Is your child often unwilling to cooperate with toothbrushing?
If so, do you ever feel frustrated, powerless, or overwhelmed?
If so, I’m sending you so much love.
Toothbrushing is often a particular place where both parents and children can feel lots of big feelings:
Parents, because we are wanting our child to have healthy teeth, and because we’re not willing to coerce them to brush their teeth.
Children, because their mouths are so sensitive, so any unmet needs and unexpressed feelings will often come up at toothbrushing times, making cooperation challenging.
Why might children not be willing to cooperate, and what can you do?
Often, the two main reasons are: either that they have unmet needs that are getting in the way of them being willing to cooperate, or they have painful accumulated feelings from past stress or trauma that are bubbling up when toothbrushing is mentioned.
NEEDS:
For children to be willing to cooperate, they often need to have their needs met to some extent, especially for connection, choice, and fun.
What you might do:
Connection:
If you’re brushing their teeth, can they sit on your lap? If they brush their own, how about brushing yours at the same time.
Choice:
You might offer them choice about where the toothbrushing happens, when it happens, and with toothbrush and toothpaste they want.
Fun:
You might sing funny songs, pretend that you can’t find their teeth, pretend that their hairbrush is a toothpaste, or pretend that you’re finding strange things in their teeth.
If you’ve offered connection, choice, and fun, and they’re still not willing to cooperate, it’s likely that the cause is painful accumulated feelings.
GENERAL:
If a child has lots of accumulated feelings, they are unlikely to be willing to cooperate. Just like us, when we have lots of painful feelings bubbling up, we often don’t want to cooperate with our children.
TRAUMA RELATED TO THEIR MOUTH:
If a child has experienced trauma related to their mouth, toothbrushing is likely to help them to connect with those feelings, such as fear, terror, powerlessness, helplenessness, overwhelm, confusion, sadness, or grieft.
This can be from experiences such as being suctioned after birth, tongue tie revisions, or dental visits. Having a toothbrush near or in their mouth can help them connect with those feelings from the past, so that they can heal from them.
What you might do:
You might play attachment play games that are related to that trauma. For example, you could give them a dentist’s kit and see what happens. You could play power-reversal games and pretend to be mock-surprised, scared, or angry whilst in the dentist’s chair or in the hospital.
The balance of attention is vital here, so that they feel safe enogh in the present to revisit the past.
They might also cry or rage. If so, I invite you to stay close with them, offer them loving words, and be with the big feelings until they come out the other side.
I invite you to observe them with toothbrushing after each bout of attachment play or listening to feelings, to discern whether they have clearly done some healing, and whether that is affecting their willingness with toothbrushing.
If you’d like to learn more about doing attachment play to help children be willing to cooperate with toothbrushing, I recommend my free PDF, which you can get HERE.
I also recommend these books from Aletha Solter, PhD, which you can find out more about HERE.
Attachment Play
Cooperative and Connected
Healing Your Traumatized Child
Tears and Tantrums
And these books from me:
I’m Here and I’m Listening
All of Your Feelings are Welcome
And my Attachment Play Course: The link is HERE.
Big love,
Marion xoxox