Overjet is the dental word for how far a child's upper front teeth project out past the lower ones.

In kid words

"Your top front teeth stick out a little further than your bottom ones right now, and that's just part of how your smile is growing in." It isn't something you did, and it isn't something to measure yourself in the mirror. Your pediatric dentist keeps track of it at your regular visits, the same as everything else about your smile.

The parent version

Overjet describes how far a child's upper front teeth extend forward, horizontally, past the lower front teeth when the jaw is at rest. It is easy to confuse with overbite, which instead measures vertical overlap, how far the top teeth reach down over the bottom ones. A single bite can show some of each at the same time, and mainstream dental sources treat a moderate amount of overjet as an ordinary feature of a developing smile rather than a problem by itself.

A measurement taken at one visit is really just a snapshot, since a child's jaw and bite keep reshaping themselves for years. If you notice a change, it is easy enough to point out the next time you are in for a checkup, and your pediatric dentist can tell you more about what your own child's bite looks like.

Where you might hear it at our office

Overjet is one of the things looked at during growth checks at a routine visit, alongside teeth, gums and everything else. If it looks like a closer look would help, that conversation moves to our orthodontics team. Mainstream guidance also flags that front teeth projecting further forward can be a bit more exposed to bumps during sports or an ordinary fall, which is one more reason a properly fitted mouthguard gets recommended so often for active kids.

Any other word from a visit is worth asking about too, and more of them live in the rest of the Kids' Dental Dictionary.

Related words

Overbite. Bite. Orthodontics.