Cultural pressures to raise superior children committed to endless self-improvement, and psychic pressures to avoid both our own feelings of helplessness and aloneness and our children's hatred and death wishes toward us interfere with our ability to understand what it means to be a healthy child. The concept of temperament has significant implications for an understanding of psychic health in children. A child is not unhealthy just because he is difficult to manage. Understanding and tolerating the wide range of temperamental differences in children leads to a focus on channeling the expression of impulses rather than inhibiting them. A definition of the healthy child is offered for discusion.