Patients that bring their kids to their appointment

Dental Professional

If a patient brings children with them to their appointment, what are your office rules? Immediate reschedule? Depends on the age of the kid? See the patient anyway?

I work at an FQHC and I’m trying to really hard to be lenient to the patients who already struggle to access care…. But at the same time I don’t want a kid in the room while we do an exam or procedure. Patients always say “they can just wait in the lobby” but I think it’s a liability to leave a kid in the lobby by themselves. I just want to reschedule all of them.

Wondering how other dentists handle this to see if I’m being unreasonable or not.

Posted Nov 14, 2025, 1:56 PM UTC

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