Health

Ask the dentist: Encouraging children to look after their teeth by making brushing fun

Lucy Stock of Gentle Dental Care in Belfast suggests gadgets that can help make the daily teeth-cleaning regime more fun for the kids

A little girl in striped pajamas is brushing her teeth with a toothbrush. The concept of daily hygiene. Isolated on a blue background
A little girl in striped pajamas is brushing her teeth with a toothbrush. The concept of daily hygiene. Isolated on a blue background A little girl in striped pajamas is brushing her teeth with a toothbrush. The concept of daily hygiene. Isolated on a blue background

MOTIVATING our little darlings to clean their teeth is part of the daily family mêlée that can suck the wind out of even the most positive Percy parent's sail.

The mornings in our house are punctuated with my mild shrieks of, "Have you cleaned your teeth?" followed by, "Try again, I can see your teeth aren't clean", topped off with, "What do you mean you don't know where your toothbrush is?"

So, with the help of my 11-year-old daughter, I perused Amazon for gadgets to help encourage better oral hygiene in the children and hopefully take the edge off the morning scrum. We employed the highly scientific Laughathon meter to rate the products.

First, we tried the semi-circular children's electric 360-degree toothbrush with cutesy animal handle. It's a bit like putting a bristly mouthguard in your mouth.

It looks great and the concept of cleaning all the teeth and all the surfaces in one go is cool, but the reality is that the bristles tickle the teeth rather than giving them a really good scrub.

So, this product got a mild chortle with the Laughathon needle barely scraping past a '1', I'll be sticking with the normal children's electric toothbrush.

Next, we tried the YuCool Toothpaste Tube Squeezer Dispenser, coming in panda, pig, frog, bear and cat cartoon designs. This did get the giggles going and it works as a practical device by not wasting the toothpaste as well as being interesting for the kids to use. Rating a good 6 on the scale.

The next products have toilet humour involved which the children obviously took to better. So, moving on, we tried the elephant's bum toothbrush holder - just simply brilliant. A chuckle-inducing holder that sticks to the bathroom wall putting an end to losing the toothbrush.

The winning spot went jointly to the toothpaste dispensers; the Yoda one basically vomits out the toothpaste, Patrick (from Sponge Bob fame) poops out the toothpaste and the pig one had the toothpaste oozing out of the snout.

Kids and adults could use these all day long and not get bored.