New dentist does not allow us to be in the room

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It has been 4 years since my son's last dental visit. He was 4 at that time. We were lucky to find a wonderful pediatric dentist at that time. She was able to calm my son and clean his teeth with my help.

We moved to another city since, and I was reluctant to try new dentist until today. We took our son, now 8 years old, to a new pediatric dentist today. To my surprise, the new dentist does not allow us to be in the room during any procedure, even though I told him my son is on the autistic spectrum. The dentist claims parents in the room will only be a distraction. He took my son to the exam room and let us wait outside.

The visit experience turned out OK. My son did let them to do the x ray, but he refused cleaning. The new dentist told us that my son need four fillings, and he will need general anesthesia. I am OK with the treatment plan. We have done fillings with anesthesia 4 years ago. But I am not comfortable with the dentist.

Is it common to exclude parents from the dental exam room?

My son's dental office has that as a stated blanket policy as found in the paperwork, but it has never applied to us. It bothered me when I read it, so I will be curious as to others' comments. I never made a big deal of it, only b/c no one has ever even suggested that this would ever apply to us..

I think that's ridiculous. I'm 25 and my mum still comes in the room with me so I feel safe, and holds my hand if I'm having something painful done. Last time I took my Tangle toy as well so it could distract me from what was going on. My daughter sits on my lap when she's having her teeth looked at, I would never leave her alone in the room with the dentist. I do trust him, but I think it would be scary for her to be left on her own, especially when having something intrusive done.

I'm in the room the whole time with DS (last visit was at age 11) until they do x-rays. I find it odd as well, especially considering your child is special needs.

I think it is ridiculous. I had the same problem when I first took my son to the dentist. He was having a meltdown and then they said I couldn't go in with him. We just left and I found another dentist who would let me go in. The new dentist was much nicer anyway and the office looked cleaner. My son behaved very well there and didn't cry or fuss at all. He was actually pleasant! I had to pay cash though because they didn't take his medical card. I think any child would freak out their first time at the dentist to some extent. Also, I think a parent is acting negligently to let their little 4 or 5 year old go off with a stranger in a strange scary new envirenment. I don't trust strangers alone with my child, even if they are a dentist. I think this is a healthy attitude given the world we live in.

I have NEVER heard of that before and I find it entirely unacceptable. What about child protection? Even if there is a dental nurse present, they are not your child's parent or responsible for them. What if a child was scared and wanted their mum there? What if they made a mistake and you were not there to point it out? I would insist, there is no way I can imagine they can legally do that anyway. A dentist is not God (despite that fact that people in this type of profession sometimes think they are).

I have a feeling that is why sums up the reasons for not allowing parents back. They have degrees in dentistry, the parents don't.

Now that said, there is absolutely a place for questioning what needs to be done and reviewing treatment plans.

I think it's unreasonable to say the parents of an autistic child to stay behind though in the end.

Unless you live in a very rural area, there are probably lots of dentists to choose from. Call around and see if another practice has a better policy.

We use a pediatric dentist and all the parents come into the room. One big treatment room with toys hanging from the ceiling, fun sunglasses for the kids to wear, etc.

Ask your son what he thinks, and then consider shopping for a different dentist.

I just booked an appointment with a different dentist who allows parents stay in the room. If I was with my son, a good pediatric dentist should be able to cleaning his teeth and we would get better value from a visit.

The only pediatric dentist in my town has that same BS policy (but only for the actual work area. For cleanings they pile all the kids into one large room with many chairs, to better enable them to feed off one child's fear I suppose.). Only they don't divulge up front. They didn't say a word about it until he'd had some of that stuff to make them drowsy without putting them all the way out, and I was walking into the treatment room with them. He had that filling done, because he was already drugged. We haven't been back.

My mum came in with me until I was about fifteen. If she hadn't, I would have probably had a meltdown, as I had a lot of anxiety around dentists.
I would insist on going in with him, or find another dentist, unless he's happy to go in alone.

Pah! having a degree in dentistry doesn't mean you don't make mistakes. There are plenty of horror stories about how dentists have destroyed patients' teeth and they've had to go to decent dentists later to get it corrected. Many people probably know someone this has happened to. Dentists are human too. What about surgeries where they've amputated the wrong leg, and someone did a post recently on WP about a pregnancy termination of a twin baby with health problems and they accidentally aborted the healthy baby so she lost both twins. Degrees mean nothing. Compensation after the event means nothing. A parent is responsible in every way for their child and the dentist is only legally responsible for his mistakes.

Surely you don't imagine a load of neurotic parents constantly interfering with the dentist's work do you! How do most dentists manage if this was the case? The dentist we go to, went ahead and put a non-essential substance on my child's teeth without seeking permission first (even though she knew the previous time I had refused permission, my husband was with my child on the subsequent occasion and didn't know) purely because it was "current NHS advice". Never mind that childrens' teeth existed perfectly well before this NHS advice. Some parents may not supervise their childrens' teeth brushing but I do!

I shouldn't be surprised at the nature of your response considering you accused me of "helicopter" parenting in another thread.

Are you even a parent yourself? Until you are, you can only offer opinion that is without any basis in experience.

Free advice is worth exactly what you pay for it, if you don't like what I say, your free not to read it.

Um, a tad confused by this, it seems like two separate points are amalgamated into one which makes it lose sense. Maybe I've misunderstood. It appears you are saying your advice is worthless and I'm unsure of how that relates to the 2nd half of the sentence. Never mind, let's keep the thread for OPs question.

Have you read Jenny McCarthy's book about her autistic kid? (Can't remember the title.) Because that's exactly what she does to the neurologists assessing her son. She takes him to a teaching hospital, and then throws a fit when a student is asked to examine him, not because he's actually doing anything wrong (he hasn't even started yet) but because she's convinced a student neurologist couldn't possibly do a good enough job of examining her precious baby. Which is inappropriate because a) at a teaching hospital, you should expect to be seen by medical students, otherwise how will they learn?, b) the supervising doctors always check over a student's work carefully, and c) if it's anything like the veterinary teaching hospital my Dad worked at, if she'd waited 5 minutes a full doctor would have joined the student anyway.

I could see a doctor or dentist, after dealing with a Jenny McCarthy, deciding to forbid parents from being in the room while their children are being examined.