polisher, so it's not noisy. I call it my electric toothbrush. I call it my special toothbrush that makes the teeth really shiny. So I will turn that on. I will have them actually hold it. I will actually show them, let me put down Mr. Rex for a second. I will show them on their finger and I will say, see how soft this is. So I actually turn it on, put it on their finger and then they go, ha ha, tickles usually, right? So then I will do the same thing to Mr. Rex. I will say, okay, now let's polish Mr. Rex's teeth. And I pretend to polish. Sorry, my puppy was making noise. He, or sorry, she sees Mr. Rex and she wants to play with him. So I will pretend to polish because if you touch the polisher on his teeth, you don't know how clean they are. Of course they're clean, but you don't want to then polish his teeth and then go inside the child's mouth, right? Be careful with cross contamination. So I pretend to polish. So I'm not touching the teeth, but I'm polishing. I get excited. And then I say, can I polish your teeth to make them really shiny? And I tell mom or dad beforehand, get excited anytime I'm doing something. Say to your child, oh my God, your teeth look so shiny. Let's do another one. So we work together and have a lot of fun with it, okay? So I will polish Mr. Rex's teeth and then I polish the child's teeth. It's that simple. Depending on the age, then it might be time to do the fluoride varnish. So I like to do that for every single patient. Children, adults, it doesn't matter. It is great to protect against cavities. I call it, it's like vitamins for the teeth. So then I take my micro brush, same thing. I give the patient a micro brush to hold and then I hold one too. And then I say, let's make his teeth really, really shiny. This is my special stuff. It does taste like salty caramel. Who doesn't like salty caramel? Let's take my special stuff to make the teeth really, really shiny and let's make them shiny like this. So then I take the micro brush, the top teeth, the bottom teeth and I go, wow, look how shiny they are. Again, I'm pretending, right? Look how shiny they are. So then I put the fluoride varnish on my glove and I will put the brush in and I encourage them to do the same. I say put your brush right here and then doesn't that sure smell good? Cause it does smell good. Kids love it. And then I go, let me do it to you too. Go, ah, and then I do it for them. Kids love it. Some kids don't like the taste afterwards and they kind of look at me like it's hilarious. The faces that they make, they are allowed to drink water, eat right away. It's no problem. So then I'll say to the parents, let's now have a big glass of water and then they can rinse or drink water or they love it and they go, hmm, can I have it again? It's pretty funny. So that's what I do. Kids love it. Just as a side note, you guys, I will also let them pick a toothbrush, which I did bring a couple of toothbrushes in but I think one might have fallen. Sorry guys. So I let them pick a toothbrush. So I do have a couple of different choices. I let them pick one toy from my toy box. So I buy these toys from Amazon. They're called like party toys. I have a lot in here now. I try not to have too many in here. If I'm seeing three kids, then this is usually the amount that I will have. If I'm seeing one kid, I'll probably take out half of this and say pick one thing. Cause I've learned if there's too many choices, the kids get very stressed out. So don't give them too many choices. Okay. But also the next thing, cause it can be hard to tear them away from the toy box. The next thing I do is I will stand away and I will say when you're done, you can pick a sticker. So I let them pick one sticker. I usually have themed stickers. So it's Halloween. So I let them pick one sticker. If a child wants two toys, I say, well, I can't give you two toys because I have to save them for the other kids, but you did so well today. So think which toy you want next time. And then you can have that next time. It's like a teaching moment, you guys. You can't let kids have whatever they want. Sometimes I want to give them whatever they want cause they're so dark cute, but you know. So that's what I do, you guys. Let's say a child has a cavity. I show them this. Kids love this thing. I show them a very healthy tooth. And this is also a teaching moment too. Where I say, look at this yucky black stuff. That's a cavity. If you don't brush twice today, this will happen. If you don't drink lots of water, this will happen. If you eat too much sugar, this will happen. So then I kind of talked to them about that. I will go over all of that in another video cause that will probably take 20 minutes, but they love this. And I let them hold it to you guys. And they always look at this and they go, ew, what is this? Kids are funny, right? So kids love it. Kids have so much fun that I even get the most amazing gifts sometimes. So I just saw a kid yesterday. He is amazing. And he gave me this. How sweet is this? I saw another child last week who was adorable and she made something for Mr. Rex. Look you guys, isn't that sweet? So I love my kid patients, okay? They're my favorite. Not gonna lie. I love my adult patients too, but they're truly my favorite. So how sweet are these you guys, right? I know. So just some tips for you. If you have any questions, comment below. Thank you guys for listening and I'll see you guys in the next video.