I Use This Tracker to Get My Kids to Brush Their Teeth Every Day.

First, a confession: When my parents sent me to brush my teeth at age 7 or 8, I would sometimes run the water down the sink, rub a dab of toothpaste on my front teeth, and stop long enough to make it seem like I had brushed. Only in the mind of a child did it make sense to cheat when brushing your teeth using an elaborate trick that required as much time and energy as brushing your teeth.

My treacherous past led me to see signs of false brushing in my own children, but increasing reminders and demonstrations after every dental visit had only a short-term effect. I found a potential solution through Truthbrush’s Instagram ads. The Truthbrush is a tracker that you attach to your child’s toothbrush to measure when, how long, and how thoroughly your child brushes.

Why you need to monitor your teeth brushing routine

In 2017, a UK study found that almost half of children lie about brushing their teeth. So it wasn’t just me?

Dentists recommend that you help or supervise brushing until your child is 7 years old. After that, you can consider it a low-impact personal hygiene skill, but you can never turn your back on your kids for too long, right?

We know how important dental health is: my children have never missed a dentist appointment or even had a cavity. But I also don’t want them to get the impression that their lax brushing habits will never have negative consequences. Before the Truthbrush, my extra scrutiny and nagging didn’t actually make brushing my teeth any more enjoyable. Just when I thought they were developing good habits, I relaxed the control and they returned to their relaxed lifestyle.

What does Truthbrush do?

The Truthbrush attaches securely to the handle of a manual or electric toothbrush. Similar to the Fitbit for oral care, it tracks brushing events, duration, and coverage. It maps your brush strokes, highlights what you’re doing right, and shows areas that can be improved.

The Truthbrush app makes it easy to view your brushing statistics, including frequency, duration, and coverage. You can set reminders, create goals, and earn rewards. So that I wouldn’t have to worry about my phone picking up the tracker’s signal, I got an optional hub ($14.99) that connects to our home Wi-Fi.

Using Truthbrush in practice

Before bed, I hug and kiss my children, look straight into their little eyes and say, “Go upstairs, brush your teeth and go to bed.” On a good night, my phone rings, telling me how long and how well each child has brushed. We all rest peacefully with clean teeth. On a typical night, they each come back three to five more times to show me LEGOs or report a troubling thought, and I send them back with reassurance and a reminder that they still need to brush their teeth. On a bad night, I send them upstairs to bed, don’t get a notification to brush their teeth, and fall asleep without taking any action. This is not a perfect system.

However, now that we’ve been using Truthbrush for almost three months, the biggest change has happened in my mind. The kids still don’t always brush their teeth twice a day, but now I have data instead of uncertainty and suspicion.

Using data to motivate and improve

I recently went through Truthbrush data with my oldest, discussing how many times she skipped brushing her teeth, how her average brushing time was below ideal, etc.

“Does this motivate you to try to improve your stats?” I asked her.

“No,” she said.

“Does going to the dentist and finding cavities motivate you?” I asked. Scare tactics!

“No,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“How can we use this information to motivate better brushing?” I asked.

“Let me see [little sister’s] stats.”

Bingo! They may not be motivated by oral health or a desire to impress me, but they are motivated by competition with each other. I will definitely use this to my advantage.

Pros and cons of the truth brush

Pros

• This data is invaluable if you’re not the type of parent who monitors and analyzes every brushing session.

• The app is quite easy to customize and create profiles.

• You can use your siblings’ gaming competitiveness to motivate them to brush their teeth better.

Cons

• Cost: Starts at $25 for one Classic tracker. You can spend more on a Pro tracker or on skins that will make your tracker more attractive. The classic model’s battery lasts for one year, so you’ll want to repurchase it if your child’s teeth brushing habits haven’t completely changed by then. However, there is no subscription fee for the app.

• I still have to do reminders. The Truthbrush device is not their real mother.

• I suspect that the wiggle of the brush sometimes registers as a brushing event, based on alerts I’ve received while cleaning or traveling. But don’t tell my children about this, otherwise they will pour water and wave brushes to deceive me.

Based on my experience, I recommend Truthbrush to parents of kids who are at the age where they need you to brush them but still need a little supervision to keep them focused and honest.

More…