Mexican-American mothers' parenting strategies around children's oral health

Background: This study explored the parenting strategies Mexican-American mothers of young children use in relation to their children's oral health. Methods: In the urban city of San Jose, CA, we conducted open-ended qualitative interviews with a convenience sample of 48 low-income Mexican-American mothers of children aged 1 to 5 years about their beliefs and experiences surrounding their children's oral health, particularly in areas of parenting. Audio-taped in-depth interviews were conducted in Spanish, then transcribed and translated to English transcripts, which were read and thematically analyzed using the NVivo® software package. Results: Mothers described four main areas of oral health that required parental assistance or oversight: weaning from the bottle, tooth brushing, consumption of sugary foods, and cooperation during dental visits. In each of these areas, mothers described and employed various effective and ineffective strategies to deal with resistant/uncooperative children, including explanation, negotiation, bribery, modeling, coercion, and relenting. Strategies varied by age of child and oral health area. Some strategies mothers described as effective in the area of tooth brushing, for example, were buying new and interesting materials (such as cartoon-themed toothbrushes), modeling good habits, and negotiation such as letting children brush their teeth first, followed by the mother brushing them. Conclusion: Mothers use a variety of strategies to encourage/elicit cooperative/good behavior from their children. Some ineffective strategies reflect low levels of parental self-efficacy around oral health behaviors. Strategies identified as effective can be used in educational activities to help increase oral health self-efficacy of other parents with resistant/uncooperative children.