This study found a significant relationship between parenting
practices, parentechild interaction and childhood dental caries in a
sample of 5e8-year old children from the Netherlands. Parenting
on the dimensions positive involvement, encouragement, problemsolving,
coercion and interpersonal atmosphere was more favourable
in caries free children compared to children with four or more
decayed, missing of filled teeth.
Notably, in this study, parenting on the dimension discipline did
not significantly differ between children with and without caries.
This could be attributed to the fact that discipline practices could
only be scored when the child showed problem behaviour during
the SIT observations. If the child did not show any difficult behaviour,
the highest score for each of the discipline itemswas accorded.
In this study, 33 children (61.1%) did not show any problem behaviours,
therefore therewas little variation in scores for discipline,
impeding the possible demonstration of a significant difference
between cases and controls.
Oral health behaviours are presumably an important mediating
factor in the relationship between parenting practices, family