Kids Oral Health Books 'n C.D.

Hello, I am the author, Garth Pettit, or better known to children as GarGar The Dentist. It is appropriate that this story, about two very special teachers who taught at a remote Australian Aboriginal Community School in Numbulwar, East Arnhem Land, be given a special page to acknowledge their very special, un-witting contribution to the the problems associated with the oral hygiene instruction, 'Brush Your Teeth'.

These teachers made a great effort to make their students healthier, particularly their teeth, but not their teeth gums and tongue. They wanted children to know all about a smile.

I visited all East Arnhem Land schools regularly over a period of more than 5 years. There is one particularly important observation, about some students’ teeth gums and tongue. I visited this school each year during this period. Some students were healthier, but very much so their teeth gums and tongue. It was astonishing! It caused me much rewriting and resulted in the oral hygiene instruction ‘Treat Your Mouth’. ‘Treat Your Mouth’ is the only oral hygiene instruction which virtually guarantees healthier teeth gums and tongue.

Each year, in every East Arnhem Land school, children in each class were subjected to a screening for decayed, missing and filled teeth etc. In the Numbulwar school two teachers responsible for 6 to 8 year old children, had taken it upon themselves to create a ‘breakfast regime’. This consisted of giving their children a healthy breakfast. They followed breakfast by instructing the children to ‘Brush Your Teeth’ and rinse and rinse your brush under the tap’. They had ‘begged, borrowed and stealed’ the brushes and paste for their children.

As with Aboriginal language the children interpreted this instruction literally. So they were ‘brushing their teeth’, (not rinsing their mouths because they were not told to do that), then they were ‘ rinsing and rinsing their brush under the tap’. They were leaving behind a coating of toothpaste covering their teeth gums and tongue The result was quite remarkable. Their incidence of arrested decay rose
dramatically and their incidence of new dental decay fell to virtually zero. Their gums were healthier, their tongues were healthier and their breath was fresher. WHY Fortunately, my knowledge and experience with aboriginal people allowed me to answer this.

Because by not rinsing their mouths they were leaving toothpaste in their mouths and the ingredients in the toothpaste, especially the fluoride reacting on the enamel, was causing this dramatic, beneficial effect. Children in classes below them, with no breakfast regime, exhibited the usual high rates of decay. Children in classes above them, with no breakfast regime, exhibited dramatically increasing
rates of decay.

I wanted to incorporate this remarkable story into the books I was writing. I wanted it to be a part of my story all about a smile, maybe even a website all about a smile?

Eventually it dawned upon me that I had to rewrite the oral hygiene instruction ‘Brush Your Teeth’. It was OUTDATED! I pondered for weeks creating the new and superior oral hygiene instruction, ‘Treat Your Mouth’.

Future generations of children who learn to treat their mouths from an early age and who will benefit from a lifetime of oral health will have much to thank those two special teachers for.