The Impact Of Family Environment On The Development Of Children In Rural Areas

On May 30,2014,General Secretary Xi Jinping presided over a symposium hosted by the National Primary School in Haidian District,Beijing.He pointed out that “Children and teenagers are the future and the hope of our nation.The wisdom,wealth,strength and progress in the youth of a country means that of a country at large.The metabolism is an irresistible historical law,and the future is always created by today's children.” In realizing the Chinese nation's great rejuvenation,the general secretary also pointed out that “the realization of our dreams depends on our generation but more on the next generation.” The comprehensive development of children is multifaceted,including both the development of physical health and the development of cognitive abilities,the development of psychological and emotional health as well as social morality and behavior.In the growth of children and adolescents,family play irreplaceable roles.In the Chinese social structure,family is the core of social life and the most important social and cultural place for children.“Environment” is seen as an external force that shapes personal development,and the family is the earliest environment for children to reach with the longest contact time.Therefore,in terms of the depth and breadth of the impact,any environmental factors are inferior to the role of the family environment in the growth of children.As the saying goes,“Keep good men company and you shall be of the number”.People and things that children are exposed to will have different influences on them.If the exposure is mostly positive,it may have a positive impact on children's development.Since the family itself is a complex social system,the impact of family environmental factors on children is not single-faceted,but multidimensional and systemic.From the perspective of the family environment that interacts directly with children,the most important thing is the parenting style.In terms of the family environment that does not directly interact with children,it also includes factors such as the economic status,bonds,structure,and parental work pressure within a family.Since the reform and opening up,the intertwined factors such as economic development,social transformation,institutional changes and demographic transition have brought about a historic change in the rural family environment.First,the family's economic situation has been significantly improved.The family income sources have gradually diversified,and the economic foundation for child development has been fundamentally guaranteed.Second,due to the imbalanced economic and social development between urban and rural areas,and the gradual loosening of household registration system management,a large number of rural surplus laborers were released from the land and went to work in urban areas,and there was an unprecedented phenomenon of population movement.This led to the demographic phenomenon of the separation of parents and children between parents and children,resulting in a large number of “left-behind children” and“mobile children.” Third,rapid economic development and severe social changes have caused a large number of women to enter the labor market.The traditional“man-in-the-work and female-in-house” family division model faces the risk of disintegration.Fourth,divorce is becoming more and more common.Special family forms such as single-parent families and reorganized families are gradually emerging.Marriage changes and population movements have caused changes in the form of arrangements for children and parents.Fifth,parents in modern society pay more and more attention to the personal development of children.Parents' care for children is becoming more and more refined,their investment in children's development is getting higher and higher,and family economic pressure is rising.As one of the most sensitive parameter for any social changes,family is not only a window to observe and judge children's social changes,but also a living sample in the process of change.Changes in the family environment have also become a micro-image of our reflection on the growth and development of children and the effects of children's policies.Therefore,it is of great theoretical and practical significance to study the growth and development of rural children in the new historical period and the ways in which these family environmental factors influence children.In terms of data collection,most of the domestic survey in the study often focus on parents as the survey subjects,thus ignoring the child's own self-expression opportunities,which will largely lead to the investigation Distortion phenomenon.The survey data of this study,however,is based on both children and parents,from the perspective of the “other” of the parents and the perspective of the child “self”.The relationship between the two provides detailed and reliable background information.The shortcomings of the existing research that pay more attention to the direct effect of family background information on children's development in this study are abandoned.Instead more focus is laid on the comprehensive impact of the family environment on child development and the mechanism of action.In the research ideas,through solid literature review and theoretical retrospective,various indicators of family environment and child development are built.Then,using scientific statistical analysis methods to analyze the current situation of the family environment and child development in the areas surveyed.Then the impact of different family environments(family structure,family capital,family education,etc.)on children's academic achievement,physical and mental health,and social behavior are examined.Finally,based on this,public policy discussions are held and specific policy recommendations are proposed.Data shows that the family living conditions of the surveyed children are ideal.The family housing rate is high with living conditions significantly improved.The home infrastructure is complete with high rate of power supply,independent kitchen,gas supply,and tap water.Important household items such as televisions,washing machines,mobile phones,and water heaters have been widely used.Facilities for living outside the home,such as supermarkets,post offices,banks,hospitals,transportation,etc.are also relatively complete.Most children's physical development is in a healthy state,and the children's average BMI index is17.27.Most children have a healthy nutritional diet and a lower intake of non-healthy foods.There is still a large gap between children's academic performance and that of urban areas.The results of different subjects are uneven,and the overall results of English subjects are not ideal.Children's mental health is good,depression and loneliness are not serious,and self-identity is at a high level.On the one hand,children's altruistic behavior is not frequent.On the other hand,children's transgressions are not serious.In addition children's autonomous behavior is more prominent,and active healthy dating behaviors are more common.It is worth noting that the analysis shows that the socioeconomic status of the family has a greater impact on children's academic achievement,but it has little effect on mental health and social behavior.The impact of family structure on children's development is mainly manifested in the following aspects.First,the distribution of family structure in different genders,levels of health,and socioeconomic status of families varies greatly.Children with lower socioeconomic status are more likely to live in families where parents and children are separated.In addition,the degree of parental participation in complete families is significantly higher than other family structure types.Second,family structure has an important impact on children's academic achievement.Children in single-father families,single-mother families,and non-parent families lag significantly behind academically