Parent brushes teeth
Being brushed is not the same as brushing yourself. The mouth is sensitive, the hands belong to someone else and the pace is set from outside, so the body tenses up in advance. The steps below show what happens and when it ends.
♀Parent brushes teeth
A girl brushes her teeth at the sink holding a cup.
♀Parent brushes teeth
An adult brushes a child's teeth with a purple toothbrush, an arm around the child.
♀Parent brushes teeth
A girl brushes her teeth at the sink holding a tube of toothpaste.
♀Parent brushes teeth
An adult brushes a child's teeth while the child holds a cup.
♀An adult brushes their teeth
An adult brushes their teeth holding a cup in the other hand.
About this visual support
Assisted brushing contains something few other everyday tasks do: the child hands over control completely. The jaw has to stay open, the head still, and the pace is decided by someone else's hand. Even for a child who likes being helped, that is a position that requires trust, and if it turns uncomfortable it cannot be stopped without interrupting mid-way.
Visual support makes the sequence understandable without anyone having to talk through it. A row showing upper jaw, lower jaw and rinse tells you where in the brushing you are and how much is left. That is exactly the information that is hard to give out loud when the mouth is occupied, which makes pictures unusually useful here. For a child with tactile sensitivity it can be the difference between resistance and cooperation.
A concrete tip is to agree on a stop signal in advance, a raised hand meaning pause for instance. Knowing that stopping is possible usually means it is not needed. In Routined the brushing can sit as a short timed step in the evening routine, and the app can be tried for fourteen days at no cost.
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Take the visual supports with you
In Routined you build schedules from these pictures, add timers and voice instructions, and your child follows the day on their own.
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