“How I wish my parents stayed with me! But I have to see them leave my hometown again and again…I know they leave me for the purpose of making more money and enabling us to live a better life,” a six-grade primary school student said in her composition.

　　This little girl expressed the feelings of countless children in rural China who are left behind while their parents find work elsewhere.

　　Left-at-home children has become an emerging social phenomenon in rural areas over the past few years, as an increasing number of people from villages flock to cities looking for employment while leaving their young children at home.

　　Lack of parental care and discipline has brought about problems.

　　With 12,000 surplus rural labourers seeking jobs in cities all year round, DuerboteCounty in Northeast China’s HeilongjiangProvince now has 875 children whose parents have had to leave, 85 per cent of them living with their grandparents.

　　Due to old-fashioned educational concepts, these grandparents tend to spoil their grandchildren. As a result, some of the children lag behind in their studies and form bad habits.

　　Concerned with the children’s growth and development, the authorities of DuerboteCounty have adopted a series of measures to tackle the issue.

　　Special schools for the grandparents of these children were set up in 11 townships of the county. By attending family education lectures, grandparents have acquainted themselves with the advanced educational methods and successful experiences of their peers.

　　“I used to think that it was enough to keep my grandchildren well fed and clad. Even when they made mistakes, I would not criticize them. Now I have recognized it is not good for the children. I will make progress in this regard, so my son and daughter-in-law won’t be worried about their children,” said an elderly man who took part in a family education class.

　　In the past, grandparents of these children spoke more about the salary of their sons and daughters working outside; but now their topics are focused on the school performances of their grandchildren.

　　Over the past two years, 253 family education classes have been held, training more than 10,000 persons. And two of the 11 grandparents’ schools have been rated as provincial-class advanced schools.

　　Substitute mother

　　Without parents’ company, some children develop an uncommunicative and eccentric disposition, and others are impulsive and ready to do whatever they want to.

　　Given this, various schools organized composition and lecture contests with themes such as “writing a letter to mom,” “if I were my mother,” and “parents in my mind,” in the hope of making these children learn to appreciate their parents and be good to other people.

　　In addition, related sectors in the county called for local women to act as substitute mothers for the left-at-home youngsters. More than 400 literate and loving “mothers”voluntarily participated in the programme and invited the children into their families over weekends and holidays so that they would not miss out on the experience of being with their loved ones.

　　Liu Yang from the MongoliaExperimentalPrimary School lost his father when he was quite young. Since his mother went to South China to seek employment, he had been living with his grandparents. Without enough parental care, Liu Yang had become introverted with an unsociable　temperament.

　　With the help of his substitute mother, Liu gradually became open-minded and began to understand his mother.

　　In the school activity of “writing a letter to mom,” Liu wrote: “Mother’s

　　Day is about to come and my classmates are all preparing gifts for moms. I want to give a clove pink to my mother as a present, but she can’t come home on Mother’s Day because she has to make money in a place far away from my hometown to fund my schooling. So all I can do is to wish my mom a happy Mother’s Day!”

　　Efforts of schools

　　DuerboteCounty has listed the education of these children into the yearly work agenda of all its townships. In addition, an encouragement system has been set up for excellent students and their parents. For example, those who get admission to universities will be awarded.

　　Local schools have established special archives for the left-at-home students and urge teachers to help them one-by-one. The teachers, who pay special attention to the behaviour and needs of these young students at school, get free-of-charge long distance telephone cards every month so that they can inform their parents about the children’s school performance and psychological dynamics.

　　With the belief that parental care is indispensable to a child’s healthy growth, the school authorities urge absentee parents to keep in regular touch with their children and in turn ask these children to write a letter to their parents on a monthly basis.　

　　Wang Xuelian, a villager in Hujitumo township, who runs a restaurant in GuangdongProvince, said in delight that: “Even without my company, my children fare well in school. I really appreciate the great efforts made by the school as well as the government in helping children such as mine grow up happily and healthily.”

《中国日报》2006年10月