Great Grins for Kids

This dentists are wonderful, they are very professional. My 7 year old son had major teeth problem, 1^st we took him to another family dentist and my son deny to get the treatment over there and also that 1^st dentist gave me the shockingly expensive price to fix my son teeth even after using the insurance its still very very expensive. So that 1^st dentist refer us to go to great grin kids, then we came to great grin kids, everybody was so nice and professional, dr. fariba mutschler were very nice and clear explaining to me whats going on with my son teeth and what they were going to do to fix it. And my son also feel so comfortable doing all those treatment, they are very quick and
really thank god they fix my son teeth, now my son has healthy teeth. and whats best is the bill part, it was drop about 40% cheaper then the 1^st dentist. Ohh my god we are just so happy with these dentist. For sure we will coming back and recommend them to anyone. thanks to doctor fariba and mark mutschler

I take pride in the fact that I love visiting the dentist myself and even loved it as a kid. I was expecting this trip to be fun and simply a chance for my young son to get used to seeing a dentist at a young age. It was anything but…
This took a long time for me to finally getting around to post. But I’ve reviewd it a few more times before posting for fear I was simply being too sensitive. It’s been many months since the visit and I still feel the same way.
Good stuff up front:
1. The hygienist was super friendly and did a fantastic job relating to my 22 month old! She really understood developmental stages and what he might or might not be ready for.
2. The back office/​exams rooms were bright and happy feeling (despite a dingy lobby). Everything was clean. Love clean! That’s a very big deal to me.
The stuff that could (and should) be improved:
1. The lobby is dingy and «scary» feeling. Not great for kids, really. It gave me a yukky feeling and I’m a grown up. Simply adding better lighting and some happy color paint would go a long way for improving the mood.
2. Most of the time, when you’re a new patient, you fill out paper work at home and mail it back BEFORE your appointment. I would think that a pediatric office would be the greatest advocates of filling out paperwork PRE-​appointment. But, not here. I arrived, handed over my card and then was handed back a clip-​board full of long forms to fill out. Needless to say, I did a terrible job of filling it out because I was too busy trying to keep my 22 month happy. Which leads me straight into entertainment…
3. There were very few books or toys around to keep the kids happy. Remember, this is a pediatric dentists office. But what graced the walls? I believe there were six different video game consoles tucked into the walls. I’m not trying to start a debate on video games or not, but I found it to be a contradiction of health. I would prefer them to have a TV with educational cartoons on (where more than one or two children of various ages might be entertained for a spell).
Those three points might have been ignored if the rest of our time there had been positive.
While the initial visit with the hygienist and Mrs. Dentist (the two dentists are married) was mostly positive, the Mr. Dentist was anything but warm and kind.
I take pride in the fact that I love visiting the dentist myself and even loved it as a kid. I was expecting this trip to be fun and simply a chance for my young son to get used to seeing a dentist at a young age. It was anything but…
Instead, I was lectured as if I was an ignorant parent who didn’t care about my child’s oral health (it was insulting):
1. I was lectured on my intentional and thought out choice to give my son a binky. They even had the balls to call it a «binky habit». My son’s «habit» consisted of sucking on it to fall asleep at night and again at his one nap of the day… not any other time of the day – oh except when we took him to get ear tubes.
And we had a great plan to give the binky up soon (which we did). I also pointed out to him that as a child I sucked my thumb until I was 6 and it was very hard to stop. YES… I intentionally gave my child a binky when he was a baby to avoid the very habit that caused me problems as a child. You can throw a binky away but you can’t cut off a thumb. Instead of patting me on the back and saying, «good thinking, mama,» he insinuated I was harming my child. Big insult.
2. When I asked and expressed frustration about the mixed instructions I get on proper fluoride dosages, I was greeted with another lecture about my ignorance. As a parent, I seek out sources to help me do the best for my child. I was hoping to get a reasonable answer and instead was left even more confused and feeling like a bad mom (mainly for the WAY he talked down to me). At that point, I’d been given conflicting instructions from our doctor, my dentist, the pharmacist and then this pediatric dentist.
3. At the end of the visit he proceeded to tell me that he really didn’t like seeing kids until they had all their teeth in or were age three. Ok… this is another point of frustration for me; at the whole dental community, not just this guy.
After reading many articles suggesting that all babies see a dentist when their first tooth comes in, I asked my my son’s doctor (who recommended this guy) what she thought about early dental visits. She then told me that she likes to see kids go in around age 1 or 1.5. My son was 22 months at this time. This dentist was again treating me like I was ignorant because I came in too early. GAH!
Mr. Dentist, I’m a college educated woman who takes parenting very seriously. While I could excuse some of my earlier points, I simply cannot return to a place where I left crying harder than my son did.