What are the relationships between parenting and children’s health?

Parenting behavior affects children's full-cycle health starting from the fetal period, covering the three core dimensions of health: physiological development, psychological state, and social adaptation. It is far more than the common understanding of "having enough food, clothing, and warmth and not getting sick".

Two months ago, I met a pair of identical twins at child care in the community. The eldest son was raised by his grandmother in his hometown. He chased after him to feed him every time. He was afraid of falling and would not let him run. Even when playing with building blocks, he was afraid of putting them in his mouth and not touching them. After running around the neighborhood for an hour, when I went for a physical examination when I was just 3 years old, I found out that the eldest child weighed 8 pounds more than the second child, was also found to have a mild sensory disorder, and spoke half a year later than the second child. Small choices such as daily feeding and exercise guidance actually affect the child's physiological development baseline.

In the past two years, there has been a lot of debate about the standards of parenting. Some people think that in order to be responsible, fine control is required. Daily food intake, screen time, and outdoor activity time must be stuck to the standard, which makes them almost anxious. Others think that "freezing is to release nature" and do not set any rules for children. They do not care about holding sweet drinks every day for more than 3 years old. We have seen many times in clinical practice that families with these two extremes have a higher probability of children having health problems: in families with too strict control, children are prone to eating resistance and emotional sensitivity, and are more likely to have eating disorders and anxiety. Not to mention those who are completely over-controlled, not to mention physiological problems such as tooth decay, obesity, and precocious puberty, they cannot even establish a basic sense of rules, and they can easily maladapt to a collective environment.

What many parents tend to overlook is that the way of emotional response in parenting is actually the foundation of children's mental health. I once met a child who had just entered the first grade. He always scratched his wrist with a knife. His parents took him to see a psychiatrist before they realized what was happening. Before, they always thought that it was a good thing for the child to be "sensible and not cry or make trouble". Usually when a child falls or feels wronged and cries, their first reaction is "What's the point of crying about such a trivial matter?" "Boys must be strong and not shed tears." Children gradually learn to suppress all emotions in their hearts, and big problems will arise over time. You see, it is never "nothing else to do when children are full." The way they respond to children's emotions in daily life directly determines whether the child's mental toughness is sufficient.

Many people still don’t know that the World Health Organization has long included “good social adaptability” into the definition of health, and this part is actually directly linked to parenting styles. When you usually take your baby out, you always apologize for him when you encounter him snatching toys, or you always ask for other people's toys for him, and you take care of everything for him. When the child arrives at kindergarten, he doesn't know how to get along with his peers. He either hits others at every turn, or just stands and cries when bullied. This lack of social adaptability is essentially a health problem, and the root cause is still in the details of daily parenting.

To put it bluntly, parenting is like cultivating soil for a sapling. How much water you water and how long you expose it to the sun will depend on how the sapling grows. There is never a standard answer, but every step you take and every tiny choice you make will little by little affect what the tree will grow into in the end.