4 Ways To Infuse Healthy Dental Ideas Into Family New Year's Resolutions

28 December 2016
 Categories: Dentist, Articles

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As the new year rolls around, many families love to gather together and discuss a number of New Year's resolutions that they will make and try to stick to. A lot of New Year's resolutions focus on all aspects of being and staying healthy. If this is the case for your family, then you can work with your children to choose various ideas that will focus on good dental health. This can make a huge difference in the way their mouth develops and really help prevent the onset of various mouth diseases like gingivitis. Browse through various resolution ideas to see how healthy dental practices can make a huge difference in your children's life. By doing these resolutions with your children, it can help encourage them to complete the various tasks.

Healthy Snack & Drink Choices

One of the easiest options that you and your family have for a New Year's resolution is choosing better snack and drink choices. Too many sugary snacks and drinks can lead to tooth decay, cavities, and other problems. The best way to get started with this list is to make a grocery list of healthy snacks and other options to eat during the new year. For example, you can eliminate unhealthy snacks and treats like fruit chews and replace them with dried fruit or actual fruit from the produce section. You can easily replace fruit juices and sugary drinks with healthy fruit infused flavored water. Cutting off the snacks completely may be hard for a child, so it may be a good idea to include these options for one or two days of the week until you gradually increase them.

Overcoming Fears

One of the more common themes for New Year's resolutions is overcoming fears. If your children has fears of going to the dentist, then you can help them overcome these fears by making a New Year's Resolution to do so. This can be done by booking an appointment with a family dentist and preparing your child for this appointment. By watching educational dental videos, your child can learn about the whole dental cleaning process. A lot of the fear about going to the dentist is facing the unknown. By understanding the different procedures, your child will not be as scared as they would have been in the first place. At many dentist offices, you will also have the ability to sit in with your child and help them get through the appointment.

Extra Dental Routines

Along with brushing after every meal, a New Year's resolution may involve performing extra dental routines. For example, when you visit a family dentist, you can request free mouthwash samples. These samples allow your child to swish mouthwash around and clean out various germs in their mouth. A dentist, such as those at All About Smiles Dental, may have access to alcohol-free mouthwash that can help eliminate the burning sensation that comes with most typical mouthwash flavors. Along with mouthwash, you can get some floss and add some new routines to daily dental cleaning. This will help ensure that your child's mouth is clean and healthy through the whole new year.

Increased Dental Visits

If you and your family only visit the dentist once per year, then you can all work together to help increase those visits to twice per year. Committing yourself to more dental visits will help ensure that everyone in the family has a healthy smile. You can help eliminate extra plaque and tarter that has built up on teeth. Dental x-rays and problems can be found more frequently and cavities can be filled as needed. It also makes it easier to plan and execute these visits if everyone goes together.

Dental improvements do not have to be the main focus of all of your resolutions, but they can make a huge difference in the long run of your family's dental health.