The Health Costs associated with “Looking Forward to Success”: Educational Expectations and Children’s Health

This study examines the impact of the deviation between parents' educational expectations and children's parent--child educational expectations on children's health based on the data from Chinese family tracking surveys conducted in 2018 and 2020. We found that when parents' educational expectations are higher than their children's educational expectations, they have a negative impact on children's health status. According to the influence mechanism, the higher the parents' expectations of education are, the greater children's remedial behavior will be, the less leisure time will be, which will adversely affect children's health. Furthermore, we found that a good parent-child relationship moderated the negative impact of the deviation in parent-child educational expectations on children's health. Therefore, in order to ensure the healthy development of children, it is necessary to resolve the adverse effects of the deviation in parent--child educational expectations by arranging tutoring and leisure time rationally and establishing a good parent-child relationship.