Tips for Parents

Very few parents have been able to keep their kids away from sugar. It seems to be found in everything, kids literally become addicted to it, and parents feel they are fighting a hopeless battle. But there are strategies you can use that work. The three best ways to counter their sugar addictions, if you can’t withdraw them from it, care:

  1. Get their dental awareness and hygiene trip together as soon as possible. At least then they will have the information and hopefully the desire they will need to minimize, or eliminate, the effects of sugar on their dental health.
  2. Introduce them to the principles of sound nutrition.
  3. Get them to switch candies. ( Granted, this is a compromise solution, but although they will be eating sugar, it will be less harmful to their teeth.) Sugar is most harmful to the teeth when it’s continually available for the germs to feed on. This means that those candies that remain in the mouth the longest are the worst offenders — the hard sucking candies and the sticky stuff, like caramel and taffy, that are not only sucked on but chewed and that tend to adhere to the teeth.  The least harmful to the teeth are the kids of candy that are quickly disposed of, the ones that go in and down quickly. These don’t continually feed the germs like the hard candies, which stay in the mouth a much longer period of time. Explain the difference to your children and get them to switch over, and remind them that they should brush and rinse, or at least chew sugarless gum, as soon as they can after eating any candy.