10 Fun Tips to Get Your Kids to Brush Their Teeth

Who told parenting is an easy job? Kids get fussy over all things – especially brushing their teeth. In this article we give you 10 tips to get your kids to brush their teeth.

It is indeed a hard task to get them to brush their teeth. If they don’t, their oral health will take a wrong turn. Trying to convince them with arguments is, as all parents know, utterly useless. They always seem to have ready responses for all the arguments of the parents. What follows is usually shouting or even sometimes spanking.

This is more likely to affect them in an adverse way. They may develop psychological abnormalities over time. There is also the possibility of them performing these tasks just because they fear you, without understanding the importance.

The best way to inculcate these good habits (brushing teeth in this case) in them is to condition them cleverly through reinforcements, which increases the chances of them becoming permanent habits.

So, here we go with 10 Fun Tips to Get Your Kids to Brush Their Teeth.

#1 Keep up Routines

No matter how hard and long the day was, make sure you stick to the routine. Brushing teeth twice a day should be a hard and fast rule. This will make it a habit more efficiently. It is also advisable to set time aside exclusively for brushing teeth.

#2 Reward Appropriate Brushing Behaviour

It may be as simple as stickers. Prepare a chart and let them stick one sticker each time they brush their teeth properly. They may encash these as their favorite reward once a month. To encourage their learning and explorative spirits, you may reward them with science gifts occasionally.

#3 Make up Stories with Their Favourite Characters

If your kids have a cartoon character which they can’t have enough of, give some work to your creativity and make up stories that motivate them to brush their teeth. Your kids would love it!!

#4 Make brushing a family custom

Where do you think kids learn from? Definitely from their family. So, make brushing a family activity just like meals. This helps your kids brush their teeth and what more, it also helps keep a better family relationship.

#5 Customise Toothbrushes and Toothpaste

Go Shopping with your kids and let them pick up their favorite toothbrushes and toothpaste. Toothpaste nowadays comes in a variety of flavors which appease kids easily. Even toothbrushes often come with cartoon characters which the kids will love.

#6 Make Brush Time Fun Time

You may want to put on your kids’ favorite song while they brush their teeth or even make it an experience by singing songs that encourage them to get the job done. For example, you can modify “Row, row, row your boat” to “Brush, brush, brush your teeth”. This works for little ones though they are silly.

#7 Encourage them to be Little Dentist

We have all done this. Who did not want to be a teacher while playing the classroom games? You can take the advantage of the roleplay that kids love to do to encourage brushing. You can play with them playing the parts of both the dentist and the patient.

While being a dentist, you can give some tips on how to maintain clean mouths. While being a patient, you may become a model of how a patient should behave with the dentist. Kids can even play dentists with their favorite stuffed toys. This helps them understand the importance of brushing and oral hygiene and it is also fun.

#8 Compliment their Brushing

No matter how bad they do it initially, compliment their brushing, this keeps their spirits high and keep using brushes twice a day. Later, you could give them tips on how to improve their brushing skills. Make sure you recognize it when they try to inculcate those tips while brushing, and never discourage them when they do it wrong.

#9 Decorate the Bathroom

This doesn’t mean you will have to put up banners, bands in your bathroom. Try to make your bathroom brushing friendly by putting up a mirror (if not present), create some interesting ambiance like decorated toothbrush holders made using high-quality glass bottles. Get your kids involved in making this.

#10 Tell them the Consequences of Not Brushing Their Teeth

This is the fun that parents get to enjoy. Scare your kids how not brushing teeth leads to tooth cavities which may make a dentist visit necessary. Tell them that a dentist uses ez io needles, which can be very painful. Be careful as this may lead to fear of dentists in the future. This seems to be rude, but anything to make them brush their teeth. Use this tip only if the other tips don’t work, or maybe you can combine it with the other tips also.