Analysis of the influence of parents' going out on the mental health of left-behind children in rural areas
Tao Guoqing
ABSTRACT:
With the continuous and deepening of urbanization in my country, more and more migrant laborers appear, accompanied by the emergence of left-behind children. As a representative of children with lower socioeconomic status, left-behind children in rural areas have different degrees of problems in physical and mental health and learning. This article uses China’s education tracking survey data to empirically analyze the impact of parents’going out on the mental health of left-behind children in rural areas. The study found that mothers play an indispensable role in the growth of children and have a significant impact on the development of children’s mental health. Therefore, in the policy of focusing on the protection of left-behind children, it is necessary to rationally allocate the arrangements for parents to take care of home and work outside to create a normal and suitable family atmosphere for the left-behind children.
KEYWORDS: Left-behind children, Mental health, Separation effect, Income effect.
1. INTRODUCTION:
According to the Report on the Development of China's Floating Population 2018, new changes have taken place in the development of the floating population since 2015. In 2015, the National Bureau of Statistics announced that the total number of floating population in China was 247 million, down by about 6 million compared with 2014. In 2016, China's floating population decreased by 1.71 million compared with 2015, and in 2017, it continued to decrease by 820,000.
The problem of left-behind children is closely related to the floating population. According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs' national information management system for rural left-behind children and children in difficult situations, there were a total of 6.97 million left-behind children in rural areas in 2018, down 22.7 percent compared with the data in 2016. From November 2016 to January 2017, the Department of Migrant Population of the former National Health and Family Planning Commission, in cooperation with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), conducted a survey to assess the health service needs of left-behind children in poor rural areas in 27 counties (districts) in 12 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government. Grandparents are the main caregivers of left-behind children, accounting for more than 90 percent, with an average age of 59 and more than 70 percent with primary school education or below, the survey found. Due to low education and old age, grandparents tend to pay more attention to the physical needs of children and ignore their emotional needs. In addition, most school-age left-behind children basically rely on their own to take care of daily life, but also to undertake part of the housework and farm work. Children are divided into different groups based on family choices: left-behind children and non-left-behind children.
Therefore, this paper intends to study the impact of parents' going out on the mental health of left-behind children in rural areas, and conduct an empirical analysis on the mental health problems of left-behind children. Mental health is also a key factor in children's growth and development, especially in the absence of parental company, which needs to be paid attention to. Based on the in-depth analysis of the baseline survey data of "China Education Tracker Survey" in the 2013-2014 school year, this paper compares three kinds of children's mental health conditions that are affected by parents' migrant work: father going out alone, mother going out alone and parents going out at the same time. Based on baseline regression, it can be found that only fathers at home and mothers at home have a significant negative impact on children's mental health, indicating that mothers play an indispensable role in the growth of children.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW:
At present, there are many studies on the health problems of left-behind children, but these studies mainly focus on the impact of parents' going out on the physical health of children, while there are few studies on the mental health problems of left-behind children. In addition, due to the differences in the measurement indexes, research samples and measurement methods selected by various studies, the existing studies on the mental health of left-behind children have not reached a consensus on the impact of parents' going out on the mental health of children. Some studies believe that parents' going out has a significant negative impact on the mental health of left-behind children, while some studies believe that parents' going out has no significant negative impact on the mental health of children, and even shows a positive impact.
2.1 Negative impact:
2.1.1 Empirical research:
Based on the tracking survey data of 137 rural primary schools in five state-defined poverty-stricken counties from 2015 to 2016, Wu Peicai (2020) empirically analyzed the impact of rural labor migrant work on the physical and mental health of left-behind children and its mechanism. The study found that parents' travel did not affect children's physical health overall, but it had a significant negative impact on children's mental health.
On left-behind children compared with trailing children mental health research, LiuJianKun, xiao-bin he, He Guangye, Zhang Yunliang (2020) by 2013-2014 China education track survey data analysis, the study found that rural left-behind children, migrant children trailing children with members of the mental health level from low to high phase distribution form.
