In the forms that I fill out for the Office of Home Schooling there is a box on the planning pages for health curriculum, and having looked at some examples from other parents, I noticed that many include dental health as a part of their plan for elementary school students. So I did. And we bought a model of a set of teeth and talked about making proper tiny circles on every surface of the tooth ("Not an aggressive back and forth motion!"). We have hit flossing harder this year then ever before, and we even invested in a Waterpik (which Judd the Red Chicken likes to use to squirt at things across the bathroom).
Perhaps the most important lesson my kids have learned that was taught via dentistry is to read reviews carefully. At the beginning of the year we started going to a new dentist because she took our insurance and the very lovely office was very close to our apartment. Although I haven't had any dental problems to speak of for years and years, I was told that I needed a lot of work. And so I did it over the course of a gazillion appointments. My healing process has been forever slow... One night, on a whim, on a lark I decided to look up the reviews on our new dentist to see if others had noticed an extended healing time. What I found was review after review of how the office lacked integrity and scammed patients every-which-way-to-Wednesday. Most reviewers talked of having an inordinate amount of work done, or suggested, only to find out down the road, or because of a second opinion (brilliant people!) that it was unnecessary. Further, some reviewers talked about shoddy work that required continued expensive dentistry the following year. The next morning I made an emergency appointment with my friend's dentist across town, and it was confirmed: shoddy work AND from what she could see the work I had done did not seem necessary.
Because of all the time we spend together my kids have endured my kvetching about going to appointments (even had to hang out in the waiting room and be freaked out by FOX "news" a couple of times when The Sister wasn't available to babysit... FOX?!?... I just discovered a thread... I should have known then that drama was on the horizon), they have witnessed me sagging on the couch holding my jaw and about in tears because of aching teeth, they've been shocked and saddened to see me repeatedly pass up ice cream, they've suffered me slamming laptops shut, phones down, and pots and pans all about while muttering about huckster-shyster-charlatan-dentists, and they have observed me shaking my own fist at myself for not reading the reviews first... for not getting a second opinion... for not following my gut instinct.
I think we can consider this unit about done.
