Over the years as a pediatrician, I have come to dread the 4 year old check up as much as many parents do. It’s the age when we give vaccine boosters, and at 4 years old, children know exactly what may happen at the doctor’s office. As a pediatrician, I had noticed that the children whose parents had talked to them beforehand about vaccines seemed to do better than children who found out at the appointment that they would be getting shots. I tucked away this mental note as I thought about my own daughter one day turning four.