Based on the panel data of 3486 students from 38 rural middle schools in Shaanxi Province in 2012 and 2014, the impact of parents' migrant work on the mental health of left-behind children was analyzed by using Mental Health Diagnostic Test Scale (MHT) as the measurement index. Liu Hongyan, Chang Fang, Yue Ai, and Wang Huan (2017) found that parents' long-term migration (more than four months) would have a negative impact on the mental health of left-behind children. When the time of parents' migration for work is reduced to less than four months, parents' migration for work will not have a significant negative impact on the mental health of their children.
In addition, Wang Xinqiang, HuoJun fung, da-jun zhang, pei-jie liu (2018) the results although not found left-behind children with the left-behind children in the differences of psychological problems, internalization and externalization but only to find the rural left-behind children in the happiness, life satisfaction and pro-social behavior positive mental health index was significantly lower than on the internalization and externalization of left-behind children. The reason may be that left-behind children in rural areas stay away from their parents for a long time, less communication between parents and children, lack of love and care from parents, vulnerable to various kinds of bullying, compared with non-left-behind children also need to independently face and solve a variety of difficulties in life, lack of comfort and sustainment in mind, less happiness.
2.1.2 Focus on theoretical research:
According to the survey of five rural primary schools in Chongqing, there are differences in mental health between left-behind children and non-left-behind children.7 Zhou Zongkui, Sun Xiaojun, Liu ya and Zhou Dongming (2005) believed that left-behind children in rural areas had more serious problems in general performance, learning, conduct and emotional feelings than children whose parents stayed at home. The self-report of students showed that the psychological problems of left-behind children were mainly lower than those of children with both parents at home in terms of interpersonal relationship and self-confidence, while there were no significant differences with other children in terms of loneliness, social anxiety and learning adjustment.8 Zhao Xiaoyan, Qiu Yun, Zhang Yun, and Luo Yaojing (2018) believe that the lack of paternal love will affect the mental health of left-behind children in rural areas to some extent and reduce their subjective well-being.
From the perspective of gender differences in the mental health of left-behind children, Zhu Siqin (2016) believes that parents' going out significantly affects the internal and external mental health of children, but compared with boys, the impact on girls is relatively small. For children whose parents go out, if their parents do not go out, their internal and external mental health improves, equally for boys by sex, but there is no significant change for girls.
From the perspective of factors affecting the mental health of left-behind children, Zhao Miaomiao, Li Hui, Li Jun, Li Lingui, Wang Cuili, Stephen Nicholas, and Meng Qingyue (2012) believe that the self-awareness level of rural children in underdeveloped areas is generally low. The mental health of left-behind children is worse than that of non-left-behind children, which is manifested as lower level of self-consciousness, stronger sense of loneliness and higher level of social anxiety. Parents' migrant work is a risk factor for the mental health of left-behind children. Parents' care for their children, peer relationship and teacher-student relationship are the three most important factors affecting the mental health of left-behind children.
2.1.3 Related foreign studies:
Most of the domestic studies on the health of left-behind children focus on the "separation effect" of parents' going out, believing that the long-term separation of parents and children has adverse effects on the physical and mental health of left-behind children. The theoretical basis of these studies is mainly derived from the traditional attachment theory and family function theory. Traditional attachment theory from the Angle of the emotional attachment between parent, analysis the influence of parents for children's mental health, think that there is an emotional between children and parents of the inherent connection and bond or attachment, if the children of this attachment needs are not met, the child to increase their negative evaluation, security is reduced, there will be anxiety as well as the lack of confidence (Shaver, Phillip R, and M. Meikulincer, 2007). [12] In the real situation of the families of left-behind children in China, parents and children are separated for a long time, parent-child relationship is disrupted and part of the family function is missing. These two theoretical mechanisms jointly act on the physical and mental health of children. In terms of children's mental health, the disruption of parent-child attachment and the loss of family function caused by parents' long-term absence will increase children's risk of psychological depression and reduce their happiness.
