How about just tell the kids to quit whining?
Ain't the same.
You gotta remember, the kid is relying on their faith in their parents, and all the placebo is doing is making a slightly more "official" version of a "kiss to make it all better".
I'll vouch for the efficacy of non-medicinal treatment for a lot of kid complaints. There were lots of times when my daughter was small, that she would have some complaint or another, and I'd tell her that "Daddy will make it alright", and that assurance, coupled with pretty much any action I would take, was enough to ease the pain.
Fix a broken bone? Of course not. But the usual kid's whining? Sure.
You don’t understand the kids these days! Work my job for about 1 month and you’d see. As kindergartners, they are already asking for headache medicine, and just about anything you can think of. Of course, I cannot give even a placebo without a doctor’s order, but try telling one of these kids that they have no order of any kind for me to give and I get a full tantrum, or they stand there and argue with me for about 30 minutes! I’ve never seen anything like this. It started about 3 years ago and is getting worse. What are parents doing these days? My kids never asked for any pain medicine, and sometimes at bedtime they’d tell me their throat was sore that day or that they had a headache. It was no big deal to them. They just didn’t complain.