Learner Dad: As long as other people gave their kids sugar, we assumed we didn’t have a problem

We had our first filling last weekend.

I picked the kids up from school on Friday afternoon and we treated ourselves to an end-of-week Crunchie before heading to the playground.

Things were going well. Myself and the other parents were standing in our normal huddle, bribing our kids with sugary treats to leave us alone, so we could catch up on the latest gossip. (It’s amazing what a stranger will tell you just because your children wear the same uniform.)

Then my seven year old came over, wailing about a pain in her tooth. There’s nothing unusual about tears in the playground — I start to look around anxiously if one of mine doesn’t cry every 30 minutes. But this cry was the real thing, with the extra despair that comes from a pain in your gums.

We went home and I got her to say hello to my little friends, Calpol and Nurofen. (No, they’re not the names of our cats. We love Calpol and Nurofen much more than the cats in our house.)

The medicine helped, but not enough. She woke throughout the night, came in our bed, went back to her own bed, back into ours again and repeat, her little brother in tow because he doesn’t like sleeping in a room by himself.

My wife rang her dentist the next morning to see if there was any way she could get an appointment. And then the weirdest thing happened. Someone answered the phone. Not only that, she said if you come in straight away, the dentist can take a look. Ninety minutes later, my daughter was back home with her first filling.

Twenty years ago, we’d probably have had to wait until Monday morning to be seen, by which time my young one would have a lifetime addiction to paracetamol, so some things are going in the right direction.

Sugar treats are a big part of our parenting strategy. I had really high hopes for ‘shouting at them’, but they tend to just sit there unmoved and tell us to calm down. (It’s like they’re 23 years old).

The dentist gave my wife ‘the sugar talk’. We’d heard it before in the media, we just thought it never applied to us. As long as other people gave their kids more sugar than we gave ours, we assumed we didn’t have a problem.

And in fairness, it’s not like we were shovelling it into them. There was no fizzy drinks, very little juice, we make most sauces from scratch, all that stuff you tell other parents to make them feel bad about themselves.

That said, it’s not like the sweet treats were confined to a Friday afternoon. We are as inclined as anyone to throw sweets and chocolate at the situation whenever we’re tired or taking a drink.

Not any more. The basic nugget from the dentist is that you’re better off giving the kids all their daily sugar at once, rather than drip feeding it during the day. This applies to fruit as well, which is upsetting because my son is addicted to satsumas. I thought I was in the running for dad of the year just because he’d go and help himself to a small orange from the fruit-bowl five times a day. It turns out it’s rotting the teeth clean out of his mouth.

I reckoned the kids would go ballistic when we told them to wave bye bye to sugary treats. Nah. Once we told them a dentist said this they were fine with it. Seriously, we struggle every day to bend them to our will, then some stranger in a face mask says to cut back on sugar, and they’re hanging off his every word.

I wish I had that kind of authority. But, look, it’s not all bad — yes, my kids are going to be a nightmare without a sugar-treat bribe. But at least there will be more fun-sized Milky Ways to horse down with my cup of tea when they go to bed. So, you know, swings and roundabouts.