2.2 Positive influence:
In recent years, the number of rural migrant workers in China has been increasing gradually. Under the framework of Lewis' dual economic theory, the expanding rural labor force outflow reflects the improving effect of out-migrating for work on the peasant economy. Family economic conditions, as the main determinants of family social status and access to family resources, undoubtedly have a direct impact on the physical and mental health of children in families. In terms of children's mental health, Li Dan, Xu Xinberi, Guan Tairan, and Cui Liying (2014) found that the improvement of family economic conditions, on the one hand, will reduce the possibility of children being discriminated against in the class and in the neighborhood, and avoid children's self-esteem being hurt.
The improvement of family economic conditions can reduce the possibility of children being involved in bullying, improve children's ability of psychological adjustment and reduce the negative impact of bullying. Musonda Mervyn Mwewa (2016) even found that left-behind children can improve their resilience in such bad experiences. At the same time, the increase of family income will also reduce the economic constraints for children to participate in school activities, increase the communication activities with peers, improve children's interpersonal skills, broaden the evacuation channels of children's negative emotions, and reduce the risk of depression.
Since children are in the critical period of physical and mental health development, family health investment has a great effect on the improvement of children's physical and mental health, that is to say, the increase of income brought by parents' going out has a significant positive impact on children's physical and mental health. Many foreign studies on the transnational migration of family members have also drawn similar conclusions. They believe that the income sent back by the transnational migration family members can significantly improve the physical and mental health of the unmigrated children in the family, namely the "Remittance Effect".
3. DATA AND VARIABLES:
3.1 Data source:
CEPS is a nationwide survey conducted by the Renmin University of China. CEPS takes junior high school students as the object of survey. The earliest survey dates back to 2013. With the proportion of floating population and average education level as stratified variables, 28 county-level units are selected from the country through random sampling. Then, taking the school as the basic unit, 112 schools were randomly selected from the selected counties and cities, with a total of about 20,000 students in 438 classes. CEPS surveyed students, parents and schools in the form of a questionnaire. Including students, parents, class, school four levels of data. Among them, the questionnaire for students involves three aspects: personal situation, family situation and school situation. The questionnaire for parents involves family education, the relationship between parents and school, school education, basic information of children, and the situation of parents, family and community. Class level including the questionnaire and teacher questionnaires, head teacher of class teacher questionnaire involving basic information and teaching, the teacher in charge work, the teacher in charge teacher, teacher questionnaire involves the teaching, teachers' basic information and ideas, school school level are the questionnaire involving basic information, student information, teacher information, admissions and enrollment status, management information, etc. There is also a description of the students' emotional state in the questionnaire, which can be used as a reference for their mental health.
For the identification of rural left-behind children, first of all, by the nature of the child's household registration is agricultural or non-agricultural household registration; Secondly, whether the child is mobile is determined by whether the household registration place of the question in the individual questionnaire is local or foreign. Finally, parents are judged by whether they live with their children. It has identified 2,436 left-behind children in rural areas. Among these children, the situation of left-behind is also different. According to previous studies, especially the survey conducted by Yang Juhua and Duan Chengrong (2008), the left-behind situation can be divided into three categories: only the father goes out, only the mother goes out and both parents go out.
3.2 Model and Variable Description:
3.2.1 Dependent variables:
Yi is the dependent variable, which indicates the mental health level of junior high school students. It is measured by five questions in the CEPS questionnaire, that is, asking the interviewees whether they have the following feelings in the past 7 days: "depressed", "depressed", "unhappy", "life is not interesting" and "sad". The original answer assignment was: never =1, rarely =2, sometimes =3, often =4, always =5. Through re-assignment, the scores of the five options are summed and averaged to get the mental health scores of left-behind children. The higher the score, the better.
