The Top 7...

Ways to introduce a child to his/her first adjustment

The most critical chiropractic visit for a child is the first one. Therefore, if you want the child to return, smiling and willing to receive the next adjustment, here are some tips to accomplish just that!

1. Before the child's first adjustment, allow him/her the opportunity to witness other children getting adjusted. Let them see the other children fighting over who goes first, having fun, and leaving with balloons and stickers! Children mimic other children's pleasurable experiences.

2. Have the child bring a favorite teddy bear or doll to the first adjustment. Let the child help you adjust the teddy bear or doll. Then adjust the child. Have everyone applaud and congratulate the child after the adjustment.

3. Explain that the noise the child hears during the adjustment (audible release) is "popcorn" and is fun. Then play the "popcorn game."

4. Display pictures of celebrities and sports stars/athletes getting adjusted. Kids connect with their heroes and with the things they do to enhance their level of performance.

5. Invest in a pediatric adjusting table just for children (i.e., a horse table). Children like to identify their own special place. They will run up the stairs and be ready for you.

6. Have the child lie down on top of the parent who is lying face up on the adjusting table. This may provide a good beginning that you can transition from when the child feels more comfortable.

7. Have the child assist you in adjusting the parent. Let the child check the parent's legs and feel the spine, etc. This, too, will help the child understand what an adjustment is and how it is accomplished.

Remember, your goal is to develop trust so children will want to come back for their next visit. You want them to arrive for each adjustment, with eager faces and happy smiles that show they want to be the best that they can be. Turn the power on!

This may push some buttons, but -- if you agree with chiropractic principles and philosophy, and have a scientific understanding that subluxation begins at birth or slightly before -- then one out of every two new patients entering your office should be a child.

*** Reasons to strive for a practice of 50% kids

1. To save the profession. A large segment of society believes that chiropractic is for musculo-skeletal problems only, yet a very small percent of children enter chiropractic offices for this reason.

If you develop a practice of 50% children, you will most likely have a true subluxation correction, wellness practice. Therefore, society will know what we do and we'll be able to take chiropractic to its rightful place at the top of the health care delivery system of our world.

2. It will be more rewarding in practice. You will have the opportunity to watch children's lives transform before your eyes.

3. The energy in your practice will greatly increase. When surrounded by the laughter, hugs and smiling faces of children, you, your staff and your patients can't help but become energized.

4. To have more fun! You can't help but have fun when surrounded by children who are coming to get adjusted to express their greatest potential -- rather than by adults who too often come in complaining about symptoms.

5. More profit. When you provide superior service and communicate the extraordinary value that chiropractors provide for children, parents will be more committed, and will pay more for their children's health care than for their own.

6. You can practice longer and healthier. Because of their small frames, adjusting children renders less wear-and-tear on your body making it easy to adjust many more patients for many more years.

7. It will help prevent an entire lifetime of illness and disability in the children you care for. You have the ability to simultaneously watch these children reach their optimum genetic potential and make the world a better place.

There are many reasons why it is totally unacceptable that the average subluxation-oriented practice is comprised of less than 10% children. In order to have a congruent practice, a doctor's goal should be 50% children -- at minimum.

Children of all our communities are being underserved by our profession. In future columns, there are three critical issues I will identify -- and provide solutions for -- of why chiropractors are seeing them in such small numbers.