Clinic
A day inside Tiny Tusk Dental, Kharghar: what makes a clinic kid-friendly
A kid-friendly clinic is not a clinic with a mural. Plenty of places have the mural. What decides how a visit goes is smaller and less photogenic than that, and most of it happens before anyone looks at a tooth.
Nothing happens before it is explained
Every instrument is shown, named and tried out on a finger or a nail before it goes anywhere near a mouth. Children are not frightened of the chair, they are frightened of not knowing what is about to happen. Take that away and most of the fear goes with it.
The visit runs at your child’s pace
Some children climb into the chair at minute one. Some need to watch a parent sit in it first, then look at everything, then decide. Both are fine. A visit that ends with a child still willing to come back has done its job, even if not everything on the list got done that day.
You stay where your child can see you
Parents are not sent off to a waiting room. For the youngest children the appointment often happens with them on your lap. You are the thing in the room that makes it safe.
Built at child height
Small chairs, low counters, things placed where a four-year-old can reach them, and somewhere to sit that is not a row of adult chairs. It is a quiet signal, and children read it immediately: this place expects me.
It ends on a good note
Whatever happened during the appointment, it finishes with something to be pleased about. The next visit is being built during this one.