3.2.2 Independent variables:
The core explanatory variable in this paper is Lefti,the left-behind status of children, which is further subdivided into: mother at home, father at home and parents not at home. The operation of independent variables was transformed into dummy variables (1 at home and 0 out of home), and the regression was performed respectively for a total of three times.
3.2.3 Control variables:
The control variables used in this study is Xi, involve individual students, students' parents and schools. Individual characteristic variables of students include: gender (0= female,1= male), age, only child (0= yes,1= no), and parental characteristic variables include: education level of father and mother (illiteracy, general education level, and higher education level). School characteristic variables include: school ranking (0= worst, 1= bottom average,2= middle, 3= top average, 4= best).
Parents' time with their children was also covered in the questionnaire, Parents and children eat dinner together, reading, watching TV, doing exercise, visit the museum together, the zoo, the frequency of the science and technology museum and other places, and go out to the movies, performances, sports games such as frequency (0 = never done, 1 = once a year, 2 = once every half a year, 3 = once per month, 4 = once a week, 5 = more than once a week). The scores of the 12 questions that measure the cognitive participation variables were added up to the scores of this dimension and the positive feelings of the adolescents towards their parents, involving 7 questions. The first two questions asked the teenagers how they rated the relationship between father and son and the relationship between mother and child. The answers were assigned as follows: 0= not close,1= average, and 2= very close.
3.2.4 Models:
This paper mainly tests the influence of parents' going out on the mental health level of left-behind children in rural areas. Since both explanatory variables and explained variables have been indexed, it is assumed that they conform to the following linear regression model:
Yi = c + α left i + β X + ε i
4. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS AND REGRESSION RESULTS:
4.1 Descriptive statistics:
Descriptive statistical results are shown in Table 1. The average mental health level of left-behind children in rural areas is about 2.81, while that of non-left-behind children in rural areas is about 2.94, which is slightly lower than that of left-behind children. This reflects that parents go out to work, the company is not in place to children's mental health impact. In terms of their relationship with their parents, the relationship between rural left-behind children and their parents is obviously not as good as that between non-left-behind children and their parents. Because left-behind children spend less time with their parents, the less time they spend with their parents leads to poorer relationships than non-left-behind children. In terms of interaction frequency, left-behind children are more frequent than non-left-behind children. This is because left-behind children's parents work in other places, so they may have more income and can take their children to more places. And when the children have a holiday, most of them will receive their children and take them to the big city for entertainment.
In terms of gender, the proportion of boys in left-behind children is higher than that of non-left-behind children. The proportion of only children of left-behind children is also higher than that of non-left-behind children. Because the survey was in junior high school, there was not much difference in age. In terms of the educational level of parents, whether left-behind children or non-left-behind children, their parents' educational level is mostly concentrated in primary and middle schools, which is consistent with the situation in rural areas. Generally, people in rural areas have a relatively low educational level. In the school rankings, left-behind children attend schools that rank slightly lower than those of non-left-behind children, which are similar.
Together with the left-behind children in rural left-behind children exist between some mental health level differences, and both also exist differences in the relationship with his parents, it also shows that parents for children's mental health plays a certain role, therefore, parents go out the next research the regression results for the left-behind children's mental health.
