The battle of the toothbrush

Tiny really hates brushing his teeth.

He has a number of sensory aversions, and we think this is one of them. His reactions have ranged from refusal, ignoring, throwing the toothbrush across the room and brushing everything but his teeth with it, to his current instinct to gag every time the toothbrush comes close to his mouth. Today he gagged to the point of actually being sick. Only a little bit, but still… he really hates cleaning his teeth.

We’ve tried so many different things. Manual toothbrushes and electric toothbrushes. Minty toothpaste, fruity toothpaste, no toothpaste. Doing it for him and encouraging him to do it himself. Acknowledging his aversion to it and doing it together. Leaving him to it. The promise of rewards, or warnings of no sweets. Nothing has worked for more than a few weeks at a time, if that.

I found myself researching alternative methods of teeth cleaning on the way into work today (someone must have invented something you just swill round your mouth, surely?!). Then I checked myself.

Why was teeth brushing so important? Why was I becoming increasingly crazed and desperate about it? 

I realised that I was essentially battling for control as much as he was. It was time for a rethink.

On the GBB training we attended, we did a lot of work on our ‘core scripts’; our inner narratives which stem from our own life experiences and the way we were parented, and in turn drive the way we aspire to parent our own children.

Oral health was always pretty highly valued in my family. I remember being taken to the dentist regularly and feeling a sense of pride when I was told that my teeth were healthy and clean. I remember a sense of disapproval from my parents when we heard about other children who needed fillings. I remember the importance of teeth cleaning being emphasised and I don’t remember ever questioning this (although my parents might say differently!). I don’t like the sensation of having things stuck in my teeth or the way they feel when they haven’t been cleaned all day. Basically, my core script is that teeth brushing is important.

There’s something else to it too though. Little was a couple of months younger than Tiny is now when they both came into care, and at that point she already had pretty serious tooth decay, to the point where she later needed several extractions. She’s aware that her birth parents didn’t help her to take care of her teeth, and that this is one of the many ways in which they weren’t able to look after her properly. So I feel the (probably self-inflicted) pressure to make sure that Tiny’s teeth get better care keenly. 

Once I’d identified that, I could rationalise it. Of course Tiny’s teeth will fare better, because he’s already had a much better diet than Little did for the first three years of her life. Being unable to get him to clean his teeth twice a day does not make me a bad parent. There’s a whole spectrum of grey between sparkly clean teeth and a mouth full of tooth decay, so I need to pull my mind back from worst case scenario. Tiny is pretty easily dysregulated at the moment and he carries a lot of anxiety round with him, so engaging in a daily battle which stresses us both out is pretty counter-productive. He’s generally doing a bit better with the rest of his morning and evening routines, so why not enjoy the bits that are going better rather than expending a lot of energy on the bit that isn’t working so well right now. Basically, I need to back off!

So this is me relinquishing my core script and stepping back. Let’s see how it goes!k