A recent report has said that in China have suffered more from depression and confusion than their peers whose parents are still at home, and these children are inclined to become earlier than others.
The findings came from a report titled "Chinese Left-behind Children's in 2018," which was released in October by On the Road to School, an NGO that provides financial and psychological help to underprivileged children.
It was the fourth consecutive year that the charity organization had issued such a report.
In a sampling of 11,126 people from 19 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, many left-behind children from Grades 3 to 8 have often become depressed and confused and their happiness is also less than others whose parents have stayed with them at home.
According to the report, about 40 percent of left-behind children only meet their migrant parents 1-2 times a year, while 20 percent of them contact their parents no more than four times.
According to the report, left-behind children tended to enter a rebellious phase in Grade 5, one or two years earlier than children in standard families.
Li Yifei, a researcher who conducted the survey and psychology professor from Beijing Normal University, explained that migrant parents should build closer ties with their children and strengthen their communication via phones. In addition, he also urged the schooling authorities and social forces to work together in a move to increase the sense of self-respect and self-confidence amongst rural left-behind children, which is crucial to improving their mental well-being.
Jin Jinping, professor from the School of Law at Peking University, noted that it is still difficult to completely eradicate the number of rural left-behind children, though the government and charity organizations have already done a lot of work to help their migrant parents find work in nearby places or bring their children to workplaces.
(Source: Xinhua, chinatimes.net.cn / Translated and edited by )