Table 1: Descriptive statistical results
|
|
Left-behind Children in Rural Areas |
Rural non-left-behind children |
||||
|
|
Obs |
Mean |
Std. Dev |
Obs |
Mean |
Std. Dev |
|
Mental health level |
2329 |
2.812366 |
0.7737877 |
5979 |
2.938719 |
0.7574705 |
|
Relationship with parents (not close =0, normal =1, very close =2) |
2401 |
1.496876 |
0.619888 |
6196 |
1.627017 |
0.5379898 |
|
Interaction frequency |
2316 |
18.71891 |
6.67046 |
5941 |
14.72732 |
6.196396 |
|
Gender (male =1, female =0) |
2386 |
0.5352054 |
0.4988636 |
6101 |
0.50713 |
0.4999901 |
|
Single child (yes =1, no =0) |
2436 |
0.2110016 |
0.4081033 |
6212 |
0.2892788 |
0.4534641 |
|
Age |
2379 |
13.75032 |
1.33619 |
6086 |
13.6774 |
1.262705 |
|
Mother's education level (based on lack of education) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
General education level |
2409 |
0.9153176 |
0.2784664 |
6118 |
0.9369075 |
0.2431492 |
|
Higher Education Level |
2409 |
0.0095475 |
0.0972641 |
6118 |
0.0210853 |
0.1436806 |
|
Father's Education Level |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
General education level |
2395 |
0.9724264 |
0.1637351 |
6124 |
0.9652188 |
0.1832401 |
|
Higher Education Level |
2395 |
0.0141962 |
0.1183239 |
6124 |
0.0295558 |
0.1693723 |
|
School rankings |
2436 |
2.852627 |
0.8271803 |
6212 |
2.869929 |
0.8105828 |
4.2 Regression results:
As can be seen from the regression results, fathers' going out does not have a significant negative impact on the mental health of left-behind children, and neither parents are at home. Mothers' absence from home can have a significant negative impact on the mental health of left-behind children. It shows that mothers play an indispensable role in the growth of children, and fathers cannot make up for the lack of care and education for children when mothers are not at home. The absence of father at home has no such effect, indicating that the father may not be able to detect the psychological changes of the child due to the lack of careful care and care and the lack of the mother's care.
The mental health level of left-behind children has a significant positive relationship with the relationship between other parents, indicating that the better the relationship between children and their parents is, the more likely they are to reveal their heart to their parents, communicate with their parents in time when they encounter problems, and let their parents know their psychological feelings, so that their mental health level will be higher. About interaction frequency are negatively related with mental health level, may be due to the left-behind children and parents get along with most in during the holidays, parents will receive around, time is too short, the holiday is over, children and want to leave your parents, so more respectively, because they don't give up, respectively, will let children experience more negative emotions, There is a negative relationship with mental health.
Another interesting result is that the mental health level of boys is positive and significant, indicating that boys have stronger psychological endurance and are more able to accept parents' going out. The results were not significant for only children. There is a significant negative correlation with age. The older the parents are, they think their children can bear more things independently, and their care for their children is slightly insufficient. Children will not adapt to this kind of parents' letting go, which will produce bad emotions and affect their mental health. In addition, children in this age group are in a rebellious period, and their parents' care is not in place, which will have a negative impact on their children's mental health.
In terms of the education level of parents, the significant relationship between the education level of fathers and the mental health level of left-behind children indicates that fathers can better understand the hearts of children, understand the psychology of children, understand the psychological feelings of children, so as to make children feel at ease in the family atmosphere.
Table 2: Benchmark regression results
|
|
Mental health level |
|
Father is at home and mother is not at home |
-0.0958* (0.0504) |
|
Mother is at home and father is not |
0.0391 (0.0293) |
|
Neither of parents is at home |
0.00931 (0.0256) |
|
The relationship with parents |
0.277*** (0.0108) |
|
Interaction frequency |
-0.0180*** (0.00102) |
|
Gender |
0.0436*** (0.0120) |
|
Single child |
0.00955 (0.0132) |
|
Age |
-0.0499*** (0.00495) |
|
General education for mothers |
0.0582* (0.0340) |
|
Higher education for mothers |
0.0674 (0.0410) |
|
General education for fathers |
0.240*** (0.0840) |
|
Higher education for fathers |
0.165* (0.0865) |
|
School rankings |
0.00660 (0.00749) |
|
Constant term |
3.079*** (0.113) |
|
Observations |
17,317 |
|
R-squared |
0.089 |
4.3 Effect analysis:
In terms of children's mental health, the interruption of parent-child attachment and the loss of family function caused by parents' long-term absence will increase the risk of children's psychological depression and reduce their happiness, which is mainly manifested in the following three aspects: First, it will make children lack a sense of security, children and neighbors and relatives of the intimacy between the reduction of external bullying risk, will not only increase children's negative evaluation of self, reduce self-esteem, but also may increase the accumulation of negative emotions; Secondly, the lack of companionship caused by parents going out will also make children's psychological problems can not be timely counseling, lack of daily emotional comfort, aggravate the deterioration of their mental health; Third, some left-behind children will be more likely to undertake housework because their parents are away from home for a long time, which will increase their sense of psychological imbalance and increase their risk of depression and externalization.
