Being a school nurse i see a lot- and hear more.

Why do parents not take care of their children's teeth????????

We have a child at our school who has a lot of dental issues -- needs braces -- but parents ignore it .

But they are willing to spend money on other things-- like cell phones, latest and greatest game system BMX bikes - the list goes on -- and this child does not receive the dental care he needs ---

I feel this neglect on the parents part

While I do agree with you that parents need to consider their children's teeth, but are you sure they are spending their money on other things? Dental care is extremely expensive. Even with dental insurance, I pay out the wazoo for anything that is done.

My youngest will need braces and whatever else the Ortho requires for her, but its going to be a slow process getting it done since it is an expensive procedure. It does seem that health care in any form (eye,dental, regular checkups) take a back seat to every day living.

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My 14 year old son says he looks like a hobo with his teeth right now. They seem to be growing everyway but the way they should. My 12 year old daughter on the other hand has braces because at the time she got them her mouth was much worse. Now my poor son has to wait until hers are paid for before he can start with his. Lucky for him her last payment is this month so he will get his in January. My insurance pays a one time fee of $1,500 for braces. That leaves $500 down and$175 a month for me. This is not easy for us so only one child at a time with braces. For people without any insurance and can't afford the monthy payments there are no braces.

Now if these parents can afford it but don't do this for their child it is a shame.

I don't know, if the kid had cavities or an infected tooth and the parents just ignored it I be inclined to agree. In most cases braces are for cosmetic reasons. I would definitely recommend that if kid had messed up teeth that the parents try to find some way to pay for it. Having bad teeth can have an effect on a kid's self image. But not getting a kid braces is a far cry from true neglect.

Not to mention, how old is the kid and do you know they don't plan to get them in the future? My ds is almost 13 but we'll be waiting another 2 years before deciding what route to take with his ortho. Right now he still has one baby tooth and his main problem is over crowding on the bottom row. The dentist feels we should wait to see if this gets better as he grows.

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Our dental insurance made us wait 18 months of being on the policy before covering braces. Even if they were needed, we financially had to wait...since they will pay 50% of the bill upfront.

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Im curious to know how old the child is...

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Are you sure about that? My understanding is that a lot of bite issues, if not corrected, can lead to loss of teeth in the future. Maybe not as big a health issue as say, diabetes, but still more of a health issue than a cosmetic issue.

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Sometimes it is for health reasons a bad bite can lead to headaches, tooth loss, tmj, ect. But a lot of the time braces are for overcrowding, spacing, minor overbites. These things (unless they're severe) rarely cause much trouble. I have braces right now for spacing and a cross-bite. I mainly got them because I hated the way my teeth looked, but it turned out that once the cross-bite was fixed that the problems I had been having with my jaw got better. On the other hand I know lots of people on tmj message boards that have shelled out thousands on braces and other things that they were told would help and never got any relief.


My dental insurance pays nothing for braces. I currently have them on my top row and chances are both of my kids will be getting them. More than likely when it's all said and done I would be able to buy a new car with the money spent on fixing our teeth.

Not to mention, I just forked over $600 on my 9 yr old's baby teeth. It was about 1k before dental insurance. He's has a disease that has cause problems with his teeth, he's had surgery on his jaw twice in the past. Since the problem now is just with his teeth, our medical insurance said "no way, it's a dental problem not ours."



I guess I just think that if not having braces is the worst case of neglect that a school nurse sees, she should thank her lucky stars. It's almost a miracle. Like a school out of fairy tale land or something.

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It's interesting you bring this up. I have a 7th grader and a 10th grader. They have been to the dentist every 6 months since they were 3. Oldest has had braces, youngest has them now. After 11 years of having kids in school (the same district), we recently got sent home a card from middle school that we are to have the dentist sign and then return it to the school nurse.

My question is - what business is it of theirs? And what good does it do? Those that take their kids may or may not return the card (we did - she already had an appt. for her next cleaning and just had him sign it when we were there). Those that don't take their kids aren't going to do it just because they got a card. So, what's the point?

Lisa

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Dental situations can be cosmetic or medical - that is for the professional dentist to decide. As I skimmed the other responses, sometimes it is a financial hardship, and of course sometimes it's a lack of priorities.

I think it's become "expected" for kids to have braces. I remember a couple of kids having them when I was in school, but not many.

Currently, I see many, many kids and have wondered if it's the "in" thing now that they have to have braces just to have them? Even my sister-in-law got them at age 33 and while her teeth weren't perfectly straight, they were beautiful.

dl

My daughter desperately needs braces and has had them a few times in the past. They were removed depending on baby teeth and progress. With her being in a new school the teachers might think the same with us...that we aren't doing anything.

However, we are! We have been on hold for about 2 years waiting for the last 2 baby teeth to come out, and growth to stop. She is also going to be undergoing jaw surgery to re-align her jaws. The surgery by the decision of the orthodontist, dentist, and maxiofacial surgeon we are waiting for about 16 months.

There are legitimate reasons people are forced to wait, money being the biggest. There are also the exception to rules and people don't care. To save face please be careful should you decide to approach the family because they might be in a similar situation to us.

Amen...come to our school and see what our school nurse deals with! And we are in a nice, small, rural school with a somewhat low income. We aren't even inner city or extremely low income. It amazes me that parents have cell phones, smoke, etc. while their kids do not have winter coats, decent meals, ANY dental visits (even though we have a traveling dentist at school every year several times. It is free and only requires someone to fill out a form), etc.

It also amazes me that parents choose not to pay school fees while taking weekend trips, paying for classes/lessons 4 days a week, buying designer clothers, etc.It all comes down to responsibility for your own children...but many parents expect the school, the teachers, the government etc to take up a lot of slack. I'm all for a helping hand, but sometimes the taking advantage goes a bit too far.

I would guess that the different reasons run the gamut from selfishness, laziness and neglect to that some simply cannot afford to provide it. Do you realize that most dentists now make far more than the average doctor? Doctor's aren't exactly scraping by but the average dentist is now making thousands more per year than the average GP and likes it that way so the cost of dental work is uneccessarily astronomical.

This is one of the downsides of welfare and America's never ending social programs. There are hundreds of thousands of American parents that can't provide proper medical care for their own children because they're forced to provide it to other people's children instead.

Maybe they are waiting to get braces? I know our 10 year old just got his off (bite issues that needed resolving early) and our 8 year old gets her on in January (again, bite issues). I do know some ortho's won't do braces until they are at least 15 or 16. It all depends on what approach they take. Also, money is key. Maybe insurance doesn't cover it or maybe the payments are too high or maybe they know their child won't take proper care of them (I know kids who intentionally ate all the wrong foods in order to piss off their parents for getting them braces...thus, they ended up in the office about 2 times a week to "fix them". That's time off work, school, etc).

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Or won't wear their retainer once the braces come off. Then all that money is down the drain.

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Yep. I had mine at 13 and I hated my retainer so I didn't wear it like I should have. I am 35 and my mom STILL gets on me for wasting all that money on the braces because my front tooth is crooked

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