As I mentioned, every child is different and thus reacts a different way. That is why I said that many children do just fine with their parents in the room.

However, as a practioner and many practioners agree, there are many children that actually behave better when parents are not in the room. I don’t pretend to understand why, as I am not a child physcologist, but I can tell you that this also applies to one of my own children. I am not even suggesting that you have to wait in the waiting room where you cannot see your child. I am suggesting that with some children, it is best that the parent not be visible to them unless the child actually does do fine with them in the room.

A dentist should have no problem letting a parent observe by standing just outside the room but covert from the child. Since you do not have the experience of treating children in dentistry, your exposure to how children act is minimal and thus you are comparing how your child acts, not necessarily what other children do.

My point in writing that post is actually to help parents understand why we sometimes ask a parent to attempt leaving to see if it helps the child(whether the parent chooses to go in the waiting room or stand outside the room). My goal was also to make you aware that there ARE dentists who mistreat children and that is why you shoud be cautious if you are refused to be let in the room.

As a mom, I want to be sure my child is in good hands. I cannot control everything but I do have to have some level of trust in the person providing care or else I shouldn’t see that person. The point is that you should have an open enough relationship with your dentist where the dentist should have no problem letting you observe from the sidelines or within the room. A dentist who refuses to allow a parent in a room is, in my opinion, distrustful. That was my point.

However, as parents, you have to allow some trust and flexibility, or you may hinder your child’s care or make the experience worse. Try to remember that usually people comment on bad things more frequently. It isn’t often that people get fired-up enough to get on the internet and brag and praise when someone does a job well-done. That is true for most things in life. We tend to take thsoe situations for granted and get caught up in things that upset us. So, it is liklely that all the bad things you are reading and hearing are a biased interpretation from lack of data. Thanks for your post and I hope this clarifies things for you.

Firstly you paint some kids as Jekyll and Hyde manipulators who only behave when there is no family in the room, but surely having a familiar person in an unfamiliar setting would help them deal with the new experience.

Also i see no reason why most children would act uncooperatively unless the dentist in question proves to be untrustworthy, therefore shouldn’t it be the job of the dentist to make the child trust them regardless of parental presence.

One of the main reasons i would be uncomfortable leaving my kids alone is that the dentist and their assistants could treat the child any way they wished with no parents around to defend them, if you were to Google this then you would find many ghost stories about strapping down, drilling without novocaine, bruises being found and so forth, one of the best known being the SmallSmiles controversy. I believe that this is because dentistry is a business and dentists are able to charge for every procedure done plus they would want to see as many patients as they can so they can make more profit, this being said a nervous or scared child may be seen as a liability, so without the parent there the dentist and their assistants would be free to save time by using papoose boards, threats and lack of anaesthetics. As a mother i’m sure you wouldn’t let your child go into a strangers’ house for obvious reasons, well i believe its’ a very similar principle applied here, as a dentist is still a person you and your child may know very little about apart from a certificate and a lisence.

Lastly and the main reason i find it hard to trust dentists on this is because i asked about this in two videos possibly posted by a dentist which suggested consulting the child about whether or not they were comfortable being alone with dental staff, this made sense to me as it is theri appointment after all and most children over the age of five can judge someone based on their behaviour, plus making a child trust them enough to see them without the parents there would be a testament to the dentists chair-side manner i think, but when i asked these questions the first one didn’t respond and the second one gave me a Thumbs Down.

As previously stated i wouldn’t normally question the nature of your profession, but the previous two’s reactions to me paint the picture of professionals who aren’t even willing to consider another’s opinion but their own and who don’t even have the decency to explain to me the validity of my idea.

I know this was a long winded reply and i hope i wasn’t too offensive in my wording, i only wish to express my opinion as someone outside of the dental profession and would be interested in your response if you are willing to give me one, if you indeed disagree with my assessments and my idea of a compromise then i would appreciate the luxury of knowing the reasons.

Yours Sincerely
Calum Warden