Teeth brushing

[Paula]

 

 

Utterly fed up with trying to get my 16 year old son to bursh his teeth correctly.When he was younger and smaller.........now stands over 6ft............i used to do his teeth but now he wont let me but refuses to do them himslef.Or if he does he literaly does it for 10 seconds.............and removes all the toothpaste.

 

 

For the past 18 months ive been takeing him every single month to the community dentist to see the hygenist who cleans and plishes his teeth in an attempt to help.............hell allow this to happen is the perfect patient ...........wont do them at home though.he recently been prescribed some sort of special tooth paste high in flouride but low on taste and still he refuses to use it.Hes been back to the dentist twice in the past 10 days to have two fillings his first ones........

 

the ineviatble lecture came from the dentist one he hasnt seen before and i had to explaine how he wont let me do his teeth and how he hates the tast of toothpaste and how he cant breath through his nose and hates things in his mouth ect ect.............i thought god i feel bad enough as it is. I feel so powerless.I feel im doing all i can there arent many parents would take there child every single month once sometimes more to try to keep on top of the cleaning.

My thinking being eventually something will click and hopefully his teeth wont be in too bad a state..........

 

 

I know ive read post like this before but want reasurance im not alone in this and im not a bad mother which is what i feal like after the dentists dressing down..........

 

Its so bloomeing hard and no one understands im doing me best.

 

 

[Shnoing]

Our son (6, HFA) only sometimes brushes his teeth, provided his toy ape 'brushes his teeth', too. Most of the time, though, he doesn't.

 

As we don't have water fluoridation here, he gets tablets, which seem to do the trick (so far). You might consider getting dental sealants for your son.

Edited March 10, 2010 by Shnoing

[sesley]

mine not only brushes his teeth but stands for precious getting to school minutes in front of a mirror examining them for missed spots. so we usually get there at the skin of our teeth

[noogsy]

im still brushing my 12 year olds teeth,

if i leave him to do it himself he just rinses with mouth wash,

no tooth brush....lol..does my head in...

noogsyx

[Paula]

I used to brush them when he was younger and he was more cooperative.........now hes 16 and stands over six foot tall wont cooperate and im unable to force him neither is is dad he toweres over him too.

 

he visits the community dentis wh deal with special needs adults ect and kids.......he has had sealents on his teeth and he also has them painted with flouride stuff every couple of months............im going to look inot flouride tablets

 

[purplehaze]

Hi my son is also 16 with autism and hates brushing his teeth-when he was younger I had to hold him down to try and clean them-I have to keep going on at him and then he will only brush them for seconds. He has lots of sensory difficulties and hates the taste of the tooth paste (tried lots of different flavours, I have even tried tooth paste from spain that a friend got me) and he hates the feel of the brush in his mouth-so you are not alone.

 

I managed to get him to the dentist last week and she said 'you have been cleaning your teeth well' I nearly fell off the chair with laughter and shock-I just think it's a combination of not eating too much sugar and just having good teeth. He now thinks he ony has too clean them now and again as he cleans them at the right time!!!! My son has told me many times he wishes his teeth would fall out so he didn't have to clean them-thats how much he hates it!!!

 

It doesn't make you a bad parent-just a parent of a child that finds cleaning his teeth difficult!!!

[Meethoss]

Have you tried using logic to explain to your child why to brush their teeth? When I was young I used to see adverts with the shining clean teeth so I'd brush mine very well to get them like that. Then a bit later in life I got lax in brushing my teeth and ended up having a number of fillings and I think someone even commented on their cleanliness. I found this embarrassing and ended up going mad cleaning them again to the point that it was wearing away my gums so I had to calm it down by getting an electric toothbrush.

 

I have no found a happy medium and am able to clean enough without damaging anything.

 

I'd suggest using a combination of lectures from the dentist, images or videos of people with bad teeth, an explanation of why this is socially bad and a good electric toothbrush that aids the cleaning. If they can see that 1 + 1 = 2 (cleaning well + cleaning regularly = good healthy teeth = lack of embarrassment) then I believe this may help.

 

Oh and don't think of it as scaring your child, it's simply explaining the facts of life (when it comes to teeth!).

[lisac]

Not an ideal way i know, but when my son is in the bath and laying in bed i brush his teeth standing behind his head , like the dentist does . I can get right to the back , the only thing is, he'll swallow the small amount of toothpaste but at least he has clean teeth , x

[Meethoss]

P.S. My electric toothbrush tells you how long you should be brushing each section of your mouth and I find this really helps so I know how long to brush for and I stick to it around 99% of the time on account of my liking to "stick to the rules"

[julie1]

this is not ideal but i will share anyway. My son who is 14 now has always had isuses with teeth cleaning he would just do it for about 10 sec and his teeth were yuk his gums would bleed which put him off brushing. We got a good leaflet from NAS explaining teeth cleaning and we often look at it even now. But what really worked was the dentist telling my son he would have to use a blow torch to get to his teeth next time he saw him. The dentist was only joking but my son took him literally as our children do. From that day on he brushes his teeth when asked and uses a timmer so he brushes for long enough. I only hope he doesnt realise the dentist was joking as he would be really angry and would feel he has waisted his time brushing his teeth.