Time to call out shit parenting!

[RedHot2025]

Just watched an article on BBC breakfast about decay in children's teeth.

Professional talked about scheme where teachers teach children to brush teeth each day since many children don't brush their teeth or get shown how to.

The presentator Nagga said is it right for teachers to do this and have time to do this surely parents should. The professional did everything to not blame poor parenting.

I mean, why don't we just say things as they are anymore? The parents are not parenting if they cannot be bothered to teach children to brush teeth twice a day (or for that matter toilet train). Why is it now down to teachers?

Some parents appear to do sod all but just churn out children.

Note. This is not SEN children, just children in general in particular areas. Again same with teaching to use toilet, not sen related.

God that's so sad. How did she get the point where that was ok?

Is it she saw her child enjoying it and he asked for me so he gave it?

Was it that she ate chocolate all day so it was normalised?

Many middle class or well educated people are very clued up on nutrition - but millions are not. The messages about 5 a day or limiting sugary snacks are just not reaching them in an impactful way.

And when I look at the supermarkets, ALL the cheap snacks on offer are processed and packed with sugar. An apple can be 50p or more. You can buy a whole pack of biscuits for a similar amount.

But surely things like population growth, inflation and probably improvement / changes in the actual extraction care are relevant in the rising costs?

Confused by the 70's/80's parenting comments. Water was simply not a drink in my childhood, it was orange squash or Ribena so strong it burned your mouth or fizzy drinks, everyone had a soda stream or the pop man.
Although toothbrushing was encouraged it was always straight after breakfast in the morning and much rinsing and spitting went on afterwards. I don't remember my parents ever brushing my teeth for me. DH's family only brushed once a day.

My parents and in laws thought me a tyrant for not giving my babies squash and accused me of pampering them for brushing their teeth for them at 6 and 7.

Fizzy drinks and fruit squashes but all "sugar free" it's the acid that gets them. Most dentists say water and milk are ideally all a kid should drink. I agree the occasional treat is fine but I know so many people where all the kid drinks is fruit squashes and they say the kid "doesn't like water".
That would never of been an option when I was a kid dad was an extreme stinge who would never spend a penny unnecessarily he also had rotten teeth as a kid so I was basically never allowed sweets. Seems harsh but I'm grateful now, never missed what I'd never had at the time either.

I do wonder if it is because some parents see milk teeth as disposable - ie the teeth are going to fall out anyway so why bother?

This is my experience too! Was just about to comment this. My memory is that children didn't drink water at all and I was born in the 70s. We also used to go and spend all our pocket money on chewy sweets that we'd eat all day while roaming about unsupervised. People are so weirdly blinkered about how things used to be. As if the 70s/80s were a golden era of parenting lol.

A quick google will tell you children's teeth are much better now than in the past.

While their is no excuse for child neglect.

I wonder if the increase of theses types of stoys, are down to a lack of early years perental support, toddler groups, health clinics ect, Community services, extended family support .
Is it a case of parents struggling with teaching basics life skills and not knowing where to get advice from, or not receiving basic information about child care early on, it's almost assumed every one already knows these things about child care.
For example they used to show you how to bath your baby in hospital etc. As when I had my first I had never even changed a nappy before, so i had to ask the midwifes to show me, (I felt very embarrassed at the time) so had to hit the ground running so to speak. However I did have enough support to get me through the early stages.

Our DS refused to brush his teeth so twice a day we had to hold him down and brush them for him. I would consider this gentle parenting when the alternative is dental extraction by surgery! This went on for months and months but he now does it himself and has lovely pearly whites. I'm sure some people will see that as abusive but to us it was essential for his gum health and sometimes you've got to do stuff you don't want to for their wellbeing.
It is not the responsibility of the teacher to do this imo but some parents do need to be educated on gum health as they themselves may have limited knowledge on the matter.

Your statistics for extraction will include children like mine who were born without formed tooth enamel - in-fact, only one of his teeth has a full coating of enamel. This is hereditary.

I pay a fortune to see a private dentist every three months so he has less of the issues I had as a child. He will still need teeth removed at some point.

To look at, his teeth are ridged with rough patches and dark patches. He cleans his teeth every day and at nearly 5 has no cavities. It will only be a matter of time though.

We limit sugar at home, but school have cake and sweets for every child’s birthday and school puddings seem to have arrived from the 80s with plenty of sugar and salt.

Our school told us cleaning teeth is part of reception curriculum? Preschool mentioned it was part of theirs too. They do it after lunch. Not because I haven't taught DD, I hasten to add!

Do you actually think spending £40,000'000 on removing teeth of children is a good way to spend money? Surely, getting parents to teach their children how to look after their teeth so this can be reduced would be good. Then a proportion of that £40,000,000 could be spent on illnesses instead. I'm not sure the NHS was set up to fund preventative thing's really. But hey, let's just throw money away because some parents cNg be arsed.

