Nurses traditionally have encountered a number of clinical problems in the area of pharmacologic management of pediatric pain. Many of the problems result from inadequate information about pediatric pain as a whole while others center around the changing knowledge base of pharmacology. This article will address 1) common everyday pediatric pain problems and their solutions, 2) clinical roadblocks encountered when requesting analgesics or a change in analgesics, 3) common analgesic errors, 4) pediatric procedure pain, 5) the causes of cancer pain and the pharmacologic approaches to them, and will provide 6) a limited amount of information concerning specific analgesics. The article also briefly discusses the pharmacologic problems encountered by nurses who deal with chronic nonmalignant pain.