How to Motivate Your Child to Brush and Floss Teeth in 3 Easy Steps

Some kids love to brush their teeth, some kids hate it, to the point their parents don’t know what to do to motivate their children to accept the habit. Threats of their teeth falling out, which will happen anyway, or them getting mouth disease or smelly breath will not phase a child. Children are invincible, and they won’t do what they don’t want to or are not motivated to do. Period. If you’re at this stage of development with your child and you’ve made it part of your New Year’s resolution to get this healthy habit in play, keep reading. The answer to making kids brushing their teeth their idea is to make it fun.

You'll have your children jumping for joy to brush and floss in no time!

How to Make Brushing and Flossing Fun?

1. Get them involved.

The choice of kids’ toothpaste on the market is half the work done for you. Allow your kids to choose their favorite flavor, or even multiple flavors if it excites them. The taste of the cool mint and cinnamon flavors that adults love is often “spicy” to a child’s sensitive palate. Most of them will never brush their teeth if they have to use their parents’ toothpaste.

Another choice you can give them is the type of toothbrush. There are as many choices for this as there are for toothpaste. Make going to the store to pick these out a fun trip, verbally reward them for being “big” kids and agree with them that their choice of toothbrush is special and will make brushing their teeth easy and so much fun.

2. Brush with them. 

Now, it’s go time. Morning and evening, brushing their teeth should be part of the routine. How do you integrate it? First, the law of monkey see- monkey do – brush with them, show them how to do it by doing it yourself. Again, make it fun!

3. Paint a story behind it.

Now it’s their turn. Whether you brush their teeth for them, or your kids want to brush their teeth themselves, support either option positively. Sing a song about teeth brushing while they’re brushing. Talk about all the teeth that get to get brushed, and how happy it makes the teeth, how happy it makes them and how happy it makes you! Finally, promote big smiles in the mirror when the job is done, to show off their clean teeth.

As long as you are a part of the process in a fun, supportive, loving way, your children will associate brushing their teeth with joy and eventually, you won’t even have to ask them to remember to do it. 

Have a happy and healthy New Year!