Background & Objectives:�Understanding children’s behavior and its affecting factors is the foundation for practicing dentistry for children effectively and, at the same time instilling a positive dental attitude into them. A number of studies have been done in this regard during the last three decades. This study is another attempt to find out proper strategies in order to control and optimize the diagnostic and trearment measures as well as to investigate the effect of mothers ’ personality characteristics on children ’ s behavior.

 Methods: The sample consisted of 104 randomly selected children (53 boys and 51 girls) at the age of 3 to 6 together with their mothers. The children had no previous dental experiences and no mental or physical disabilities entailing special care. Children’s behavior was assessed during three different dental visits according to Frankle ’ s Behavioral Rating Scale, in which four distinctive scales, namely absolutely negative, negative, positive and absolutely positive were precisely defined and scaled. The first visit was dental examination, the second was fluoride therapy and the last one was restorative dental treatment. Meanwhile, their mothers ’ personalities were determined through an interview conducted by a psychiatrist and based on DSMIV criteria and using General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) these personality characteristics were categorized in four groups: Normal, Depressed, Anxious and Obsessional.

 Results:�The findings revealed that 12.5% of children had no cooperation during 3 visits, most of whom were 3 to 4 years old. The difference was significant compared to 4-5 and 5-6 year old children (p<0.05). In addition, sex did not influence children ’ s behavior. This study showed that children of mothers with obsessional personality were the most cooperative ones during the 3 visits compared to mothers with other personality characteristics. This difference was statistically significant at the first visit, (p<0.05).

  Conclusion: Mother ’ s personality has the strongest effect on children’s behavior during the first dental visit.