Basically you do the following:

1. Create an INT field on the parent table called <childmodelname>_count
2. In the $belongsTo array of the child model, add “‘counterCache’ => true” to the parent array
3. Enjoy!

This works great for new installations. However, if you want to add it to an existing site, you’ll need to run through all the records and save the current count. Here is a sample method for doing just that.

function admin_update_counters() {
$this->Category->recursive = 0;
$categories = $this->Category->find('all');
foreach ($categories as $category) {
$question_count = $this->Category->Question->find('count', array('conditions' => array('Question.category_id' => $category['Category']['id'])));
if ($question_count) {
$this->Category->create();
$this->Category->id = $category['Category']['id'];
$this->Category->saveField('question_count', $question_count);
}
}

echo "Counters updated"; exit;
}