What is the relationship between parenting and children’s health?

Every detail of parenting behavior is essentially laying the foundation for the child's health. From physical development, psychological state to lifelong healthy behavior patterns, almost all are directly related to the parenting choices during the growth process. There is no absolute "you can grow up with just any care", but many effects will only show up after a few years or even more than ten years, and are easily ignored by parents.

I have been working as a child care provider in the community for almost eight years. I just picked up two first-grade children of the same age last week, both of whom came for school entrance health assessment. The contrast is particularly obvious. One of them was brought by my grandma. She said that the child has struggled to eat since he was a child, and she has been chasing after him every time to feed him, fearing that he will not grow taller. He is forced to eat half a bowl of braised pork every meal. Now, at the age of seven, his weight is almost 40 kilograms. The other one was brought by the mother. She said that from the beginning of the introduction of complementary foods, the child was allowed to eat by himself. Even if the food was all over the table, he would not interfere. It was up to the child to eat more or less. Now he never had to rush to eat. He had perfect scores in all physical tests. Last week, he was selected as a reserve team for the school track and field team. You see, it is the most basic parenting choice of feeding that widens the gap in children's physical health early on.

Nowadays, there is always a debate on the Internet about whether child care should be "free range" or "strictly controlled". Both sides have their own reasons, and there are also examples of pitfalls. I have seen parents who believe that "their children should be given full freedom" and do not interfere no matter what time the child stays up to watch short videos. As a result, the child has 200 degrees of myopia in the third grade. Long-term lack of sleep has caused attention deficit and is half a head shorter than his classmates. ； I have also seen parents who schedule their children so full that they have no time to spare. They even have to apply in advance to run downstairs for ten minutes. There was a mother who took her 9-year-old child for a psychological evaluation before. The child had stomach pain and vomiting as soon as he arrived for the exam. Several gastroscopy tests failed to detect organic problems. In the end, it was diagnosed as a physical reaction caused by anxiety. The child secretly told me that he was afraid that he would not be able to do well in the exam and would be sorry for his mother’s efforts. In fact, both methods are correct. What I am afraid of is going to extremes and completely ignoring the child's own tolerance.

Many parents’ understanding of “health” is still as “just as long as you don’t get sick.” However, the World Health Organization has long defined health as a complete state of physical, psychological, and social adaptation. The latter two points all rely on the guidance of daily parenting. There used to be a mother who always said in front of her children, "If someone touches you, hit them back hard, don't suffer." As a result, the children always had conflicts with other children in kindergarten, and gradually no one wanted to play with them. The children always complained when they came home that they were boring, and they still couldn't socialize normally with their peers in middle school. This is actually a health problem at the level of social adaptation, and the root cause is the concept of parenting.

There is no need to think that parenting must be perfect. Everyone is too busy to take care of it and loses their temper. Occasional omissions will not have much impact on the children. What is more worrying is that you have followed wrong parenting concepts for a long time and still think that you are doing it for your children. For example, the "cry immunity method" that was particularly popular in the past few years is still being debated in academic circles. One group believes that it can help children establish a sense of rules and will not respond to requests whenever they cry. The other group believes that premature neglect of children's emotional needs will destroy secure attachment and make it difficult to establish intimate relationships when they grow up. After all, there is no one-size-fits-all template. A method that works well for others may be counterproductive when applied to your child. The key is whether it can meet the real needs of your child.

I have seen too many children's health problems over the years, and the root cause is not due to poor physical health, but rather the small details in daily parenting. To put it bluntly, parenting is like building a "healthy" house with your children. Every bit of laziness you steal may be a hidden danger for the walls to fall off in the future. Every bit of thought you spend will become the foundation that holds this house stable.