The difference between parenting and child health

Many parents tend to confuse the two, either attributing parenting problems to health abnormalities, or treating health standards as the entire goal of parenting. In fact, the two are There are clear core boundaries, intersection of some categories, and the relationship between the bottom line and the superstructure. Two concepts - children's health is the rigid bottom line of all parenting behaviors, and there are unified medical reference standards； Parenting is a personalized family practice that covers all aspects of a child’s growth, including health goals. There is no universal standard answer.

Last week, I came across a particularly typical scene in the child care department of a community health service center: a mother clutched a wrinkled Internet celebrity parenting list and chased the developmental doctor to ask her 2-year-old and 8-month-old baby, who could not recite three Tang poems and could only speak short sentences, whether his language development was delayed, and whether she should prescribe some brain-replenishing nutrient solution. The doctor flipped through the baby's development files, looked up and smiled: "My baby's hearing is fine, he can interact with people normally, and his vocabulary is above the standard line. This is not a health problem, but because your requirements for childcare are too high. Just talk to the baby more and play games when you go back. No need to supplement." ”

In fact, the source of most parents' anxiety is this conceptual confusion: applying family-customized parenting KPIs to the evaluation scale of children's health.

Let’s first talk about the boundaries of children’s health. Currently, there is no completely unified conclusion in the academic community. The standards of traditional clinical medicine are very clear: as long as there are no organic diseases and all growth and development indicators (height, weight, gross motor, fine motor, language, social development quotient) are within the 3%-97% percentile range of the child growth standards given by the WHO, it is considered healthy. To put it bluntly, it means "passing". No matter whether your child can walk at 1 year old or 1 year and 2 months old, as long as it is no later than 1 year and 6 months, it is normal and there is no difference. The school of developmental behavioral pediatrics, which has received more and more attention in the past decade, has also included broader emotional states and social adaptability into the health boundary. For example, children with long-term anxiety and frequent unreasonable aggressive behavior will be judged to have abnormal health conditions and require intervention, even if their physiological indicators are all normal. However, no matter which school you come from, the core of children's health is "a unified objective standard", and the passing mark will not be raised just because your family has high expectations.

But parenting is nothing like that. I have seen some families who think that their children can play happily every day until elementary school. I have also seen some families who start English lessons from the age of 1, learn equestrian at the age of 3, and take the KET test at the age of 4. Everyone's parenting goals are so different that there is no "standard answer" at all. Just like the mother who just wanted her 2-year-old to memorize three Tang poems, there is no right or wrong in this request, it is just her family's parenting goal. If you are willing to spend time teaching and the child is willing to learn, of course there is no problem. But if the child is unwilling and you force it until the child becomes silent and hides from others, then it touches the bottom line of children's health. At this time, it changes from an ordinary parenting choice issue to a health issue that requires intervention.

My best friend stepped into this trap last year. Her 5-year-old son, in order to get into the local top-notch private elementary school, has to attend three training classes in mathematics, English, and thinking after school every day. He also has to practice piano and Go on weekends. He can't even squeeze in half an hour of running downstairs. After two months, the baby began to blink frequently, clear his throat, and sometimes couldn't help but shrug. She was scared to death, thinking it was tics, and went to three hospitals. All physiological examinations were done, and there was no problem. The doctor finally said to her: "You can reduce the training class for the baby by half, and leave two days a week for him to play as he pleases. If he still comes to see me like this in half a month." ”She went home and did the same thing, and within 10 days, all these little movements of her baby disappeared. You see, many times when health problems arise, the root cause is that the pace of parenting has gone too far.

Nowadays, there are two factions in the parenting circle who are arguing fiercely. One is the "health first party". They say that as long as the baby is healthy, other achievements and specialties are all irrelevant, and there is no need to put pressure on the baby.； The other faction is the "Moderate Chicken Baby Party", which says that there is so much competition in today's society that completely free-range breeding will delay the baby. As long as the bottom line of health is not exceeded, it is perfectly fine to put some pressure on the baby. In fact, the essence of the debate between the two groups is that they have different understandings of the weights of the two. There is no absolute right or wrong. Each family has different resources and expectations. Just choose what suits you. There is no need to blame each other.

In the six years I have been doing parenting science, I have seen too many parents with ineffective anxiety. They either regard health problems as the child's "disobedience". For example, the child is picky about food and does not grow taller. It is obviously a health problem with a weak spleen and stomach, and they insist on scolding the child for not eating well.； Or they regard individualized problems in parenting as health abnormalities. For example, if the baby is 1 centimeter shorter than his peers, he rushes to give the baby height-enhancing drugs. To put it bluntly, you just need to remember one thing clearly: health is 1, and subsequent grades, expertise, and knowledge are all 0. Without the 1, any number of 0s are useless. ； But if there is only 1 without the following 0, there will be many fewer possibilities for the child's growth. After all, raising a baby is not about making standardized industrial products, it is about accompanying a little life to grow up slowly. How you choose depends entirely on what your family wants.