After 24 years as a pediatrician, I thought I had seen almost everything. Last month, a mother brought her 5-year-old son for a checkup and immediately announced that they practiced \u201cgentle parenting\u201d and that I needed to respect his autonomy. Within minutes, the boy began deliberately spitting at me while his mother smiled and insisted, \u201cHe likes you.\u201dI calmly asked him to stop, but his mother became furious and accused me of traumatizing her child. She raised her voice so loudly that a nurse opened the door to check on us. Instead of arguing, I stayed calm and reached for the small handheld mirror I keep in my office for showing children their teeth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After 24 years as a pediatrician, I thought I had seen almost everything. Last month, a mother brought her 5-year-old son for a checkup and immediately announced… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n