What is the difference between parenting and child health?

Essentially, the core goals and coverage areas of the two are completely different. Parenting is a comprehensive parenting practice for the entire growth cycle of children, ranging from the cultivation of habits of eating, drinking, and eating, to character shaping and social ability guidance.； Children's health is a professional field that focuses specifically on whether children's physical and mental development meets normal standards and whether there are any risks of disease or abnormality. The core is to ensure that children's physical and mental states are in good working order.

To be honest, I have been a community parenting guide for six years, and I have met more than a hundred parents who confuse the two things. I was walking in the community last week and I bumped into the two mothers chatting. I just stepped on the boundary of two categories: one is worried that the child always grabs other people's toys when he is in middle school and refuses to listen to everyone.； Another worry is that the baby always blinks frequently after entering kindergarten. Last week, conjunctivitis occurred just two days ago. This is a proper child health problem. You need to go to the pediatrician or ophthalmologist to investigate the cause first. Don’t waste time by injecting eye drops at home.

Many people think that the two are completely separate. In fact, they are not. Most of the time, the two influence each other. A mother came to me for consultation before. She said that in order to set certain eating rules for her baby, she would force her baby to eat when she didn't want to eat. She also said, "Eat more to grow stronger and not get sick." However, within half a month, she fed her baby a lot of food. Not only did the baby not gain weight, but she also always had stomach problems and could not sleep well at night. This confuses the cultivation of habits in parenting with the bottom line of children's health, which is counterproductive.

There has been debate among parents about the priorities of the two. One group is the "health first party". They believe that as long as the baby is healthy and not sick, everything else is easy. Rules can be slowly established and habits can be slowly changed. Even if the baby is three years old, he still needs to be held to sleep and fed by adults.； The other group is the "parenting-first group" who believe that good habits are a lifelong thing. It's no big deal to be hungry or cold once in a while. Even if the baby is a little uncomfortable, the rules must be established first. In fact, both views are a bit extreme. After all, children's health is the bottom line of all parenting behaviors, and scientific parenting methods are the basis for maintaining children's long-term health. It is easy to go astray if they are completely separated.

It’s interesting to say that the relationship between the two is a bit like raising a pot of roses that you like. Parenting means that you have to worry about choosing the flower pot and arranging the nutrient soil, controlling the amount of watering, the duration of the sun, and even whether to build a support for the climbing species. What you have to take care of is everything in the entire growth cycle of the pot of flowers.； As for children's health, you should regularly check whether it has yellow leaves, whether there are insects, whether it is deficient in fertilizer, and whether it is growing normally. Nowadays, children's health is no longer just about "no fever and no illness". It also includes whether the psychological state and social adaptability are at a normal level, so sometimes the boundary between the two is a bit blurred. For example, if a child suddenly becomes tired of studying and resists going to school, do you think it is a problem of learning habits guidance in parenting, or a psychological and behavioral problem in children's health? In fact, they are all related. At this time, both sides have to make adjustments together. On the one hand, parents and teachers adjust their daily guidance methods, and on the other hand, they go to the child psychology department to check whether there is any emotional disorder. A two-pronged approach can really solve the problem.