During Nanjing’s hottest month, on 15 July, 2018, counsellors made their way out to the Huai’an countryside, in order to provide psychological support and training for the county’s left-behind children.
Such is a phrase used to describe children who have been left behind in the countryside, when their parents migrated to the cities for work. Since China flung open its doors in 1978, factory and construction workers that helped build the-now mega cities all came from the countryside, and a lot of them left their children behind.
The phenomenon has been continuing ever since; while both mother and father migrated to the cities in order to work and send home money, a lot of them would indeed return each year or return for good. However, for a sizeable proportion of these children, their parents simply have not ever returned.
Counselors Liu Tianle and Xu Jianqiang worked with children from the Meiling Primary School in Hongyao Town, Lianshui County, where it was revealed by the Yangtze Evening Post that one-third of the students are either left behind or have divorced parents. Through art and games, psychologists have been working with the students in order to help build their confidence and learning ability when at school.
Utilising specifically designed exercises to assist with psychological support, counsellors have implemented classes such as balloon expression, “By blowing a balloon, it’s like blowing out the suffocating air during the blowing process, and finally blasting the balloon to get an emotional release. It is also very important to help the children build confidence under the guidance of the teacher”, one of the counsellors told the Yangtze Evening Post.
Scientific studies have proven that left-behind children in China are at great risk of depression and show signs of bad behaviour and difficulties conducting social relationships. A Shanghai journal article written by Tian Wenhua finds that, compared with non-left behind children, the children left behind by their parents are at severe risk of depression and loneliness, and that “more specific investigations targeted towards the psychological well‐being of these children are needed to identify the underlying preventable risk factors”.
The mental and physical suffering of left-behind children in these situations is dire, not to mention their safety and education. The trip north to Huai’an was based on an invitation by the Nanjing Xinghuo Public Welfare Development Centre, that is at present shifting its attention to poverty alleviation and the psychological development of China’s left-behind children.
As of 2015, The National Bureau of Statistics of China had calculated that there were 65,782,879 migrant and left-behind children aged 0–17, as revealed by N. (n.d.). 21-22 Children of Migrant Workers and Children Left Behind.
