Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Does Teeth-Brushing need to be a contact sport?!?

I've already gone through the whole adolescent lazy hygiene phase, but with my youngest (12), it seems to be something different ... and far more frustrating. While he has dysgraphia, which affects fine motor skills, I don't think this falls under that umbrella. For any of you with any insight or that have solutions that have worked for you, I'd love to hear from you.

This is how our daily routine usually goes:

Me: Let me check your teeth.

Son: (smiles wide, revealing teeth caked with yellow gunk)

Me: They aren't brushed well enough yet. Please brush them again with your electric toothbrush, making sure to let the bristles stay on the fronts, insides, and tops of each tooth for a few seconds each.

Son: But I already brushed all of them. I did brush the fronts.

Me: Let's look in the mirror. (We go to the mirror, where he smiles widely again, inspecting his teeth.)

Son: I don't see anything on them. They look fine.

Me: Then get your brush. I need to brush them for you.

This is followed by me brushing his teeth while I chase his head as he moves and writhes, backing away from the brush.

I can't let this slide; it's important not only for his oral hygiene but also for his overall health and how others react to him at school.

He doesn't seem to have sensory issues with anything else (my daughter definitely did), so I don't think it's that. But I really don't know.

Any advice to help solve this is greatly appreciated.

I'm afraid I don't have any helpful advice, but fwiw we've had very similar experiences with our dysgraphic/DCD ds12. When he was younger he had a really tough time with changing his clothes, and it was always a huge battle. It was easy to see that it was difficult for him to do due to his fine motor challenges, but for him it morphed from something that was simply really tough to do into... "why the heck do people need to change their clothes?".

He luckily doesn't have trouble with plaque buildup, but we have to remind him every single night of the year to brush his teeth before he goes to bed and after breakfast. I've given up reminding at other times at this point to try to minimize the reminding and work on (hopefully) building automaticity morning and night... but honestly... if it hasn't happened by 12, not sure it's going to happen! It also seems that he's developed some of that same "Why do this?" line of thinking that he fell into earlier re changing clothes every day.

As you noted, this is *so* way beyond different than our experiences with our other non-dysgraphic non-DCD kiddos - my girls just do it without thinking about it.

polarbear

0hhhhh ... how could I forget the plaque dye? I'll see if I can find some - that may be a very good solution, since he is standing in there brushing, just not effectively.

polarbear, I had to laugh at the clothes thing. I think he's exactly like that with his teeth, and while I'm sure that will change when he starts liking girls, by then he may have a mouthful of cavities or worse.

So I'll try the dye and see if that does the trick. Thanks so much for the advice.