| According to the current social situation,the phenomenon of intergenerational child-rearing is becoming increasingly common,especially in rural areas.Many young parents need to go out to work,do business or other realistic reasons so that they cannot bring their own children with them only to leave their children in the villages and entrust their grandparents to educate and care for them.Parental care is an essential emotional resource during the process of children’s healthy growth,which has also an important impact on children’s learning,behavior habits,and psychological health development.In intergenerational families,children are separated from their parents for long periods of time,that’s why they are more eager for their parents’ care and love than non-intergenerational children.Children in primary school have not yet fully matured in their thinking and need care from adults in their daily lives.They are easily influenced by the external environment and educational methods.Previous studies have shown that as a member of the family structure,the upbringing method of grandparents has a significant impact on the physical and mental development of their grandchildren,and most scholars believe that the effect of negative aspects is far greater than the positive aspects.In the relevant studies on children’s psychological health problems,scholars have found that primary school children mainly have problems such as learning anxiety and physical symptoms,but the impact and mechanism of intergenerational childcare on children’s psychological health still need further research.This study investigates the current situation of intergenerational child-rearing,parental care,and primary school students’ psychological health levels in rural areas through questionnaire surveys,then uses parental care as a mediating variable to investigate the relationship between intergenerational childcare and children’s psychological health.Furthermore,it explores how intergenerational childcare and parental care affect the psychological health of rural primary school students,as well as the mediating role of parental care between intergenerational child-rearing and children’s psychological health,in order to provide targeted educational recommendations for parents and grandparents in intergenerational families.The study used a questionnaire survey method,using the "Grandparenting Style Scale","Psychological Health Diagnosis Test Scale" and "Parental Care Scale" as research tools to investigate a total of 614 primary school students in grades four,five and six in rural intergenerational families in Guang’an District.SPSS21.0 and PROCESS3.0 plugins were used to perform statistical analysis to collected data.The research conclusions are as follows:(1)Most grandparents in rural primary school students adopt parenting style which is full of emotional warmth and understanding.In the parenting style,the average score of emotional warmth and understanding by grandparents is the highest,and grandmothers’ scores are higher than grandfathers’,indicating that most grandparents adopt emotional warmth and understanding parenting style,and grandmothers are more prevalent.Grandfathers’ over-interference,severe punishment,favoritism,and overprotection parenting styles exist significant differences in different grades and genders.In addition,significant differences are found in warmth and understanding,over-interference,and overprotection among co-living people.Grandmothers’ severe punishment,over-interference,favoritism,and denial parenting styles have significant gender differences,and boys’ scores are higher than girls.Significant differences are also found in grandmothers’ severe punishment,favored by the participants,which is related to whether they are only children or not in rural primary school students.The scores of children who are only child are higher than those of non-only child,and grandmothers’ emotional warmth and understanding differs significantly among co-living people.(2)The problem of learning anxiety among rural primary school students is serious.There are significant differences in learning anxiety,self-blame,loneliness,and terror dimensions of rural primary school students in different grades.Females generally have higher levels of terror than males.There are significant differences in loneliness tendencies between whether they are only children or not,and only children are more prone to loneliness.There is a significant difference in impulsive tendencies among co-living people.(3)Most rural primary school students receive more parental care,and there are significant differences in parental care in demographic variables such as grade,grandparent care time,and grandparent education level.(4)In intergenerational child-rearing,the use of active and warm parenting styles by grandparents is negatively related to various dimensions of rural primary school students’ psychological health,while their use of passive parenting styles is positively related to various dimensions of psychological health.In other words,grandparents’ parenting styles with emotional warmth and high understanding will help minimize the possibility of students’ psychological problems.(5)There is a significant positive correlation between parental care and emotional warmth parenting styles by grandparents,and there is a significant negative correlation between severe punishment parenting styles and parental care.In other words,grandparents’ warm parenting styles will also positively affect parental care,which is conducive to building a good family atmosphere and making students feel more parental care and warmth.(6)There is a significant negative correlation between parental care and physical symptoms,loneliness,terror,and impulsivity dimensions of rural primary school students’ psychological health.In other words,the more parental care students receive,the fewer psychological problems they show.(7)Parental care plays a mediating role between grandparent emotional warmth,severe punishment,denial,and grandmother favoritism parenting styles and psychological health.Based on the above research conclusions,specific educational recommendations are proposed for grandparents and parents.Educational recommendations for grandparents:(1)Adopt as many active and warm parenting styles as possible.(2)Keep up with the times and become grandparents who meet the development needs of the new era.(3)Clearly define the family education role and not replace the role of parents.Educational recommendations for parents:(1)Communicate more with the children,be warm and loving parents.(2)Scientifically and reasonably position their roles and take on the educational responsibilities that parents should fulfill.(3)Communicate more with grandparents and form a joint effort of family education. |
