What is the difference between parenting and child health

Parenting is a comprehensive parenting practice that covers the entire growth cycle of children aged 0-18, including health, cognition, personality, socialization and other dimensions. Children's health is the core branch and basic goal of the parenting system that focuses on children's physical and mental functional status.

I have been a family parenting coach for almost 8 years, and I have met too many parents who confuse the two. They either think that "parenting is just about raising a healthy child, and everything else is empty", or they are so involved in enlightenment that they completely ignore health indicators, and ultimately lose both ends. Last month I met a mother from Haidian. Her baby was scheduled to attend 7 interest classes per week when she was just 4 years old, which even squeezed out one hour of outdoor time every day. Last month, she had repeated bronchitis and went to the hospital three times. She also complained to me, "Why is it that I am so dedicated to raising children, but my baby is still in such poor health?" In fact, most of her energy was spent on parenting dimensions other than health, and she did not give enough priority to health indicators. I once met a grandma when I was giving a charity lecture in the community. She said that her grandson was healthy and fat and never got sick. She must be the best at raising children. However, after careful questioning, I found out that the child is now 3 years old and still can’t feed himself. He hides behind adults when he sees strangers. These absences in upbringing do not actually fall into the category of children’s health assessment, but they are all unavoidable lessons in parenting.

Of course, academic circles have always had different opinions on the weight of the two. Most scholars in the field of public health place children's health at the absolute basis of parenting. There are even extreme views that "nurturing children whose health is not up to standard is essentially ineffective parenting." After all, even the physical and mental state cannot be stabilized, and talking about cognitive development and character development is empty talk. However, researchers in the field of developmental psychology are more inclined to regard health as the base of parenting, on which the superstructure of personality, cognition, and social abilities must be built. The two are not antagonistic, but inclusive and supportive. The entire content of parenting cannot be narrowed down to maintaining children's health.

To put it bluntly, it is like raising a pot of rose flowers. Parenting is a complete set of actions from soil selection, planting seedlings to watering, fertilizing, pruning, and lighting control. Children's health is whether the root system and branches of this pot of flowers are free from diseases and insect pests, and whether they are healthy. Absorb water and fertilizer normally - if the roots are rotten and the leaves are yellow, you will definitely not be able to bloom, but you can't say that growing flowers means paying attention to whether the roots are rotten. If you never prune the branches and don't give enough light, no matter how strong the roots are, you won't be able to bloom decent flowers.

We ordinary parents don’t need to worry about the definition of the concept. It is enough to clearly understand the boundaries between the two: for example, when the child has just entered kindergarten and has frequent stomach upsets and colds, then you have to put the child’s health needs first, adjust the diet first, get enough outdoor exercise, and don’t force the child to catch up with the progress of enlightenment; wait until the child’s health stabilizes Of course, don’t just focus on whether your body temperature is abnormal or whether you have constipation today. You should also pay attention to whether your child will handle conflicts with children and whether he will lose his temper and throw things when encountering setbacks. These parenting details that may seem unrelated to health will in turn affect your child’s emotional state and even physical health if accumulated for a long time.

In the final analysis, raising a baby is never a one-dimensional matter. Focusing on health does not mean giving up other aspects of growth. Paying attention to all-dimensional parenting does not mean taking the baby's body as a bet. Only by clearing the boundaries between the two can you avoid pitfalls in parenting.