Book excerpt: Common Sense Pediatrics for Parents represents my thirty years of experience in Pediatrics and was written for the lay person who is either having a child or who has young children and is looking for a guide on what to expect from birth to adolescence. It is filled with information about what to expect in the hospital and how to approach the most common situations that occur in childhood. I have been looking for a good, simple book to recommend to parents to guide them through this and have not found one I could recommend, so hopefully Common Sense Pediatrics for Parents will be it. This is not to be a substitute for your own physician and not everyone will agree with everything but it does dispel many of the myths, and wives tales out there. I went home many nights hoarse from explaining and instructing to my patients and Common Sense Pediatrics for Parents is just a written expression of what I said. I hope it helps those out there that want to instruct themselves on common Pediatric conditions and at least my approach to dealing with them.