It can be difficult to get the children to the dentist for multiple reasons from busy schedules to pure childhood dislike of dental care. Fortunately, we offer family dental care to make multiple trips to different dentists only one trip to the same location. Treating families, we find that when there is a family dentist involved, the family itself tends to take on a greater sense of accountability for their oral health and hygiene.
One of the most important aspects of being a family dentist is the fact that we get to build a relationship with the family members over time. This gives the family comfort in the service provider and a sense of trust that is very good for overcoming things like dental anxiety.
When visiting an unfamiliar dentist, the child may struggle with fears of a dental checkup causing pain. The child’s fear is mainly due to being in a place they do not know, surrounded by people dressed in strange clothes and around equipment that makes strange noises.
All of these feed into our natural anxieties and make it so that we are more afraid than we need to be. However, when a child sees the family dentist, it is someone they already know. The office is more familiar, which leads to a sense of trust and enhances the child’s ability to relax. In similar fashion, most family members are able to let go of some of their anxiety issues when dealing with a trusted family service provider.
When a child comes through the doors of our family dentist, the parents of the child and the child know that we are going to do everything possible to meet the child’s needs. We bring all family services in-house. This means that no matter which family member we are treating, or for what general purpose, we can do it all in our own clinic. From X-rays to cleanings, from extractions to fillings, no matter what the family needs.
The exception, naturally, is extremely specialized services. In addition to this, we focus a lot of attention on the scheduling element of a family’s visit. We know that families are extremely busy these days and do not have the time to make repeated dental appointments. To help with this, we can coordinate scheduled visits with each other, incorporating variables like school and work, to ensure that we maximize the time a family spends with us in order to meet all dental and oral health needs.
