I've been taking my almost 4 year old to Crossroads since she was 1 and never had an issue. But…read morethis last appt, about a week ago, really left a bad taste in my mouth.. As many parents probably know, taking a young child to the dentist can be a bit of a struggle. Overall, my daughter has always done really well with her appts, but this last appt was different. I don't know what set her off, but she was NOT feeling it at all. She started to get upset the moment I set her down in the chair. The hygienist wasn't rude or mean, per se, but she was not helpful at all. At one point, in an attempt to get my daughter to cooperate and relax (I guess??), she was speaking to her in a pretty stern tone, saying over and over again, "Look at me. Look at me!" Well, obviously she wasn't going to look at someone she doesn't know from Adam, in a place she is obviously not comfortable, and I could tell this was frustrating the hygienist. Look, I get it, but that's not how you handle young children. She even threatened her by saying, "Your mom will have to leave the room if you don't stop acting like this. Do you want that??" And I was completely taken aback by this statement bc NO, I was not going to be leaving my scared child in the room alone with anyone, anywhere. I picked her up and got into the chair myself, placing her on my lap to see if that would help to calm her down (and mind you, she was NOT kicking and screaming or anything like that, simply crying and clinging to me). Well, that didn't seem to make a difference so the hygienist called in Dr. Kumar to see if she might have any luck. She was nice and welcoming, per usual, but she can be a bit loud and overwhelming to youngsters, in my opinion. So her booming voice did not help the situation. Once she saw that my daughter still wasn't going for it, she also told her that I would have to leave the room if she didn't stop! Like WTAF. She then suggested we try to have her lay her head in her lap so that she could TRY to quickly clean her teeth. She gripped my daughter's arms so tightly and tried to forcefully move her that it left a bruise on the back of one arm. She also called in a SECOND hygienist to try to help, making the total number of people in that tiny space 5 including myself and my daughter. That OBVIOUSLY just further overwhelmed her. Seems common sense to me, but do they not realize that having three loud adults speaking AT and hovering over a child is about that last scenario that will help with a child's comfort level? The dentist is already a less than desirable place for a child (and some adults!) to go so why not be a little more cognizant of this when approaching a child. That was about the last straw for me (others probably wouldn't have made it that far). I asked if we could just reschedule and they said that would be fine. LONG story short, we will not be going back to that practice. I understand that they are not specifically a pediatric practice but being a family practice, I would expect a little bit better "bedside manner" with the younger ones.
