There will be at least one time your child – sneaky devil! – will lose one of her baby teeth and not tell you. After all, it came out easily enough and, besides, she knows the drill: place it under her pillow and the next morning the Tooth Fairy will have brought her cash. Easy peasy!
Tell the Tooth Fairy to get ready for a delivery; there’s a loose tooth in the house!
Except….she didn’t tell you, so the Tooth Fairy didn’t fork over the dough.
What do tell your child?
Read below for a few different strategies to try:
- You could grab a dollar bill or two (or a $5, if that’s how your Tooth Fairy rolls), place it surreptitiously in the palm of your hand (and do so as you’re saying to your child “Oh, no! That can’t be right. Maybe you just missed it!”) and head to your child’s room. Make a point of sweeping under the bed covers and whaddyaknow! There’s the Tooth Fairy’s deposit!
- If you have older children who know that parents are the Tooth Fairy, consider getting him or her involved. Give the older child the tooth fairy cash and tell him to say something along the lines of “Oh, that’s why I found the two dollars under my pillow; the Tooth Fairy must have gotten us mixed up!” Make sure the older child gives the younger the cash.
- You could simply say that the Tooth Fairy probably was overbooked and that she’s sure to make an appearance tonight.
But what if your child is older? Might this be a good time to let her know that Tooth Fairy is you?
Most children start to wonder about the reality of a Tooth Fairy around the age of 7 or 8 (they’ve been losing baby teeth since about age 5 or 6). They may have heard rumors from friends that the Tooth Fairy is really Mom or Dad. Or they may question the logic of a little fairy coming up to 20 times (about the number of baby teeth that your child will lose) in her short life time to place cash under her pillow in exchange for a tooth.
Most parenting experts recommend that you tell your child the truth if she asks you. (Note: if she becomes angry, it’s usually not because she discovered that you’ve been lying to her all this time; it’s because she still wants the fairy tale to be real. Most children will get over this pretty quickly.)
Children love to be “in” on adult things, so you can enlist her help in keeping “our secret” from her younger siblings and even friends. Tell her it’s fun to help youngsters believe in the Tooth Fairy and it’s not her place to tell friends/siblings the truth because it’s the parents’ job.
Photo courtesy of ankpkr/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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