Parents' going out not only has a "separation effect" on children's physical and mental health, but also brings an "income effect", that is, the positive influence of the economic and social benefits brought by parents' going out to work on children's physical and mental health.
Based on the above analysis, parents' going out on the one hand can interrupt the attachment relationship between parents and children, loss of family function, and have adverse effects on children's physical and mental health, that is, the "separation effect" of parents' going out. On the other hand, the increase in economic benefits and social benefits brought by parents' travel will also improve the physical and mental health of children, which is the "income effect" of parents' travel. Parents go out effects on physical and mental health of left-behind children depend on their parents go out to bring the "income effect" and "separation effect" of the relative size, when go out to the children's physical and mental health of the "income effect" greater than "separation effect", the parents go out can improve children's physical and mental health, on the other hand, parents go out to the children's physical and mental health will show a negative impact, and when both size At the same time, parents' going out had no significant effect on children's physical and mental health.
5. CONCLUSION AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS:
Based on the baseline data of CEPS, this paper makes an empirical analysis. By comparing the mental health level of left-behind children and non-left-behind children in rural areas, it focuses on analyzing the influence of lack of care caused by parents' migrant work on the mental health level of left-behind children. The results show that left-behind children do have a certain negative impact on children, but the impact is different among left-behind children. Children whose fathers were at home alone had worse mental health than children whose mothers were at home and whose parents were absent. From the side, due to the traditional division of family roles, fathers neglect the cultivation of parent-child relationship, lack of care for children's education, life and psychology, and fail to provide good psychological help to children. For the other two types of left-behind children, their left-behind status has no significant impact on their mental health. Therefore, it shows that mothers have a great influence on their children's study and life.
Left-behind children will bring some negative effects, so we should pay attention to the psychological counseling of left-behind children. The participation of the government, society, family and community is required. The specific policy suggestions are as follows:
The government has made vigorous reforms to break down barriers to household registration.
The current household registration system blocks the migrant children follow their parents to go out, so the government should vigorously to break the urban and rural household registration system, ensure that rural migrant workers in cities can get its fair share of their children to school, the basic public services such as health insurance, reduce the cost of children of migrant workers into the city to go to school, promote the left-behind children go to school with their parents into the city. But the household registration system reform is not going to do, in the short term can't achieve all under the condition of left-behind children parents move to read, to give full play to the neighborhood of the school education and community support mechanism for filling the left-behind children lack of family care function, reduce the parents go out to the negative impact of the left-behind children's physical and mental health; In addition, the government should attach importance to rural agriculture and increase the economic income of farmers. In this way, the rural labor force can be retained and left-behind children can stay with their parents.
Schools should strengthen mental health education in underdeveloped rural areas, because parents' education levels are low, can't cause enough attention on children's mental health, make the teacher as students grow up guide and centralizer effect is more obvious, so the teacher should be in imparting knowledge at the same time pay attention to the growth of the students' mental and mood fluctuations, timely find problems in a timely manner to improve, especially for the left-behind children, Moreover, teachers should take the initiative to create a good atmosphere of teacher-student relationship and peer relationship for them, so as to fill their lack of love and care in family life. Nowadays, it is common for schools to carry out mental health courses, but there is still a lack of mental health courses in rural areas. Therefore, attention should be paid to rural education, and education efforts should be inclined to rural areas, and assistance should be given to the development of mental health courses in rural schools.
