A DAD'S LIFE:Try not to pass your phobias on to the kids, writes ADAM BROPHY
WHEN THIS column was shifted into this supplement a few years back, I figured that’s it, the kiss of death. We’ll be afflicted with all manner of physical complications now as the universe has a giggle at the family’s expense and supplies me with a parade of relevant topics.
Still waiting for that to happen. Am clutching wooden objects to my breast here as I type this, but none of us have been struck down by anything more than nasty colds and gastro bugs that few people would want to hear about.
That’s why the elder going to the dentist a couple of weeks ago was an issue worth writing about. Such medical requirements have been so rare, thankfully, that when they do arise they take centre stage in the family psyche. Her visit sparked off all my memories of oral wrestling and the resulting fear of the chair that they left.
On the back of that, I was sent information about paediatric dentistry, an area that I wasn’t even aware existed. I figured one dentist is pretty much the same as the next which, considering the heightened psychological impact they tend to have on us when compared to lollipop-offering GPs, seems daft in hindsight. You bring your kids to your dentist because he or she has served you well, you don’t seek out a child-specific one.
But maybe you should. Here I’m in a fortunate position. I sent the elder off for two visits to remove a couple of impacted baby teeth. It took two visits as opposed to the one that was scheduled because the dentist decided the first extraction had taken a bit out of her, and she’d be better off taking a couple of weeks to recover before the next bout.
I wasn’t sure about that. My experience with the teeth pullers would push me to suggest you’re always better off getting as much as possible done in one sitting, so you don’t have to stress about seeing the chair again for at least a year. And then begin the countdown.
Not in this case. Yes, the extraction was tricky, and took time and a little gentle manipulation, all of which was unavoidable. But because of the way he talked her through the process, explained what was going on, took care to let her know everything that was happening, she felt no fear about going back.
We all thought the follow-up job would be more difficult. If it had been me, I would have spent a week gnawing knuckles, nails and tables in anticipation. She barely gave it a thought.
That to me speaks volumes about the dentist’s skills. That a child can be relaxed in advance of a session, while comfortable during and after, makes the future, for them and their gnashers, all the more manageable.
Our fella doesn’t market himself as a paediatric dentist – I don’t think he can as it is a speciality – but he takes the time to make a child feel relaxed. And all it takes is a bit of time.
If I felt, which I don’t, that my child was suffering in any way with apprehension at the thought of dental visits, I would seek out a specialist.
Children’s dentistry should be as concerned with addressing fear and anxiety as it is with infection and decay, and certainly more concerned with the child’s comfort than cosmetics.
Parents, as usual, are somewhat responsible. We can’t help but pass down our long-held fears, without saying a word. We enter a surgery, or not, with our mouldy molars, and the brats read us with a glance. They see the tense jaw and the frayed lips and expect the worst.
My point is, don’t give them the worst. They don’t have to suffer any more. The practice these days is of such high quality that there is little need to suffer more than slight discomfort at having a mouth full of cotton swabs.
Dentists don’t need to pump the guns in the local gym these days because the wrestle rarely occurs. What they need, possibly more than any other profession, is the ability to sit themselves in a child’s head and remember how that feels.
Today’s child is the future’s anxious patient and parent, breeding the next generation of anxious patients. Mine is okay, which is a relief because, judging by the jagged Giant’s Causeway cropping up in her mouth, she’ll be seeing quite a bit of that surgery.