Welcome to Monday Mornings with Dr. Mona where each week I answer your questions.

To leave a message call 954-526-2641 and I may pick your question for a future episode.

Let's get to our caller.

Hi Dr. Mona, my name is Divya and I have a son who is two years old. He's almost 28 months

and something that we struggle with every day in brushing teeth. In the morning and the evening,

I tried multiple strategies like trying to make it fun, thinking songs, but sometimes I just

end up holding, we have to hold them down and get them to brush teeth but I'm afraid that that's

going to kind of scarred him and in the future he won't want to brush his teeth and you know

the lead to cavities and things like that. I guess I'm really concerned more because I have cavities

and I'm afraid that he'll end up getting them because they're they can be hereditary.

I'm not sure if that's true, but I'm wondering if you could share strategy on how to

get kids to brush their teeth. Thank you so much. Goodbye.

Good morning and thank you so much for this question, Divya. I'm sure people who are listening

have either been in your shoes, will be in your shoes and can really attest to that drama that

can happen with brushing our child's teeth. I hear that you've already tried a few different things.

One of them is making it fun, you know, singing songs and the tips that I'm going to go over are

multiple tips to kind of put together to find what works best for you and your child. But I want

to rewind and kind of talk about the concern parents have with traumatizing their child with

teeth brushing or making them hate it for the rest of their life. Your child is not going to hate

brushing their teeth for the rest of their life. I assure you. And I think we have to really

reword the way we use trauma. I think, you know, traumas kind of throwing around there a lot,

like traumatizing, traumatizing. Your child is doing something that is needed for their hygiene

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