Meet Toothy: New book by Rockland mom helps make dental hygiene fun for kids

Getting Stacey Laviolette's four-year-old daughter to brush her teeth was like – well – pulling teeth. 

No matter how much she tried to coax, bribe and encourage her daughter Piper to keep her teeth clean – even after the dentist had had found 10 cavities, had to fill in eight teeth with metal caps and pull one tooth – it just wasn't happening. 

“I felt like a failure, I felt awful,” Laviolette recalled. “I had to change her diet a little – that was easy – the hard part was getting her to continue to brush her teeth because she was fearful of the pain, so I had to encourage her to keep brushing.”

At Piper's age, Laviolette was told, it's common for kids to get a handful of cavities. 

In fact, according to a 2017 report by the Canadian Dental Association, 60 to 90 per cent of school-aged children have tooth decay around the globe. And in Canada, it's estimated that about 2.26 million school days are missed each year due to dental-related illness — and tooth decay account for one-third of all day surgeries perform on children between the ages of one and five.

Despite the reassurance from the dentist, however, Laviolette still had to find a way to encourage Piper to brush her teeth -— so she came up with an idea. 

Toothy's its name, and brushing its teeth is its game. 

Toothy, as Laviolette explained, is the main character to the book she wrote called My Friend Toothy to help make teeth brushing fun not only for Piper, but for other kids as well. 

“I realized that I'm not the only one,” Laviolette said. “There are other parents out there who have children who struggle with brushing their teeth. Dentists are all about [prevention] – if they can prevent children, or you, from tooth decay and cavities, then there's no need for surgeries. And if they come to need surgery, then they have Toothy there to help comfort them.”

After writing the book, she started a Kickstarter campaign in an effort to share this book with other parents needing a little help in the teeth brushing department.

So far, Laviolette far exceeded her $3,500 goal. As of Tuesday evening, she has been able to raise $5,229 through 91 backers. 

The book also comes with a pillow plushy of Toothy, which has also proven to be a great way for kids to use as a sort of mailbox for the Tooth Fairy. Instead of going under a child's pillow, they just retrieve their tooth from Toothy's pocket. 

“The tooth pillow actually helped calm anxieties,” Laviolette explained when talking about Piper's trips to the dentist. “It's like a companion for them when they go to the dentist for check-ups and also have at home when they brush their teeth.”

And with every new milestone Laviolette hits with her Kickstarter fundraising, she'll be able to write the book in other languages and provide box packaging that will pair the book with the Toothy Plushy. 

Right now, the book is offered in English and French, with the working plan of translating it into Spanish and Arabic next. 

But when she meets a goal $5,500, Laviolette said she'll donate 20 books to schools across Canada and the U.S., as well as make a donation to Healthy Smiles Ontario.

So far, her book is only available by being a Kickstarter backer, but Chapters and Tag Along Toys in Ottawa have both reached out to Laviolette to discuss having her book and plushy on their shelves. 

Laviolette hopes that her book will soon be in other retailers like Shoppers Drug Mart, Wal-Mart and more eventually. 

And the Rockland mom assures that the plushy toy has been safety tested in order to sell in Canada, the U.S. and on Amazon.

As her Kickstarter campaign wraps up at the end of February, Laviolette hopes that other parents get just as much out of Toothy and its adventures and she and her daughter Piper did.

“There are a lot of kids out there that don't want to brush their teeth, so this makes it fun for them,” she said. “I really just wanted to help other families, just as much as [the book] helped me.”

For more information on Laviolette's Kickstarter campaign her book My Friend Toothy, visit her link here.