Thoughts for the Week:

When it comes to our development as human beings, our mouths are one of our most important body parts. When we're babies, our mouths bring us nourishment, comfort, information, and the means to communicate and express feelings. Our mouths also bring us one of our first experiences of persistent pain - the pain of teething! And, of course, biting becomes an early primitive way of expressing anger and frustration. Learning to control the urge to bite is a very important task of early childhood.

Because we have such strong feelings about our mouths, it can be particularly difficult when someone like a dentist wants to use strange equipment to look around and probe our teeth and gums. We hope one of this week's outcomes will be to help children to know what to expect during a dental exam.