Research On Group Counseling Of The Perceived Social Support And Loneliness For The Rural Left-behind Middle School Students

Nowadays,there are so many people in rural area working far away from home that tens of millions of children are left behind.Most of these children are raised by their grandparents or other relatives.Since they lack of company of and care from their parents during the process of growing up,as well as the skip-generation raising is full of problems,the physical and psychological problems of the left-behind children without guidance and effective supervision are really serious.The growths of children's body and mind are affected by many factors,of which social support is an important one.However,for the left-behind children,their social supporting system is destroyed.Due to the separation,the most important social supporting resource from their parents is forfeit.Children which are in middle school grow very fast,during this period,their physical and psychological health will be affected by their emotion and external environment remarkably.Comparing to massive inquisitional and analytic researches on the status of left-behind junior high students,researches on group counseling are really few.However,to solve their problems and improve their situation,intrusive research which will help them obtain the skill to deal with adverse situations is quite necessary.This research is to intervene on the perceived social support and loneliness feeling of rural left-behind middle school students through group counseling.To study the effect of group counseling on the perceived social support and loneliness feeling,two classes of Zhuwa junior middle school in Hubei province are chosen in this research,one is for experiment and the other is for comparison.The experiment is designed as former and latter measurements on two unequal groups:the former measurement on the social support recognition and loneliness feeling is done by PSSS and questionnaire;then after the ninth group counseling of the experimental class,the latter measurement is done.Retardation effect will be studied by the measurement 5 months later.This research is to strengthen their ability of recognizing social support and decrease their loneliness feeling,thus benefiting their physical and psychological health and providing a typical case of mental health course for rural left-behind middle school students.The experimental class contains 38 students,including 29 boys and 9 girls,and only 5 boys do not belong to the left-behind children.Since the research concerns the effect of group counseling,only the data of left-behind children is analyzed.The results are shown in the following:(i)Comparing the latter measurement data to the former measurement data of the experimental class,overall scores of perceived social support increase remarkably(p<0.05),as long as those of loneliness feeling decrease significantly(P<0.05).Scores of friends support increase very remarkably(p<0.001),and scores of other support increase remarkably(p<0.05),while scores of family support do not(p>0.05).Scores of social need satisfaction decrease very significantly(p<0.001),and scores of social skills of loneliness perception decrease significantly(p<0.05),while scores of pure loneliness feeling and friends'status evaluation decrease,but there is no significant difference(p>0.05).(ii)Comparing the latter measurement data for the both two classes,overall scores of social support for the experimental class are much higher,while those of loneliness feeling are much lower,and both of them have significant difference(p<0.05).The differences of scores of friends support and other supports between the two classes are very significant(p<0.001),while that of family support is not(p>0.05).The difference of scores of pure loneliness feeling is significant(p<0.05),and the difference of scores of social need satisfaction is very significant(p<0.001),while scores of social skills of loneliness perception and friends,status evaluation decrease,but there is no significant difference(p>0.05).(iii)Five months later,the experimental class had the experimental continuity test.Comparing the experimental continuity test data to the latter measurement data of the experimental class,overall scores of perceived social support,family support and other support have no significant differences(p>0.05),while the scores of friends support decrease very remarkably(p<0.001).Those of overall loneliness feeling increase significantly(p<0.05),and the scores of social need satisfaction of the experimental continuity test data are very significant higher than those of the latter measurement data(p<0.001),while the scores of pure loneliness feeling,social skills of loneliness perception and friends' status evaluation of the experimental continuity test data are higher than those of the latter measurement data,but there are no significant differences(p>0.05).From the above results,we can see that we can increase the perceived social support and meanwhile decrease the loneliness feeling of rural left-behind middle school students effectively by group counseling,which has the effect of continuity.