At present, there are a certain number of migrant families in China, because parents need to go out to work, and children need to follow their parents to change cities or places of residence frequently. Due to their low education level and lack of human support, parents of migrant children often have a heavy psychological burden and are prone to negative emotional experiences, which affects the quality of family parenting and the growth of their children. As family education instructors, how can schools and teachers provide effective family education guidance services and support to migrant families?How to help parents of migrant children manage their emotions effectively?These are all issues that deserve to be considered and paid attention to.
Help parents of migrant children to correctly understand their emotions
Parents of migrant children may face more difficulties in expressing and regulating their emotions due to social mobility and environmental changes. This requires professionals from schools, kindergartens or institutions to give this group some patient and professional emotional counseling and support, so as to create a warmer and more inclusive parenting atmosphere for migrant families and achieve better social growth of migrant children and parents.
Helping parents of migrant children to correctly understand their emotions is the first step to release anxiety and relieve stress. First of all, it can help them realize that emotions occur naturally, there is no right or wrong, and emotions can also help them recognize their true emotions and thoughts in their hearts, so as to better solve problems. At the same time, they can be taught some ways to express emotions and communicate with people correctly.
For example, some parents of migrant children like to suppress their true emotions because of their lack of sense of belonging or security, and are more restrained even when they are happy and excited, so they can be encouraged to express themselves authentically and experience positive emotions in a relaxed manner, and do not be stingy with praise for their children, so as not to worry too much about making children get carried away because of praise. When your child is doing well, give positive feedback in a timely manner.
In addition, you can teach them some ways to communicate with others, such as trying to empathize with each other from the perspective of others, giving each other a context of "I understand, I can continue to listen to you", and then take the initiative to express their thoughts and feelings, give non-judgmental emotional expressions, and try to avoid using judgmental and absolute language, otherwise it will increase the emotional cost of communication.
For example, if your child doesn't want to go home when it's time for dinner and wants to continue playing outside, and your parents are busy with work or chores and are in a hurry to get home, you can say to your child, "I know you're having a lot of fun outside, but it's getting dark, and I'm going to go home and cook, otherwise we'll be hungry, and I'll be sad." In this way, we can create a context of equal communication and mutual consultation, and give children a certain amount of time to consider and choose, rather than directly using actions or answering first. While expressing their own feelings and emotions, parents of migrant children are also giving children the opportunity to imitate, so that children and bystanders around them know that emotions can be discussed and shared, and can help them understand the situation and solve problems. Parents of migrant children should accept their emotions and not easily question or deny themselves because of the eyes of the outside world.
Helping parents of migrant children manage their emotions
Due to the unfamiliarity of their lives and the social label of "outsiders", parents of migrant children are not only in a state of lack of human support, but also have a major problem in the export of emotional expression. Who listens to them, who understands them, and who supports them are all issues that need to be solved urgently. In terms of emotional counseling, professionals are also needed to provide them with the necessary guidance, services and support.
Most of the emotions of parents of migrant children occur in the process of interpersonal interaction, and there may be emotional changes and fluctuations between husband and wife, between parents and children, between children's teachers, and between other parents. How can parents of migrant children express their needs to different people, and how can they better manage their emotions, language expression, and behavior?Unilateral training and Xi and theoretical knowledge input are difficult to fully cover and solve these problems. First, it is necessary to improve the opportunities and quality of home-school interaction, and schools and communities need to have an in-depth understanding of the real plight and needs of migrant children's families, so as to carry out targeted family education guidance. Second, according to the specific content and actual situation of the parents of migrant children in terms of emotional experience and behavior management, in the relevant training for them, the theory and practice are combined, to avoid the fragmentation of knowledge and the decoupling of theory and practice, and to use the language and methods that these parents can understand and understand to communicate and train. The third is to strengthen teacher training, improve the quality of professional guidance personnel, encourage communities, neighborhood committees, family education guidance institutions, etc. to cooperate with colleges and universities that have relevant majors, strengthen the access, assessment, and exit mechanisms for professionals, and provide a communication platform for better understanding and support for migrant families.
Provide adequate guidance and support to parents of migrant children
In migrant families, many mothers are stay-at-home mothers, and because they need to move frequently, these mothers have weakened their connection with the outside world, and it is not easy for them to establish a stable interpersonal circle. Schools should pay attention to the psychological characteristics and practical difficulties of parents of migrant children, and the parenting needs of migrant families, and alleviate the parenting pressure of parents of migrant children by popularizing parenting knowledge and providing after-school services, and at the same time strengthen the communication and connection between parents of migrant children, especially full-time mothers, and society through various channels.
Schools can set up open days for parents to provide regular services and activities for migrant families to help them share the burden of parenting. At the same time, it strengthens the communication and emotional interaction between different families, provides a platform for communication between parents, forms mutual assistance between parents, and strengthens the sense of social belonging of parents of migrant children. Online and offline parent seminars or parent-child activities can also be organized according to the daily schedule of migrant families, and parents of migrant children can be encouraged to express and share their parenting experiences, emotional experiences, and growth changes. Experts and scholars in psychology and education can be invited to give targeted lectures to these families, and provide effective guidance and support for parents of migrant children in parenting, emotional management, and psychological counseling.
The authors, Zhao Mengya, Ph.D. candidate, School of Education Science, Nanjing Normal University, and Liu Jingbo, professor, School of Education Science, Nanjing Normal UniversityThis paper is a national general project of the 14th Five-Year Plan of National Education Science, "Research on Emotional Labor and Support for Parents of Infants and Young Children Aged 0-6 Years" No. BHA210149 Research Results).
China Education Daily, December 17, 2023, page 3
Author: Zhao Mengya Liu Jingbo.