Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I can appreciate your situation, those last two paragraphs read with the same kind of anecdotal logic that lead people to the conclusion that vaccinations do more harm than good.
It wasn't ment that way. The vaccination conspiracy theorists are the opposite evil here. They are even worse. I didn't want to say that I would not give my kid antibiotics. This is bullshit. But I will change the doctor if his only solution is antibiotics. I had that situation already with my girlfriend. She is ill pretty often. She works in a kindergarden and parents tent to get rid of their sick kids by sending th…
I think the main thing is to challenge them to explain why. If they can't give a coherent explanation, ask them to explain to you what they think the risks are of waiting.
Most of the time when doctors here want to prescribe anti-biotics their answer is pretty much "just in case I missed something and it's actually a bacterial infection", and usually they'll then concede that if I'm ok with it, I can wait it out a couple of days and only take antibiotics if things doesn't start to improve with minimal risk. A couple of times the explanation has been that they've often seen specific symptoms exacerbated by a simultaneous bacterial infection, but again their response has been the same: if I don't keep getting worse, I'm fine to wait.
The only time I've ended up taking the antibiotics on offer was when I came in once spitting blood and with massive white lumps at the back of my throat (from whence the blood came, as they were ripped open when I coughed). Yay. Even then the doctor assumed, probably correctly, that it most likely was a viral infection that was making the rounds - she had a steady stream of the same symptoms that week -, but pointed out that given that my throat was so swollen and painful that I could hardly even drink, and the coughing of blood, if she was wrong and it got worse without antibiotics, next stop might be the hospital.
But of course few people care - they don't question the reasons for prescriptions at all.
Part of the high level of prescription of antibiotics in the UK is because of the health system here - they're paid per roughly per patient (adjusted for patient age, morbidity levels in the area they operate in, and a number of other factors meant to adjust for the cost of providing service, but the point is they are not paid per patient visit). If they get me out the door quickly and I don't come back, that's a win for them, so they are incentivised to get me well, but there's no downside to them short term from doing so by prescribing me something there might only be a 5% change that will make a difference to me at all - that's five percent fewer repeat visits at no real risk to them.
Few patients will complain, as the prescription cost is low, and when they get better in a few days, many of them will assume it was the antibiotics and so assume the doctor was right.
It's hard to set rules that prevent these kind of incentives, other than monitoring of whether or not they are in line with guidelines and/or whether or not they prescribe grossly more than the baseline.