Our son is now 2 years-old and a few months. We introduced the tooth brush to him as soon as the first tooth came out — with the hope he would get used to it. However, even since, that is not the funniest activity.

Fair to say, I also don’t necessarily like to brush my teeth. It’s boring and I would love to use that time for something else. But, it’s important to have health teeth, so I am more than happy to sacrifice a few minutes per day for it.

Similarly, that is exactly how our son perceives it. The main difference between us: I am understand why doing it is important and he, of course, doesn’t. Unfortunately he is yet too young to understand (believe me, we tried to tell him).

Every single time, upon receiving the tooth brush, he would bite and eat the toothpaste rather than actually brush the teeth. While we want him to do it himself (so he learns), it’s also important that he allow us to brush his teeth.

Eventually one might consider going down the road and just force him to do it. But that is not nice and extremely discouraged. It only causes stress on him, on us, and ultimately he would hate to brush his teeth.

Therefore, a different approach was necessary. I like the concept of Gamification. In a nutshell: the idea is to transform a boring, repetitive activity, into something fun and enjoyable. Naturally, there is much more to this concept, but it is not important for this article.

The goal is: get him to brush the teeth and allow us to brush it as well.

He is 2 years-old, thus it had to be something simple, fast and enjoyable. The idea of a Sticker Board seemed perfect fit. It is a printed paper sheet in A3 format, glued on a piece of carton and hanged on the bathroom wall. The rules:

• If he brushes the teeth well (i.e. if he also let us brush his teeth), he can place a sticker on the stick board;
• Otherwise, he doesn’t (then we just state to him how not nice this is).

Because I wanted to make something original, I got together a few public images on Google and opened my old friend Gimp. Below is the image I came up with:

The idea was to have apple stickers, which he would place on the tree every time he brushed his teeth well.

How did it look?

After coming up with the image, I order it printed in an A3 sheet paper. Then, I glued it on a piece of carton.

Yes, I made that fence too. Here is how it looks in Gimp (printed on a normal A4 sheet).

The blue parts are used to fold, so the fence can be glued on the A3 paper sheet.

Did it work?

Yes, it did! For a long time he was very excited about brushing his teeth, exactly because he would be able to place a sticker on the board afterwards. The board was placed in the bathroom where he could easily see. And of course, he puts the stickers himself on it.

Eventually, of course, he started loosing interest in it. That is normal. The board was very helpful for about 6 months. But we did achieve what we wanted: he started complaining less and less about brushing the teeth and it was easy to go through the procedure.

Naturally, it wouldn’t always work. Sometimes he would be a bit fuzzy and wouldn’t like to brush the teeth. That is ok! We aren’t supposed to always like things we do and, eventually, we might choose not to do them. Same applies to him. Even though he is very young, he does perceive when parents are (or aren’t) respecting him. The trick is to be persistent.

Here is how the Sticker Board looked over time:

This is the last picture I took, on Feb 17 (the fence didn’t survive the test of time):

Is it worth it?

First of all, if you are a parent, then you know it’s not easy to be a parent. Amongst many, one of the most most important qualities to have is patience. Followed by persistency. When it doesn’t work in the first try, try again, and again… and again in 5 minutes. Then try again next time.

Over time, the Sticker Board made this process way easier. The task that was once boring turned out to be something funnier. It lasted for about 6months. That was enough time to get him used to the routine. So, yes, is was worth it! Of course, every child is a different child. Keep in mind that the way it worked for us might be different for you (it might be more useful for you than it was for us or eventually your child might not like it at all).

If you liked this idea and want to use my Sticker board, feel free to download it in the following links:

• Sticker board
• Fence