A sad trend that I see is the loss of permanent teeth in children because parents haven’t either taken their children to the dentist until it’s too late to save a tooth, or they have no money to spend on the necessary repairs their children need.  The most often quoted excuse parents give is that they don’t have dental insurance.  Besides lack of insurance, the problem is the order of priorities in spending.  Almost ten times more money is spent on recreation today than 50 years ago.  The whole country is reeling because of financial uncertainty and poor decisions.

What I am suggesting is that general dental needs a positive recommendation from a wiser generation.  As a grandparent myself I do realize that our children don’t always take all our suggestions.  We can help however by a word of reminder and encouragement.  Promote maintaining dental health by good oral hygiene habits and reasonably often visits to the dentist.  Encourage a family fund or budget for dental health.  Holiday or special occasions where gifts are given might even include a tooth brush or a prepaid dental check up for that special grandchild.  Help with obtaining or maintaining good dental health can be an important often over looked way to significantly help a young person’s life.  Self esteem among young teenagers can be greatly affected for the negative if one is ashamed of their smile.  The amount of suffering by children and young people due to unaddressed tooth ache by many parents of all levels of financial ability is surprisingly common.  Next time you see your grandchildren take the time to be a little nosey and ask about their teeth.  You might be surprised.  Give advise, counsel, and support if you can to promote healthy teeth and you’ll make a difference in the lives of your grand children.    

Phillip Hall is a practicing general dentist in St. George.  He is also head of the St. George Craniofacial Treatment Center, and operates St. George Dental Careers, a successful dental assisting school.  Appointments for general dentistry or dentures call 656-1111.  For sleep apnea appliances or TMJ problems call 634-8338.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Phillip Hall. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.