For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for January 29, 2023

John is very good with kids. Although shouldn’t his mother be with him?

Whenever my health system opens a new hospital, they have a teddy bear open house in the ER to demonstrate to kids how they treat patients.

I congratulate you, you are a great dentist, you know how to treat a patient!

You do what Works !

I can hardly bear it.

Orthodonteddyist

That was so sweet. My kids had a Pedontis(?) And they loved going to him. Until I realized they just liked the laughing gas.

I’d like to know his location since I know no dentist office that is open on a Sunday. Usually if you got a bad toothache on a Sunday here in Canada you had to go to the ER to get some knockout pain killers.

Now that’s a good dentist!

nicely played

John’s mother lives in another city. lol

Lynn’s Comments:

My husband was good with kids—as were his staff. One day a mom wanted to be in the operatory with her son because she was sure he’d be too afraid of the dentist to be there alone. Everyone told her the kid would be fine, but she insisted. They let her stay. Everything went well until my husband was about to do the first injection, and the mom, in a loud sing-song voice said, “Here comes the NEEDLE!!” Well, the kid jumped out of the chair and headed for the hills. After that, parents were not allowed in the operatory!

Source:https://fborfw.com/strip_fix

Okay, let’s see how John can be denigrated in this one.

And this makes up for the umpteen times that John was snarky to his own kids and an as*hole to his wife and neighbors?

It didn’t hurt the kid’s friend at all. And it won’t hurt him.

I had to have a major procedure done once and asked to be knocked out for it. It wasn’t that I was scared, I just knew that it would take a long time to do and I was bored. As I said to the dentist: “You guys are doing the interesting stuff, I’m just sitting here twiddling my thumbs.” They obliged and the procedure went well.

Good technique…..

Will the kid just lie there with this mouth closed, too?

Great strip and story today…

If going to the dentist is one of your greatest fears, see Dr. Patterson

Plush bears have teeth?

My first experience with a dentist was at age 3 when I fell off a table in a park and the dentist had to extract a tooth from my cheek. Since that relieved pain, it did not lead to a fear of dentists.

This? This right here is excellent. I’m frightened of the dentist and hadn’t been for many years because of it when Husband made me go (as in made an appointment and forced me). The dentist took some time first to talk to me a bit about why I thought it was scary, and she showed me all her instruments and what she was going to use them for and in what order. By no means did it make me not be scared, I still am, but it helped a lot. There was one cavity to fix and she could do that right away, following the same procedure of ’I’m going to use these things and this is what they’re for’. Sadly she has retired now, I should very much have liked to have kept her.

I would think showing the kid the implements ahead of time would scare him.

Since the strip is an update for 2023, is this a tie-in with Cocaine Bear?

I hope the boy is kind to John.

Dentists have fillings too, you know?

how pretty convincing

This is why I like reading comics online. I didn’t scroll down to see the entire comic at once, so I was surprised by the final panel!

Wish my 1st dentist had been like John; as it was, 20 years passed before I went again. No lasting effects, still have all my own teeth at 74 and only 3 fillings.

This is very sweet! I had the world’s worst so-called children’s dentist. He had no business dealing with children – he was a real jerk.

A friendly dentist??Call Robert Ripley.

The first time my child went to the dentist she screamed like a banshee and wouldn’t even open her mouth. Then suddenly out of the blue one day when I was driving her home from somewhere she said she was ready to go to the dentist. She was maybe 5 then. He was really good with her; even told her the little cotton tubes they use to keep teeth dry were “tooth pillows” and gave her one to take home. She never showed any fear or apprehension. I never knew what made her suddenly decide it was time. She didn’t have any pain or anything.