Parents make reasonable arrangements to go out. Family is the biggest impact on children's mental health, from the source, parents go out will have a negative impact on children's mental health, to solve this problem, we should start from the parents go out. For the sake of their children's mental health, parents can choose to work nearby and take care of their children more conveniently by working close to home. Now the state's attention to rural areas has greatly increased farmers' income, and the household registration system is still limited, so returning to the hometown to work with the children can create a better family atmosphere, conducive to the healthy growth of children. In addition, parents should pay attention to the child's mental health, timely awareness of the child's psychological changes, more to guide the child, care about the child's inner thoughts, strengthen communication, because the parent-child relationship significantly affects the child's mental health level, so parents should learn to make friends with the child.
To strengthen the school accommodation conditions. Increase government investment, strengthen the construction of boarding schools, and improve the living conditions of rural children. In terms of setting up schools, we should make a reasonable layout and reduce the coverage of rural primary schools or teaching points as far as possible. In education management, various resources should be used to provide and improve the living conditions for rural children. For example, schools are allowed to reasonably charge certain fees under strict management, improve boarding conditions for students, or set up dormitories for left-behind children to attract migrant workers to board their children in schools, so as to strengthen the management and protection of left-behind children. We will allow non-governmental organizations to set up auxiliary boarding education institutions in rural areas, fill the gap between rural primary and secondary schools and migrant families, and provide different learning, nursing and boarding conditions for rural children of different income groups.
To develop social voluntary care for the growth of left-behind children. For the care and care of left-behind children, the role of all sectors of society is indispensable. The society has always paid high attention to the left-behind children, who are concerned about the study and life of left-behind children. Actively carry out volunteer services, go to schools and villages to carry out out-of-class volunteer activities, understand the problems existing in the study and life of left-behind children, and solve them in time. In addition, volunteer activities can let children get in touch with the goodwill of the outside world, and it is also a good way for left-behind children to exercise themselves by participating in volunteer services. To carry out a variety of volunteer activities, to bring the left-behind children to experience a different life, to enrich their after-school life, and to cultivate their cheerful and healthy personality.
To deal with gender differences:
Timely psychological intervention should also be carried out for children whose parents do not go out, so as to prevent the mental health of such children from deteriorating due to their parents' going out. In view of the different effects of parents' going out on male and female children, we should treat them differently to some extent. For example, girls should be provided with a more relaxed growth environment to ensure their healthy psychological growth; For boys, attention should be paid to start from the details of life, improve their self-care ability and psychological adjustment ability. Boys and girls are different in their psychological and personality, which requires parents and schools to work together to pay attention to the healthy growth of children's mental health, refine management, observe the psychological changes of each child, and timely counseling.
The study in this paper may have the following deficiencies, most of which are due to the limitations of the data itself. First of all, we cannot observe the length of parental absence, which will not be able to distinguish between the different degrees of parental absence on children's mental health status. In general, the longer a parent is away from home, the greater the cumulative impact on a child's mental health should be. Secondly, this survey mainly focuses on rural left-behind children in junior middle school, so it is impossible to analyze the impact on children of other ages.
6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
Many people have made invaluable contributions, both directly and indirectly to my research. I would like to express my warmest gratitude to Fan Zhiming, my boyfriend, for his instructive suggestions and valuable comments on the writing of this thesis. Without his invaluable help and generous encouragement, the present thesis would not have been accomplished.
Besides, I wish to thank my colleagues, who helped me search for reference. What's more, I wish to say "Thanks!" to the subjects in this study for providing me chances to do the empirical study.
7. REFERENCE:
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Received on 10.06.2021 Modified on 23.06.2021
Accepted on 13.07.2021 ©AandV Publications All right reserved
Res. J. Humanities and Social Sciences. 2021; 12(3):141-148.
DOI: 10.52711/2321-5828.2021.00023