Not what you’d expect.
People assume I’m constantly checking posture. Looking at how they sit. Critiquing their screen position.
Honestly? Not really. Posture is a downstream thing. It’s the result, not the cause.
What I actually pay attention to: how they’re sleeping. How they respond to being touched on certain parts of their back — do they flinch? How often are they getting sick? Whether their mood has a kind of background tension that doesn’t match the situation.
These aren’t diagnostic in isolation. But they’re signals. They tell me whether the nervous system is handling load well or starting to fall behind.
The other thing I notice — and this is the chiropractor-mum crossover that’s genuinely useful — is asymmetry in how they move. One shoulder sits differently. The way they always tilt their head in one direction during screen time. The way one leg swings differently when they run.
None of this sends me into panic. But it tells me when it’s worth sitting them down for a scan. When to check in before the symptom shows up rather than after.
The advantage of understanding this stuff is not that you see danger everywhere. It’s that you get quieter about the small things and faster on the real ones.