What to say before a doctor or dentist visit

The appointment is on the calendar, and your child has worked out where you’re going. It might be a needle or a filling, or only a check-up, but in your child’s imagination it has already grown into something enormous. Much of what frightens children about the doctor or the dentist happens before they ever reach the chair.

What to say before you go

• Tell the truth, simply: “The dentist will count your teeth with a little mirror. You might feel some pushing.” If something may hurt, say so honestly and briefly: “The needle pinches for a moment, then it’s done.” A child who’s told “it won’t hurt” and then feels it learns not to trust the next reassurance.
• Take it one step at a time: “First we drive there. Then we read a book in the waiting room. Then the doctor says hello.” A big event is easier for a child to picture, and less frightening, when it comes in small pieces.
• Let them practise: a toy doctor’s kit, or counting teddy’s teeth with a spoon. Once they’ve played it out at home, the real room feels a little less strange.

The idea underneath

Marcus Aurelius wrote private notes to himself, and one of them is about the habit of piling up every trouble at once, before any of it has arrived.

A worried child tends to hold the whole visit in their head at once: the strange smell, the big chair and the needle, before they’ve even put their shoes on. Marcus’s question helps shrink it back down. Right now we’re in the car, and now we’re reading a book in the waiting room. Is any of this too much? Taken a moment at a time, each part usually turns out smaller than the fear of it. That’s the gentle idea in The Shadow Before the Door, a Stoic Sprout story about the worries we build before anything has happened.

What to avoid

• Using the doctor as a threat. “If you don’t brush your teeth, the dentist will be cross” turns a helper into a punishment, and makes the next visit harder.
• Promises you can’t keep. Skip “it won’t hurt at all” and “it’ll only take a second” unless you know they’re true. Afterwards, praise the courage it took, whether or not there were tears.

Mark Fitzgerald · Founder of Stoic Sprout

Mark made Stoic Sprout as a dad in Melbourne, for his own young children, with calm stories drawn from the real Stoic philosophers. More about Mark →

Stoic Sprout builds calm and character. It isn't therapy or medical advice. If your child is struggling in a way that worries you, please talk to your GP or another professional.