We have a 5 year old foster son in our home who like must children his age detests brushing his teeth. So we of course have fallen into the stereotypical parent that has lots of interesting retorts as to the importance of brushing teeth such as....
1.) Teeth are like your friends, if you don't take care of them they will leave you.
2.) Do you want to have to blend your steak and drink it through a straw?
3.) If you don't brush your teeth they will fall out of your head!
and other such threats in hopes of motivating him to do the right thing. Welllll.... the other day he got his first "loose" tooth as we were sitting down to eat our dinner. All of a sudden he got a very horrified look on his face as we explained to him that his tooth was going to fall out (not even thinking about all our previous conversations about this happening if he didn't care for his teeth) and he says to us "I don't feel like eating my dinner anymore I feel like brushing my teeth!" We of course being the horrible ogres that we are began to laugh hysterically which caused him to burst into tears. We then had to explain to him that loosing his baby teeth is normal and that his "grown up" teeth would replace the baby ones. He finally felt better but during this process we lost the battle in the importance of brushing teeth because now he knows that his baby teeth are going to fall out anyways and he can always get "new" ones.
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