¿Cómo especificar el campo de consulta principal desde una subconsulta en MySQL?

¿Qué tal:

$query = "SELECT p1.id, 
                 (SELECT COUNT(1) 
                    FROM post_table p2 
                   WHERE p2.parent_id = p1.id) as num_children
            FROM post_table p1
           WHERE p1.parent_id = 0";

o si pone un alias en el p1.id, podría decir:

$query = "SELECT p1.id as p1_id, 
                 (SELECT COUNT(1) 
                    FROM post_table p2 
                   WHERE p2.parent_id = p1.id) as num_children
            FROM post_table p1
           WHERE p1.parent_id = 0";