It's strange how people circle an issue and not deal with the actual problem directly. I personally think it's shocking that so much is spent just removing children's teeth.

There is an awful lot of neglect in society and teachers and the NHS need to pick up the pieces.

Teeth brushing as well as healthy eating is part of the early years curriculum. And repeated later in school with disclosing tablets and free toothpaste in some schools.
I’ve had 4-5year olds in classes with teeth crumbling away in their mouths. Some had parents with similar problems. Fear of dentists etc. Some Eastern European squash varieties are like a highly concentrated sugary syrup which can’t be helping.
Not looking forward to the prospect of having the kids spit onto the blue paper towel or inco mats on desks, I’ve got to say!

I remember a dentist coming to our Primary school (in the 70s). Think we could bring our own toothbrush in but they had those disclosing tablets which showed the bits you had missed when brushing. I was all smug before the exercise as I was the only child in the room who didn't have a filling, so I obviously had superior tooth brushing techniques! Not quite so smug when the disclosing tablets showed I actually wasn't that great at tooth brushing but obviously had strong teeth!

But it was a one off. No further teaching on tooth brushing happened in school. And I do wonder whether it was partly a marketing exercise for a certain brand of toothpaste, or whether it was specifically targeting tooth hygiene.

I agree and I hate all the 'but what about poverty' because toothpaste is a necessity and you can buy it for less than £1! Toothbrushes are the same. Poor people knows you have to brush your teeth, they aren't stupid.

If you really are that poor then you can ask for it at a food bank

Some children wont have their teeth brushed, so seems like schools are doing it as whole class activity rather than individual shaming or having to deal with the bullying of children that may be already neglected

Like all of these public health initiatives brushing teeth in nursery / school is a way to have an immediate impact.

Yes, you can shout about bad parenting, lower the bar for official 'neglect', implement financial punishments,involve SS and try to remove children from families - but that's a massive governmental thing which would be very very hard to implement, extremely expensive and our current levels of services could not cope.

It's also not going to save as many teeth in the short term as just spending 5minutes brushing at school. Same applies for healthy school meals, extra breakfast clubs etc. None of these 'should' be needed. But they are needed so how can we not?

I don't think there's anything wrong with including it in say the health and personal development lessons. As a kid in the 80's in Australia we had a dentist come into the school to teach us how to brush correctly.

Theres a lack of education on nutrition and oral hygiene, some families really don’t understand it/have never been taught it themselves. This is where we miss places like sure start centres and similar where parents got this kind of support. Unfortunately poverty and areas of deprivation see more teeth decay.

I do think sure start helped fill in many gaps in hard to reach parents - we lived in areas bording very deprivation area.

I rememeber a few quick talks by staff- and a few parents hadn't realised they could get kids seen by a dentist at such young ages - and it did often spark some conversation about how we were all managing and prompting a few to actcually start brushing at toddler age - and I passed on my then dentists advice to get electric tooth brushed for the kids.

I don't think the current government will bring them back - despite evidence that early interventions like surestart save money long term.

I think kids NHS dentistry access should be more on the poltical agenda regular checkup and forming good habits can stop so many problems developing.

That's ridiculous

these things can be generational. Parents won’t have learnt the importance of good dental hygiene either. It’s a way to break this cycle hopefully these kids then would have good habits and pass it on to their own kids. It is a lot to expect from schools though.

Our school got in a dentist to show them how to brush their teeth and basically put the fear of god into them about not brushing. Which reinforced the message my kids get at home and was very helpful.

The issue is, as much as we can all say parents should do it, there will always be some who will not. Unfortunately the options are that someone (school in this case) step in or those children suffer as a result. Easier to treat the symptom than the disease in this case. It's presumably also much more cost effective to tackle it this way than to allow some kids to fall behind & require numerous fillings etc.

@Kuretake
Exactly. We had a tuck shop available at every break time in Primary School and a 5p mix or a bag of sherbet on the way home.
My Secondary had a tuck shop and the ice cream van every lunch time. My children listen in awe to my tales of 50p special ice creams covered in sherbet and sauces or 20p cans coke.
I class it as good teeth rather than good parenting that I didn't have a filling until my 20's and have only had three in total. My Dad was born in the 50's grew up drinking cherryade with sugar in and has had a lifetime of dental problems. DH's dad has had false teeth at the front since his early twenties.

I grew up in the 1980/90s, I don't remember ever being offered water at meals and I never saw my parents drink it. It's a real effort for me to drink water now, I don't really like it!
However I did brush my teeth and was taken to the dentist regularly. I didn't have a filling until I was mid 20s.
My own (teen) DC usually choose water over other drinks, and don't have fillings.

However I agree for children without SEN it shouldn't be up to a teacher or TA to brush children's teeth

Don’t get me started on shit parenting. A child isn’t a fucking tamagotchi, but a responsibility. But the litany of pathetic excuses from lazy parents is astonishing. Just don’t breed if you’re not cut out for it.

Lazy people make shit parents.