 Hello everybody. My name is Andrea. I've been in the dental profession for about 17 years now and I have my own dental hygiene practice. I see this quite often where children are clenching and or grinding their teeth. The child could be five years old, six years old, seven years old, eight years old, but they're their children, they're not adults and parents are very concerned because their teeth could look like this image right here. Notice how the teeth are very worn down and the top surfaces of their teeth almost look yellow. It doesn't look right. It's not the normal white, almost like pointy. There's like round areas on the cusps. They've worn that down. So when I go for a child's teeth cleaning or it's a new patient exam, they just want me to check if their child might have cavities. They're concerned about spots. They will often point out these areas in children. These two examples here, they're on adult teeth, but I wanted to just kind of show you what things can look like. On this top image here, this is a child where the front teeth are worn down. They're about half the size that they should be. This is of a concern for parents, but believe it or not, we're not concerned about it. But there's different levels of concern. I'm concerned about it if the child is in pain. And if the child is like, oh my goodness, my teeth hurt all the time. It's keeping them up at night. But guess what? Quite often the children aren't in pain. Our bodies can really handle so much. If you're thinking, looking at this, how can my child not be in pain? They have lost half of their tooth, basically the second layer of their tooth. You have enamel. That's the first outer layer, the white layer. And then you have the dentin, which is the second layer. It's a yellowish layer like you see in these pictures here. But the dentin is not meant to be exposed. When it is, it makes the teeth sensitive. But in children, it's very different. They actually don't really notice in most children. I would say 99% of the time, I'm not worried about a child clenching or grinding their teeth because they're not in pain. They're not sore. They're not uncomfortable. It doesn't look very nice. And parents wonder, like, what's going on here? I let them know it is okay. They typically grow out of it. If this was to happen in an adult, we would give them a nightguard. But you can't give a child a nightguard because, one, they're not going to wear it, right? Children don't do a lot of things. So they're definitely not going to wear this big appliance in their mouth. But two, more importantly, their mouth, everything is constantly changing. You don't give them a nightguard to really hinder that change. They're constantly growing. If you put a nightguard in there, their mouth can't grow properly as it should, right? So we don't do that. We wait and see. As dental professionals, we say, yes, this is typical. We see this a lot. Why do children grind? We don't know. It's just their teeth are coming in. The teeth are being lost. The mouth feels funny. They just feel like they want to grind and clench their teeth, right? It's not because they're stressed out. Not typically anyway. If they're clenching during the day, they are probably stressed out. I have definitely seen some children where the parents do tell me when they get angry when they're throwing a tantrum. They do this and they clench. Well, that's different. If they're clenching or grinding at nighttime and this is where the wear is coming from and how the wear is happening, there's nothing we can do about it. We typically grow out of it. We wait and see. So that's what I tell parents. But I also let them know, as a side note, it's easier to get cavities because the second layer of the tooth is showing and that should normally be covered by enamel. So I let them know it's more important now than ever to really have them brush the teeth well, make sure they're not getting any cavities in there, drink lots of water, and monitor things. If they're ever concerned to let me know, but ultimately if the child is not in pain, they're going to grow out of it. You have nothing to worry about. So comment below, you guys, if you have any questions about clenching, grinding, clenching, grinding in children, what the signs could be when you should be concerned, but typically they will grow out of it. So thank you guys so much for watching. Click like if you like this video that does help me in my channel, and I'll see you guys in the next one.