compared with intact families.In terms of the impact mechanism,the socioeconomic status of the family and the educational participation mechanism of the parents can explain the gap in children's education between single-parent families and intact families.Third,family structure has an important impact on children's mental health.However,this effect is mainly manifested in children's depression and loneliness.The mechanism of parental education participation can explain the difference in children's loneliness between the parents-absent family and the parents-complete family.Fourth,family structure has an important influence on children's social behavior.This effect is mainly manifested in children's altruistic behavior and children's dating behavior.Parents' educational participation mechanism can explain the difference between children's altruistic behaviors and dating behaviors between parents-absent family and the parents-complete family.The impact of family capital on children's development is mainly manifested in the following aspects.First,academic achievement.Different types of family capital have a significant impact on children's academic achievement.Among them,family social capital has the greatest explanatory power for children's academic achievements,and the influence of social capital within the family is significantly higher than that of the external social capital of the family.In addition,there is a clear gender difference in the impact of family capital on academic achievement.Second,mental health.Different types of family capital have different effects on children's mental health.Among them,family social capital has the strongest explanation for children's feelings of depression,loneliness,and self-identity.This influence is mainly due to the parent's encouragement to children or the parent's participation in children's education.The impact of household economic capital is small and can be eliminated by increasing social capital.Third,social behavior.Different types of family capital have different effects on children's mental health.Among them,family social capital has significant explanatory power to children's altruistic behavior,transgression behavior,autonomous behavior and dating behavior.Family cultural capital has a significant impact on children's deviance and dating behaviors.Family economic capital does not explain children's social behavior.The impact of parenting styles on children's development is mainly reflected in the following aspects.First,academic achievement.In the two dimensions of“behavioral requirements” and “emotional responses”,parents' higher behavioral requirements and emotional responses to their children have a positive impact on their children's academics,but the “emotional response” has the most obvious impact.Among the four different parenting styles,children's academic performance is best under the enlightened authoritative and loose laissez-faire parenting styles,while children under the authoritative and neglective parenting styles perform worst.In the gender-disaggregated sample,the academic performance of female children was slightly better than that of males in the indifferent and authoritative democratic family parenting styles.Second,mental health.Both “behavioral requirements” and “emotional responses” are important factors that affect children's loneliness,and sense of depression.Parents' high behavioral requirements for their children can help ease children's loneliness.The higher “emotional response” can effectively suppress children's sense of depression and loneliness,and significantly improve children's sense of self-identity.The laissez-faire and enlightened authoritative family parenting methods can significantly suppress children's sense of depression and loneliness,and significantly improve children's sense of self-identity.The authoritative parenting style has a significant negative effect on children's loneliness.Third,social behavior.Compared with neglecting and indifferent parenting styles,authoritative,permissive and enlightened authoritative parenting styles can significantly inhibit children's deviance and enhance their autonomous behavior.The laissez-faire and enlightened authoritative family parenting styles have a significant positive effect on children's altruistic and dating behaviors.Parental behavioral requirements and emotional responses have an important impact on children's deviance and autonomy,but not on altruistic and dating behaviors.Based on the above research,this study suggests that at this historical juncture where the traditional family mode where men act as bread winner is disintegrating,and the new family upbringing model based on the concept of public goods and social investment are emerging,a “family-centered” child care surroundings should be establised.Specifically,the first is to strengthen the top-level design of the child welfare system to protect children's development rights.At the legislative level,basic laws and regulations specific to children's groups should be formulated to ensure that children's basic needs and rights are properly protected.An administrative management system to ensure the healthy development of children,and other related operating and supporting mechanisms should also be established.The second is to shift from “social assistance” to “social investment” to escort children's development.Building an independent “family-centered,state-society-family sharing” mixed care system should be explored.In this way,the boundaries of the responsibility sharing between the family and the state in child care are clarified,and the sociality of child care is reflected.The third is to deepen the reform of the household registration system and reduce the separation of parents and children caused by parents working outside hometwon.Relevant policies have been introduced to reduce parent-child separation caused by parents' outing at the source.Deepen the reform of the household registration system,reasonably guide the civilization of migrant workers,and provide assistance to peasant families.Reasonably guide and support the return of rural migrant workers for employment and entrepreneurship.The fourth is to improve the social assistance system for single-parent families and improve their ability to resist risks.Make a clear definition of single-parent families in need of assistance,consider the difficulties and needs of such families,implement classification and hierarchical management,and implement special assistance programs for different types of families.Properly raise standards in areas where conditions permit,provide differentiated and humanized assistance,and allow single-parent families to choose assistance items and content according to their needs.Fifth,attach great importance to the cultivation of better family atmosphere,and promote family harmony and love.Organically unite family,family education,and family atmosphere.In the growth and development of children,it is necessary to break the family-based thinking under the traditional feudal patriarchal concept,establish a new family concept in the new era,place the family in the historical space of the country's development and the nation's rejuvenation,and realize the love of the family and national inner unity.The sixth is to establish a family-centered,multi-party cooperation and education mechanism.At the family and school level,we can explore the establishment of special organizations such as parent committees and parent schools to give full play to the special role of family education in child rearing.At all levels of government,it is necessary to ensure investment in education from the policy level,optimize the layout of urban and rural compulsory education,and actively promote the balanced allocation and development of education resources between urban and rural areas.For groups of students with financial difficulties in families,it is necessary to implement a file registration card to improve the accuracy of assistance.