Kids and teens always ignore what they are told to do. It is a normal part of growing up. When your kids get braces, that is a fairly normal part of growing up too. Their orthodontist will give them special instructions about their braces, but they may only hear the "can'ts" and not the "whys". In case you did not get all of the information, here are three types of food your kids should not eat with braces and why.

Really Hard Foods

Ridiculously hard foods cause serious damage to braces. Unripened fruit like pears, fat and thick raw carrots and jawbreaker candy are all examples of really hard foods that can pull brackets off of teeth and bend the wires that hold the teeth in position. Any orthodontist or dentist will tell patients to avoid hard candies like jawbreakers, but when your kids have braces, it is important to avoid other hard foods too. If your kids still want to eat raw carrots, have them eat baby carrots instead. As for fruit, wait until it has ripened so it does not destroy the thousands of dollars in orthodontia you paid for.

Extremely Chewy and Sticky Foods

Caramels are the biggest culprit under this food no-no when it comes to braces. Usually, this category only applies to candy and gum, both of which get jammed into the open spaces of brackets and are extremely difficult to remove, even with regular brushing. When those sugary, sticky treats remain stuck, they can rot your children's teeth from underneath the brackets inward, leaving them with atypical cavities to fill. Syrups and honey are okay, but everything else that is sticky should be avoided.

Extremely Tough Meat

If your kids like steak and chops, that is fine, but you should not be serving them meat that is so hard to chew they spend more than three minutes grinding the same bite. The force with which your kids have to grind that tough meat adds pressure to their palate expander, the springs in the back, and the wires, causing your kids a lot of pain. You do not like chewing rubbery meat, and it is definitely less pleasant for kids with braces.

When Kids Do Not Follow the Rules

The least that happens is that your kids will get a bad headache from trying to grind rubbery meat into digestible bits. The worst that can happen is that the wires will pop off and pull apart and the brackets will be pulled off or cause hideous cavities. If anything similar to these problems happens, see an orthodontist at a clinic like Wright Center For Orthodontics right away.