Adventures in dentistry
Yesterday was early release day. I picked the boy up early from school, went to Friendly’s for lunch, and then to his dental appointment.
He was doing OK for the first 10 minutes or so. Then he stomped out of the treatment room, looked over his shoulder, and called the hygienist an “idiot and an oaf.” I got him back in the chair. That lasted 20 seconds.
We moved to a private treatment room. More backtalk. More acting up. Another escape attempt. And I got him back.
At this point dentist comes in and tries to reason with him. Then he asks if he could see me outside.
“I wanted to see you here for two reasons. One: I wanted to talk to you. Two: I wanted to tell you what I’ve found that works in these cases. It’s kind of a good cop, bad cop thing. I yell directly at the kid, but I want you to know it’s just playacting. Is that OK?”
Part of it was curiosity. Part of it was not sending him back to Beth’s house with a failed dentist appointment. Part of it was not wanting to hear Beth chide me for that failure. I know that Beth would have never gone for this approach. I said, “Sure.”
We went back in. I talked to the boy, told him he was here to get his teeth cleaned, and got him back on the chair. Then he slithered out.
Then it happened.
The dentist got close to the boy, looked right down at him, and bellowed:
“I have had it with this. You are going to get in that chair now!”
The boy’s face dissolved. He tried to argue.
“I am not hearing anything you say until you get in that chair!”
The boy got closer to the chair, but still not in it.
“Either I’m going to clean your teeth or Kimberly is going to clean your teeth! It’s your choice. I’m going to count to three. If you’re not in that chair, I’ll clean your teeth!”
The boy scampered up on the chair, and said, “Not you. OK?”
I hated to see the boy scared. But I liked watching the realization dawn on him that he was not going to be able to talk his way out of this.
He got his teeth cleaned. The hygienist said he had gingivitis from not flossing. I thought that was odd because Beth always makes him brush and floss.
“Mom tells me to floss, but I don’t do it. I just tell her that I did.”
The serpent of deceit seems to have gotten fat in this garden.
Later we talked about the dentist, and why he listened to him and not to me.
“Dad,” he said, “when you get angry and yell at me, I get angry and just a tiny bit scared. But when the dentist yelled at me I got very scared and just a little bit angry.”