If you can’t tell a teenager anything, how do you tell them to brush their teeth? Dr. Karen Brooks, a Toledo dentist, has strategies to help parents get the point across. She says sugarless gum helps keep teeth clean, eating fruit and vegetables is easy this time of year and that helps, too. Dr. Brooks knows the difference between a really good job of brushing and what might be good enough.She suggests you floss once a day; brushing three times is optimal though most do it twice at most, so if you get all the tooth surfaces clean and massage the gums, it’s good. Can you make dental-health a priority for teens?Even if you get them to think about it, it’s worth asking them every day if they’ve brushed. For a teenager, the dentist says it may help to point out how good-looking they are with shiny, clean teeth.
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