Introduction: juvenile gingivitis and periodontitis are inflammatory changes in the periodontal tissue limited to the gingiva, but they also penetrate deeper areas of periodontal tissue and it is therefore important to know their causes and symptoms. Procedures: the literature used is available on the websites Medline, Scopus, Embasa and PubMed. Other websites as well as book Pedodoncija were used to write this paper. All collected literature is not older than five years and is written in English and Croatian. Topic overview: juvenile gingivitis is an inflammation of the gums in children and adolescents. Pathology at an early age occurs on the oral surface of the tooth, while the pathology in puberty occurs due to insufficient oral hygiene. The term periodontitis describes an existing inflammatory process that involves deeper parts of periodontal tissue with the loss of supporting parts of the tooth. The disease is accompanied by few symptoms and the patient must rely on a professional diagnosis. Diagnosis is primarily based on the measurement of a periodontal pocket depth, attachment loss, and/or marginal bone loss, which is evaluated on the radiograph. Conclusion: maintaining periodontal health must be a common task of the child, parents, dentists, but also dental hygienists. With regular periodontal examinations as part of the general examination, the dentist has the opportunity to detect it on time and prevent the occurrence of periodontal diseases such as juvenile gingivitis and periodontitis.