 Hello everybody, Andrew Majeski here with Dental L Mobile Hygiene. So how do I treat children differently than if you were to take your child to a dental office? So that's what I'm going to talk about a little bit today with you. So I have 14 years experience now working in the dental profession. I was a dental receptionist, I was a dental assistant. I became a dental hygienist after that and then I became a restorative hygienist after that. So that allows me to, I have additional skills that your typical dental hygienist does not have. And one of them is I can fix tiny cavities. You might be thinking, well I thought a dentist could only fix a cavity. Well I can actually do that too as long as they're tiny enough where I don't need the high-speed handpiece to take out the cavity. Because that's the dentist department. They deal with taking away tooth structure and they deal with that high-speed handpiece. But if it's tiny enough, I can actually take the cavity out with my tiny instruments and I can put a nice white filling material on top of that. But more importantly, how do I treat kids differently? So I find and make such a big difference of me coming into your home versus them going to the dental office. Because we were all kids once too. And anytime you have to go to the doctors, you go to the dentist, you're nervous. There might not be a reason to be nervous, but you don't know what's happening. You kind of sense that something bad's going to happen. But me coming into your home, I tell parents, tell your children, I'm your friend who's coming in to make your teeth nice and shiny. You know, and act excited. Like this is a very exciting thing. Me coming into your home to make your teeth nicer, you know. And I do say that it is better if I can work on either mom or dad or sister or brother first so that your child can see, okay, so this is how it works. You know, this looks like a lot of fun because all I do, I come in, I set up my chair. I have the air, the water, the suction. I have my instruments, but that's it. So I keep it simple. If you prefer, I can even see on your couch, you know, wherever. Just to make it as enjoyable as possible for you and then for your child to see, oh, okay, that's kind of cool. It works every time. Typically when I'm cleaning, let's say mom's teeth, the child starts to look over like, oh, this looks like a lot of fun. And you can act excited and then say, yeah, well, that was easy. And then, hey, would you like your teeth looked at too? You know, so I can count the teeth for them. I can do everything. And what I like to do too is I like to give them a sticker at the beginning of, you know, when I first walk in so that they know, oh, well, she has stuff. Whenever she comes here, she's going to give me stuff. But then I will show them my little toy box and say, if I can look at your teeth afterwards, you can pick any toy that you want. So I'm kind of saying to them, hey, like if you want a toy, you have to sit down here and let me look and then you can have a toy. If for some reason they're, you know, having a bad day and your child doesn't let me look in their mouth, that's okay. But they're not going to get a toy. You know, there's no sense giving them something when they didn't really do anything for it. Right? Yes, that can be hard, but it just helps to show them, okay, if I behave, if I'm good, I get a toy. And even if I can't do anything when I first see you or them at the first appointment, the next time I come, they will be like, okay, she looks familiar. She has toys. She has stickers. If I open my mouth this time and let her clean my teeth, you know, let her fix my cavity, then I will get a toy. So that's how I do things differently because often when little children, especially when they go to the dental office, they see everything, right? Like they can walk in right away and maybe they'll see another patient that's nervous. They might see people walking in and out, in and out, and that kind of scares them a little bit. They probably hear a lot of noise when they go to the dental office, too. You know, you have to be on time. We have to be on time, so we can't afford to be as patient with them as we might want to be. So it's pretty much, okay, open now so that we can look if they don't want to open, then they just automatically say, okay, well, we can't see them. We have to send them to a children's specialist, which might be true in some cases. Even I can't see everybody. You know, if they don't open, well, you know, there's nothing that I can do either. And then the best way for them would be to see a children's specialist. But I've never come across that yet where me going into their home, they don't warm up to me eventually. It might not be the first appointment, and that's okay because I'm somebody new, right, coming into their home. They're like, okay, I don't really have to talk to you. I'm not going to bother. You know, some kids are like that. But if they keep on seeing me, even if I come back a week later, they start to get to know me. They go, okay, she has toys, maybe I'll let her count my teeth, and then we go from there. Because the big thing with me is that I want to see your children early enough to not allow any big problems to happen. You know, even if they have a tiny, tiny cavity, that happens. But I want to take care of that cavity now so it doesn't get larger. And then they do have to go to the dentist to get a needle to use the high speed handpiece. Nobody likes that. But if I can even see them, and if I can prevent cavities from happening, you're happier, I'm happier, everybody's happier. So the earlier I do see them, even age two, that's perfect because then they get to know me a little bit. They see that I'm coming over, you know, I might not even be able to do any work at that point. Age three is usually when you can get some work done if needed. But it's just so much more enjoyable for them so that they don't have to feel that every time they go to the dental office, it's something bad. I'm the dental office coming to them. So I hope that helps explain things a little bit. If you're nervous to take your child to the dentist, that happens. But let me know, I can come over, have a look, you have nothing to be nervous about. It's worth a try and everybody's in their own home, you know, comfortable. So it does tend to work a lot better that way. So thank you guys so much for listening. Let me know if you have any questions and I will see you guys in the next one.