I LOVE this article!
Parent's Magazine asked doctors, teachers, daycare providers, babysitters, etc. what advice they'd give parents.
For example, a teacher said, "If a parent doesn't follow my directions, I'll assume her child won't either. I give parents specific instructions -- fill out these forms by this date, e-mail instead of calling, don't put candy in your kid's lunch. As soon you break my rules, that creates an immediate bias against your child."
A doctor said, "As much as you want a prescription to fix everything, your kid probably doesn't need antibiotics. For example, 80 percent of ear infections go away without them. It's a dirty little secret of pediatrics that ear infections pay our bills."
BTW, you should subscribe to parents.com daily email. I've gotten some great stuff out of it over the years.