The following considerations help children attend dental treatment sessions more easily and comfortably:
- Before taking the child to a dental office, try to convince the child that the dentist is his/her friend and wants to help him/her and decrease any pain and discomfort. Please note that your stress and anxiety will easily be transferred to the child.
- If your child asks any questions about the dental treatment, you should not explain everything exactly; at the same time, you should not tell any lies. You should simply say ‘I do not know’ or ‘I should ask the doctor.’ Precise explanations increase fear and anxiety, resulting in a lack of cooperation. Discuss your children’s fears with the dentist.
- Do not promise any prizes to your child before treatment. The child might come to the conclusion that you promise a prize because the dental visit will be difficult and fearsome. You should surprise the child at the end of the procedure by giving him or her a prize.
- The prize should not be something extraordinary because it might have a detrimental effect on the dental visit, and the child might come to the conclusion that higher stress levels will lead to bigger prizes.
- At the end of treatment, some children want their parents to feel guilty because of taking them to a dental office. Therefore, they play the role of a victim. Such role-playing should be prevented, and the child should be taught to return to you with pride and a smile on his/her face.
- Do not wait for pain feeling to take your child to a dental office.
- Never take your child to a dental office by punishing or threatening him/her.
- The child had better rest and be lively before visiting the dental office. The child’s tiredness and impatience will result in a lack of cooperation or going to sheep on the dental chair, making it difficult to carry out a good and high-quality treatment.
- Do not use words like ‘injection, needle, drill, blood, and pain’ because they induce fear and anxiety in children.
- Do not be worried about the injection of the anesthetic agent to your child. Do not talk to your child during the anesthetic injection and behave normally. Although the anesthetic solution injection is the most common reason for children’s fear of dentistry, the dentist and the dental personnel are familiar with the techniques to reduce children’s pain and discomfort during injection and are adequately trained in this respect. For example, instead of the word needle or injection, they use pinch or insect bite.
