Difficult Children, some times need probation
If I don’t get help I’ll need a vacation.
Difficult Children, both stubborn and defiant,
Their every move is less than compliant.
Difficult Children, view school in a different way,
Their desire for attention challenges my day.
Difficult Children, fit every description
I’ll go anywhere to find a prescription
Difficult Children, they’re hard to endure
They cause me to dig deep to find a cure.
Difficult Children, add to my load,
Making poor choices as they travel life’s road.
Difficult Children, have blind spots galore,
Increasing their options only adds pain and more.
Difficult Children, are absolute stress,
They’re really my teachers, it’s only a test.
Difficult Children, impulsive and bold,
Their history and future are yet to unfold.
Difficult Children, from difficult domains
Love, logic and limits will produce daily gains
Gene Bedley
© 2001 Gene Bedley
After we enjoyed our ‘vacation’, oops! Field studies I mean, to different states of Malaysia, another project under Community Oral Health was assigned to us. This time we went for another level of challenge, the CHILDREN!! Children are cute but children can be SCARY! But since we know the importance of early oral health awareness and we need more children to come to our clinic in order to start our paedo clinic, (hehe) we took the challenge. (haha)
Our group ( group 5.5 ) consist of Tan Sien Cher, Tan Yan Rui, Tee Joo Gem Angela, Tey Sock Nee, Vengadesh Naidu a/l Paramsiven, Wong Lishen, and Yap Wuan Phing were assigned to hold the program with the 26 children in Tabika Kemas Kg, Semeling. We called up Puan Jurishah who is the person in charge of the tabika to request for permission to carry out the program and reconfirmed the date of the program. We went to visit the kindergarten few days before our first visit to have an idea of what facilities they have, what extra preparation we have to do, and decide a suitable place for tooth brushing drill.
Our group had a few meetings and came out with a list of program for the children. We distribute the job and everyone plays their role. Although sometimes we were tired after clinics but we enjoyed every meeting that we had.
Because we have to speak in Malay for this program, and most of us are not good in Malay so Wuan Phing came out with a ‘great’ idea that we have a ‘Minggu Bahasa’ (language week) hahahaha but at the end we didn’t start it but we had rehearsals before we go, to make sure that we use the correct term, terms that children can understand and make sure we don’t embarrass ourselves in front of the children.
On 11th of October, we gathered in front of dental building early in the morning to meet up with Datuk Professor Rohani, Dr. Kalyan, Dr. Santosh, Dr. Arishiya, Dr. Fellani, and Dr. Niekla. After briefing, we departed to our respective places at 8.45am. Our group reach Tabika Kemas Kg, Semeling at 8.50am. As soon as we reach there, we had a group photo together with Datuk Professor Rohani. After finish setting up the place, it was already 9.13. We started with an introduction by Angela, to introduce who we are, where we are from, purpose of having the program and brief them about what are we going to do for these two visits. The talk was kept short and interesting with lots of pictures and photos. And we had learnt that simple and easy words should be used in order for the children to understand better.
Group photo with Datuk Professor Rohani
Preparing
Intro by Angela
Soon after the introduction which took around 3 minutes, Sien Cher took over and tell a story of the Lemony Lion. Million thanks to Angela for making a very cute and nice lion puppet using orange socks. In the story, he included the difference between deciduous teeth and permanent teeth, total number of both dentitions and others. He had them all sited down in front of him and by using puppet, a relaxed atmosphere was created and interaction with the children was great
Around 9.30am, Venga took over and his objective was to inform them the importance of teeth. Previously, the very talented Sock Nee drew some cartoons to show the importance of teeth and Venga, after his frenectomy spoke perfect Malay and all the kids enjoy themselves listening.
For the kids, they learnt that they have deciduous and permanent teeth, around what age their deciduous will exfoliate, and also why they should take care of their teeth. But for us, we learnt from this activity that children have very short term memory, the information that we tried to convey needs to repeat for a few times in order for them to remember.
After this, the kids had coloring contest. The goal is to show the children’s creativity and at the same time, give them an impression that brushing their teeth and visit to dentist is not stressful. Therefore, the coloring pages that we chose were children having their teeth checked by a dentist and Patrick from Spongebob brushing his teeth. At the end of the first visit, 10 winners were selected and prizes were given to them. Children were distributed into groups and each of our group members guided them and had a small chit chatting session with them. After having this activity, we learnt that it is really important to have a simple coloring page in order for the children to finish coloring on time.
When they finished coloring, it was recess time. The children were too excited about the activities; they finish eating their food within 5 minutes and waited for the following activities. So we showed cartoon ‘Upin & Ipin dan kawan-kawan, (Gosok, jangan tak gosok)’. It is a story about Upin and Ipin and their friends where a dental team is going to their school for dental check up. The story talks about consent form, TBD and others. Through the cartoon, the characters inside can be model for them to follow. While the children were watching the cartoon, consent forms were given to the teacher to distribute to the children and was to be collected back before our second visit there.
Around 10.50am, it was game time, Sock Nee was the person in charge, and the game is called ‘match the appropriate cause’. Since the children's attention span is short, lectures are avoided and instead, an interactive educational activity is created for the kids to facilitate their learning on how to differentiate habits that are beneficial to our oral hygiene; and those that are not. The purpose of having this game is to educate the children regarding factors which contribute to good and bad oral health. Children are more effective in learning through looking at pictures rather than words; hence the good and bad habits are represented by colourful drawings of items or objects which are strongly associated with the habit. E.g. tooth brushing habit is represented by a tooth brush and a tooth paste. From this activity, we learnt how to communicate with the children in a more effective manner. The children are very interactive and showed their interest when we showed them the colourful drawings. The children are smart and were able to grasps the vibe just by playing the game once. Activities should be kept short and simple because the children are easily distracted.
After the game, it was already 11.10am, time for Tooth Brushing Drill. All the things needed for TBD were provided for us the day before our first visit. Before the children were asked to brush by their own, with the help of typodont model, the correct and most suitable brushing technique for children were shown by Venga. After distributing new tooth brush for each student, we divide them into small groups to guide them the correct method of brushing teeth. Each small group were guided by one of our group member and other group members were helping to control the kids, distribute disclosing agent, and pea size of tooth paste. Group by group they practice brushing. They enjoyed themselves very much and so do we. Through TBD, we found out that none of the kids are brushing the correct way before this. More practice is needed. Besides that, we also learnt the way to control children and we found out that it is more preferable to have TBD in the morning, because the sun at 11 something is really hot. (haha)
After TBD, it was 11.45am. Before the children gone back home, we ended our first visit with simple prize giving ceremony. Besides prizes for the 10 winner for coloring contest, we gave each of them a note book with pencil, and a tongue depressor. The children were very happy, laughing, shouting, running here and there as they bade us good bye.
After cleaning the place and packing our things, we were tired as if we had worked for 10 hours but inside our hearts, an unexplainable joy and satisfaction overwhelmed us.
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