Sample essay on parenting and children’s health experience

There is no universal template that applies to all children. The core of all decisions is to "give priority to the child's individual feedback" and take into account the dynamic balance of growth and development patterns, emotional and psychological needs, and the actual family situation. It can help children achieve long-term health better than any standardized parenting guide.

To be honest, I stored half a cabinet of parenting manuals in the past two years, and now most of them are gathering dust. The first big pitfall I stepped into was the feeding pit. When my eldest child was 3 years old, I strictly followed the "scientific feeding standards" on the Internet. Each meal had to include 100g of staple food, 50g of red meat, and 100g of green leafy vegetables. I had to push and coax him to eat enough. As a result, within two weeks, he accumulated food and his fever reached 39 degrees. When I went to the hospital, the pediatrician scolded him: "You are treating me like your own baby." Is it a beaker? Do you still pour it in according to the amount?" Later, I slowly realized that there is no right or wrong in the feeding logic of different schools. Sears' intimate feeding advocates feeding on demand and stopping immediately if the child doesn't want to eat. It is more suitable for babies with sensitive stomachs and weak stomachs. The behaviorist parenting school advocates fixed-point, quantitative and regular feeding, which is more suitable for babies who are born with a strong sense of rhythm and are hungry when the time comes. My oldest child belongs to the former group. Later he switched to on-demand feeding. When he was hungry, he would grab food from the table and steadily gained 2 pounds. My best friend’s baby was raised according to the fixed-point feeding method. Adults never had to worry about eating, and they grew strong. In the final analysis, there is no best method, and the right one is the right one.

Feeding is the easiest place to fall into the pitfalls of standardization, and daily care is even more controversial. Last time when the second child had a fever of 38.7 degrees for the first time when he entered kindergarten, my mother wrapped herself in two layers of quilts to cover her sweat, and I had to take off my clothes to dissipate the heat. The two of us almost had an argument in the living room. Later, I read the latest "China's Fever Care Guide for Children Aged 0-5" and figured it out. Fever is inherently divided into three stages: During the period when the body temperature rises, the child's hands and feet are cold and shivering. At this time, it is necessary to keep warm properly and do not forcefully take off clothes and freeze; when the body temperature reaches a plateau and the hands and feet are hot, you need to wear less to dissipate heat. Covering sweat blindly can easily lead to febrile convulsions. You see, the experience of the older generation and the views of modern evidence-based medicine are not contradictory at all. It depends on the situation. There is no black and white standard answer.

Oh, by the way, what many people tend to overlook is that children’s health is never just physical, and the psychological and emotional impact is much greater than you think. A while ago, a mother came to me in the community and said that her 5-year-old child kept blinking and clearing his throat. She went to the ophthalmologist and otolaryngology department for a checkup and found nothing wrong. I asked her if she had been scolding her recently, and she said that she had recently forced her to learn Pinyin and sat at the desk to scold her for two hours every day. I asked her to stop learning Pinyin for half a month and take the baby out to run and play more often without scolding her. As a result, the child’s symptoms disappeared in less than 10 days—actually, it was an early manifestation of tics caused by long-term anxiety. I have been through this trap myself. My oldest got a score of 70 on his first math test in the first grade. I got angry in front of him. For the next week, he complained of stomachache every morning. He went to the hospital for B-ultrasound and blood tests and there were no problems. Later I told him, "It doesn't matter what score you get in the exam. We can learn slowly." The next morning, he skipped to school and never complained about stomachache again. Isn't that interesting?

There is also the issue of children’s nutritional supplements that is currently making a lot of noise. On one side, there are maternal and child bloggers who boast every day that “supplementing DHA will make you smarter, and supplementing lactoferrin will prevent you from getting sick.” On the other side, there are hardcore parents who say, “Eat well and don’t need to supplement anything.” I followed the trend and bought thousands of nutritional supplements. Later, the pediatrician’s doctor told me very clearly: as long as The child's daily diet should be balanced, including meat, eggs, milk, vegetables, and grains. Except for vitamin D, which needs to be supplemented two weeks after birth, there is no need for additional supplements. Only blood tests confirm the lack of certain trace elements, or the child itself has picky eaters and poor absorption, and then targeted supplements are enough. Indiscriminate supplementation will increase the metabolic burden on the kidneys. When I got home, I gave away most of the remaining unopened boxes of nutritional supplements. Now my baby doesn’t take any extra supplements, and he hasn’t lost any weight throughout the year.

Nowadays, new mothers in the community often ask me for book lists and guides, but I don’t give them. Just say that you first observe your baby peacefully for three days: he will cry when he is hungry, rub his eyes when he is sleepy, and will fuss when he is uncomfortable. If you adjust according to his rhythm, it will be better than reading ten parenting books. Parenting is not a standardized test. If the unified reference answer is given to different children, it may be wrong. If your child eats well, sleeps well, and is emotionally relaxed, it will be more effective than any standard.