The Development of Emotion Understanding among Five- and Six-Year-Old Left-Behind Children in Rural China

The left-behind children (LBC), separated from their mother/father or parents for a long period of time, have long been discussed as a subject of concern in China. Existing research has concluded that rural children who did not migrate with parents are subject to emotional risks. In the present study, the purpose is to study the impact of parental migration on early emotional understanding. Purposeful sampling was used to recruit 180 children aged five to six years in rural areas of Guangdong province, including LBC and non-left-behind children (NLBC). Their level of emotional understanding (EU) was assessed by the emotional comprehension test (TEC) adapted to the Chinese context. The results showed that, on the three levels (External, Internal, Reflective) of emotional understanding, LBC aged five- to six- years old scored significantly lower than NLBC as counterparts. On the whole, the emotional comprehension ability of preschool LBC was significantly lower than that of NLBC. However, there were no significant differences within LBC nurtured by single parents, grandparents, and other relatives. This study confirmed that parental migration in early childhood considerably impacted rural LBC’s emotional understanding and affectional adjustment, which provided a significant basis for increasing parental care and early childhood companionship in rural areas.