Here at Triangle Treasure Toys, we want to help you do what’s best for your medical or dental practice. If you work with pediatric patients, one key thing you will need to do is find an effective, reliable way to encourage your young patients to behave well during their visits. One of the most effective ways to do this is to offer patient rewards at the end of each appointment–the thought of getting a prize at the end is a powerful motivator for the child to cooperate with their medical team. In this article, we’ll go over more about how patient rewards work and why they serve this purpose so well.
Because children’s brains are still developing, they lack many of the capabilities that most adults take for granted. For example, children are still learning to regulate their emotions, and they lack the necessary tools to handle discomfort without a fuss. Young kids also struggle to mentally process time, particularly when it comes to imagining the future, so to them it feels like a boring, uncomfortable situation is going to continue forever. On top of that, children don’t yet have a firm idea of long-term consequences, so it can be a struggle to make them understand why things like dental cleanings and medical checkups are even necessary–the long-term reward of staying healthy is too abstract to make them put up with the current boredom they are experiencing, which is where patient rewards come in.
Patient rewards are helpful in a number of ways. They give your young patients something to look forward to at the end of their appointments, reminding them that their visit won’t last forever and thus helping to keep them calm, and closing the appointment with a positive note. They also provide a tangible reward that is more appealing to a child’s developing brain than an abstract one.