The Early Signs
Get your kids in early.
Wiggly teeth, an exhausted tooth fairy, and a ninja or princess birthday party make turning 7 a magical year. By the age of 7, our children’s adorable smiles are changing – exchanging baby teeth for larger “grown up” teeth; while this creates a wistful sigh that they could stay little forever, we care about their future in the same passing thought! Parenthood is crazy, right? Dr. Kelson, a father of five children, knows these concerns all too well, which is why he feels 7 is the ideal age to monitor your child’s growing teeth, jaws and facial balance.
At Kelson Orthodontics, we call this the Preventative and Guidance Stage where many future problems can be reduced or avoided if caught early. As a bonus for moms and dads, this can reduce the overall time and cost of your little one’s future awesome smile.
Here are a few early signs to know if your little one is ready to visit Dr. Kelson:
- Crooked or crowded teeth
- Protruding jaws
- Messy eating
- Grinding
- Flat or worn teeth
- Gaps between teeth or jaws
- Finger or lip sucking
- Baby teeth that look perfect with no spaces
(yes, really! Seems ideal, but in actuality there is little space for the larger “grown up” teeth to be. Picture a mouth exploding with teeth one on top of the other, crazy! We’d love to help, these are our favorite!)
Benefits
During this phase of orthodontics, Dr. Kelson’s goal is LESS treatment overall, not more.
As he evaluates your child’s developing teeth, jaws, and facial balance, he will address concerns as they are developing rather than waiting to fix bigger problems when they are older. Our focus at this stage is Preventative Care. It is truly amazing the results we can achieve when we work together during these developing stages. The final smile is astounding! In a pun, jaw-dropping.
Preventative
- Correct and guide the growth of your child's jaws, creating a more balanced face
- Correct impacted, “stuck” permanent teeth, allowing them to grow in straight
- Regulate the width of the upper and lower jaws in unison
- Create more space for crowded teeth, we want all the teeth to shine!
- Avoid permanent tooth extraction. We love working with ALL your teeth!
- Correct thumb-sucking – We have a revolutionary approach, ask us!
- Improve speech problems, “Can they do that?” - “Yes, we can!”
- Correct damaging tongue habits, like tongue thrusting that pushes the teeth out of alignment
- Reduce the risk of trauma to protruding front teeth
- Reduce the time and need for full braces in the future, “you’re welcome!”
Better Smiles
While it’s never too late to straighten a smile, starting young gives your child the best possible outcome. Dr. Kelson will help you understand the unique growth and development of your child’s teeth, jaws, and face. When we are able to work with your child’s growth and maturity, the results are extraordinary. We are able to diagnose concerns early and treat them accordingly. This allows for, less time in orthodontic care during their teen years, more savings by reducing your out of pocket costs and creating a smile so contagiously fantastic, you’ll love it!
Balanced Faces
Dr. Kelson specializes in Face-Focused Orthodontics. What is this, you ask? This means he dedicated extra years of schooling to the bone development of jaws, cheeks and facial structure along with a study on maximizing individual aesthetic facial balance. Basically, he can straighten your child’s teeth like nobody’s business, and work magic on the unique characteristics of your child’s bone structure to maximize their beauty and attractiveness.
Care
Essentially, the face and jaws grow slowly over time and can be dramatically influenced by the position of the teeth and bite. Without preventative care, a child’s bone structure, if a little bit off when they are young, could result in lengthy, time intensive treatments, surgery or an impossibility of correction later. By correcting these asymmetries and problems while children have a lot of growth on their side, it allows them the best chance to grow into a pleasing facial structure. With Dr. Kelson’s knowledge and artist’s eye, he understands how to work with your child’s unique bone structure to create gorgeous facial symmetry, a beautiful profile and an amazing smile. Faces and smiles are truly his art.
The Treatments
We Promise, your experience will be educational, stress-free and fun. We love to have a good time!
During our Preventative Care and Guidance Stage, we might recommend our Child Braces or an appliance to be worn for a specific time. This would be to correct concerns that improve the growth and development of your child’s teeth and jaws. It will create less time or even eliminate braces during their teen years and the result will be a healthy, gorgeous smile.
7 & Up Kids Club
Just for Kids! Just for Kids!
Dr Kelson’s 7&Up Club is an awesome perk for our younger patients. As a card carrying member of the 7& Up Club, they will earn actual reward points for actual prizes they will LOVE! They just need to follow our simple, healthy teeth habits. Your kiddos will be excited to play on one of our many games in the office to earn more rewards! Shoot the hoop, anyone? As a bonus for moms and dads, they will also receive complimentary growth and guidance checkups as a member of our 7 & up club. Not to worry, braces are not required to be a member. We simply want to monitor their growth and development to encourage healthy teeth habits, and have a little fun along the way! We are sorry in advance for any begging to play at Kelson Orthodontics… we do accept full responsibility… ‘cause this club totally rocks!