Parents are most afraid of their children’s fever, fearing that it will become pneumonia or encephalitis, so when they see their children have a fever, they panic and want to reduce the fever immediately. So is a fever when you have a cold a good thing or a bad thing? A fever when you have a cold is a normal physiological response of the body’s immune system to be stimulated to fight against foreign infections, which is very beneficial to kill the virus or bacteria that invade the body. Fever itself does not cause pneumonia or encephalitis, only the invasion of viruses or bacteria into the lungs or brain will cause pneumonia or encephalitis. If you rush to lower the temperature, you lower the body’s immunity, but instead, it is easier for viruses or bacteria to invade the lower respiratory tract, i.e., the trachea and lungs. Of course, it’s okay to cool down a child whose temperature is too high, just don’t be too afraid of fever. Other children are prone to convulsions (i.e., seizures) when the temperature is too high, and that requires prompt cooling. If your child has never had a febrile convulsion, then it is much less likely to happen as they get older. If you simply want to lower the temperature, there are two types of medicine available from Western medicine: “cold medicine” and hormones. With the former, there are fewer side effects. But no matter which one is used, it is only treating the symptoms but not the disease. So the temperature will rise again after a few hours of cooling. Chinese medicine treatment of fever, not focusing on the simple reduction of fever, but focus on the treatment of disease, the fever will naturally go down when the disease is well, usually not repeated.