Every summer, more children come to the ear, nose and throat clinic with acute otitis media. Most of the children come for follow-up because of recurrent otitis media. There are physiological and anatomical reasons why otitis media is prone to recurrence, but more often than not, it is due to some misconceptions of parents in the treatment. What are the common misconceptions in the treatment of otitis media? The day Dr. Zhang arrived at the clinic, he heard a patient making noise at the door, and asked what was going on. The doctor prescribed some oral medication and ear drops for the child and told him to keep taking them. After two or three days of medication, the child’s symptoms were relieved, his ears stopped dripping pus, and he didn’t scream in pain. So they came to the hospital in a huff. After listening to their account and carefully inquiring about the situation, Dr. Zhang explained to them, “The reason for the child’s recurrence is not that the doctor did not prescribe the right medicine, but that you did not insist on giving the child the medicine as prescribed.” The child later went to the hospital for treatment, insisted on ear drops and medication every day, and was cured after two weeks. In clinical work, we often encounter cases of otitis media that are repeatedly treated for a long time. The reason for this is that parents do not give their children medication consistently, and often think that the disease is cured as soon as they see that the symptoms improve, such as the ear is not draining, or the child is not screaming about ear pain, so they immediately stop the medication, which can easily lead to incomplete treatment. The fact that the ear is not draining does not mean that the otitis media is cured, it is just a temporary dry ear phenomenon. This is because it takes a considerable amount of time for the perforated eardrum to repair and epithelialize. When the tympanic membrane is perforated, the middle ear loses its barrier effect and can easily relapse if you get a cold, get water in your ear or do not adhere to the medication drops. The fact that the ear does not hurt anymore does not mean that the otitis media is cured, but sometimes the condition is aggravated. Because the pain threshold of children is generally higher than that of adults, coupled with the relatively poor judgment of children at a young age, children are distracted during the day when they are playing, so even if there is pain, it is not easy for them to feel it. At night, because a child is tired from playing during the day, a mild pain (which may be a very painful sensation in adults) is difficult to wake him/her up in pain. The reason for this is that the pain caused by otitis media is mainly due to the accumulation of fluid and pus in the middle ear, which increases the pressure in the middle ear tympanic chamber. Therefore, the treatment of otitis media in pediatric patients should be based on persistent medication, and should not be stopped easily because the symptoms have improved slightly.