A cure for many childhood respiratory diseases is not yet possible and treatment usually has to focus on disease control. For families, this frequently involves a series of quite complex tasks. Education helps families develop the necessary knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and skills to manage illness effectively, and is one of the main tasks of the clinical team. Unfortunately, health education interventions often fail to bring about any significant gains in the health or well being of the target population. This article describes how a systematic approach can be applied to the development of health educational interventions to maximise their chance of being effective.