What are the Differences Between Children’s Dentistry and Adult Dentistry

Dentistry is literally an art form. It’s the art of taking something near perfect and perfecting it using knowledge and skilled hands.

Hence, a dentist is no less than an artist. Over the years, dentists have perfected the art form of fixing dental ailments and curing dental diseases. The progress to this stage hasn’t been easy or simple.

To perfect the art of dentistry, the field of dentistry itself had to branch out into several different specializations.

One such specialization is Children’s dentistry or Pediatric Dentistry.

Pediatric Dentistry is just dentistry on children, right?

So why does have to be a different specialization? Although Pediatric Dentistry is just dentistry on children, it is a complex field since the dental anatomy of children and adults is significantly different.

Operating on children requires specialized care and tailored procedures keeping the children in mind. Hence, Pediatric dentistry doesn’t merely stand for dentistry for children, it is a whole different field on his own.

In this segment, we would like to highlight some differences between Children’s Dentistry and Adult Dentistry.

1. Adults are easier to operate on

This is quite obvious. Adults are more understating and are capable of grasping the gravity of the situation. Hence extracting greater patient compliance with them is easy, all you need to do is explain everything to them.

Hence, its easier to operate on them. You can request them to stay still while you operate, and they will comply. Children, on the other hand, are a whole different game ball game.

You can spend hours trying to explain to them what the situation is, and still be met with a ‘No, I don’t wanna do this’. This kind of juvenile stubbornness can be difficult to deal with.

2. Children’s Dentistry is more complex

Adult teeth are all grown and set. To operate on them is easier since they have relatively stable dental anatomy. Kids, on the other hand, have an evolving and growing dental anatomy.

Their teeth are growing, their milk teeth are falling off and their wisdom teeth have not yet come out. All these factors necessitate that a greater level of care must be taken while operating on children.

A dentist must also consider whether his or her procedures will impact the further growth of the child’s teeth.

3. Children are unable to understand everything

Children are incapable of understanding everything being told to them. Hence, quite often they are unable to grasp the gravity of the situation or the necessity of the procedure.

This makes it more difficult to get them to comply with instructions. They are unable to understand the ailment that they are facing and that the dentist is doing his or her best to treat it.

4. Children are easily scared

Children are quite afraid of dentists because of the sharp tools and instruments they possess. Getting a scared child to undergo a procedure involving these scary tools is quite difficult.

5. A dentist’s personality towards children

The personality and persona of a dentist become important while dealing with children. A dentist must go down to a child’s level and explain things to the child.

Additionally, a dentist needs to be extremely patient with a child. A dentist must get into the psychological thinking of a child and then try to get him or her to comply rather than forcing the child. A child needs to be handled differently from an adult.

By now, it is quite evident that Children’s Dentistry is quite different from Adult Dentistry. Luckily, there are clinics that specialize in dealing with Children’s Dentistry.


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